question...help please! :)

pianojoce

I've been on here for one month, and I am wondering if I am supposed to consume all (or at least the better part of) my allotted calories for the day. Especially when I've worked out, and MFP calculates the calories I've burned, am I supposed to eat more?? Shouldn't I want to NOT eat the calories I've burned?? Any insight would be very helpful as I am knew to this.

Thanks!!

LaraeTX

What I've been told in the past is to not eat the calories that you have earned from working out. Just eat what it allots you. Congrats on being on here for a month, that's how long I've been on here (without quitting). I love this site and all the motivation that comes with it.

BrendaLee

MFP sets up a calorie deficit for you to lose a certain amount of weight per week. You're supposed to eat all or most of your exercise calories to maintain that deficit, and not to create too large of a deficit.

epoeraven

Read this post. It really does a great job of explaining it.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/10589-for-those-confused-or-questioning-eating-your-exercise-calo

SugarHi

Everyone is a little different, It's very important to feed the body calories you've burned with good healthy foods, your body is a calorie burning machine, if you stop feeding fuel to the fire, that fire will dwindle down. Eat as close as you can to the extras you've earned from working out. The closer you are the better the outcome! Trust me

angelajeanne23

You should be eating all of the calories that MFP says you have available to eat. The way they do the calculations you should lose the number of pounds you have it set for if you don't go over the calories you're allotted, including the calories you burn from exercise. If you don't eat close to the calories you have then your body could go into starvation mode and start storing fat and calories rather than burning them.

LivyJo

What I have to remind myself, is that the calories that MFP allots is already creating a deficit in my calorie intake. 1400 base calories, vs. 2000 for my normal maintenance (creating a 600 calorie per day deficit) . When I work out on top of that, I burn essential calories that my body actually needs in order to maintain a regular metabolism and "fuel" for my "fire" so to speak. So yes, you should eat your exercise calories. Whether you need to eat some or all of them, thats up to your body and your metabolism, so you should test out different amounts. But having your body run on a dimly lit fire can obviously lead to....well...burn out. :laugh: sorry for the poor metaphor, but hopefully it helps!

kellygirl5538

I LOVE to eat all my exercise calories and still loose!!! lol

pianojoce

Hey everyone! Thanks so much for 'weighing' in on the issue! :laugh: (Bad pun...I know!) You have all helped tremendously, and I guess I'd better go have a snack! Sugar Hi....CONGRATULATIONS TO YOU on the weight you've lost! That's awesome! And to ALL of you on MFP...great job....and keep it up! Thanks again!

MacMadame

You should do what you want to meet your own goals and not just do what MFP says to do. It has a philosophy for losing weight but so do a lot of programs and they all don't have the same philosophy and they all have similar results.. MFP is a tool, not a bible. Use it in the way that makes sense for you.

Personally, when I was losing, I never counted my exercise calories. I knew that enough studies have shown that people routinely under-estimate their food intake and over-estimate their exercise, plus the amounts of calories that MFP says I burned doing particular exercises did not match up to what my HRM said. Given that, I wanted the exercise calories as a cushion.

Now, once I started training for long-distance endurance events, I really needed at least some of the extra calories to have enough energy to do and recover from my workouts. But I still didn't just eat whatever MFP said I had burned. I upped my daily allotment of calories to what my doctor recommended based on my activity level And, as my exercise went up, so did my calorie allotment. But it wasn't a direct 1-to-1 correspondence.

I also think that our bodies aren't that tidy. Sometimes on the day you have a big workout, you just aren't hungry enough to eat as many calories you burned. But the next day you may be hungrier than what you are allotting yourself. I think of myself as a calorie bank and I keep track on a running 3-4 day average.

For example, yesterday I went on a Century bike ride and burned anywhere from 4350 to 7160 calories depending on whose formula you believe. So, if I just did what MFP said, I would eat 7160 calories. (I'm in maintenance so I'm not trying to lose). Well, if it's wrong about how many calories I burned (and I'm pretty sure it is), I would be eating several thousand calories more than I burned. I would actually GAIN weight!

If you believe the formula I use that uses Heart Rate and if my estimation of my heart rate is correct (I didn't have my HRM on), then I actually burned about 5300, give or take. Do you know how hard it is to eat that many calories in one day? I got in about 4,096 and maybe I was a little bit peckish when I went to bed, but I was just too tired to eat anything else (and sick of eating to be honest). But today I'm a lot hungrier than normal and I will probably go over my allotted calories by a bit.

Now, this is an extreme example, but it happens with smaller numbers too. I routinely bank a few hundred calories one day and use them the next and I did that all through my losing phase too. As long as you aren't always withdrawing from your calorie bank and never depositing, it works out. :laugh: