Do you use your excercise calories?

714rah714

I work out every morning ussualy burning 300-500 calories. to this point i have only been eating my original calories aloted to me by MFP. Should I be eating all the calories I have?

I eat my exercise calories back no matter what.
Why?
Because if our calorie deficit is too great, we can easily suffer from
loss of muscle mass (slows down your metabolism) and impaired general progress.
You have to find what is right for you but you also need to remember that your body
is a machine and without the right type and amount of fuel there could be problems
either with loss of muscle, loss of energy, less weight loss/plateaus, etc.
Check out this topic:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/238282-700-calories-a-day-and-not-losing-redux?hl=700+calories

I try to just stick with the MFP recommendations.
Good Luck To You

When you have a lot of weight to lose, losing muscle mass is the least of ones concerns.

luperaz

For me it just depends on the day. I think keeping your body confused is important. one day eat them all back, one day eat 1/2, another day just eat your base.
I feel that making sure I hit my base calories is whats more important.
Exercise calories are the great equalizer when you eat too much.

waldo56

Of course.

I'm bulking right now, trying to bulk without eating your exercise calories is a comical waste of time.

When cutting, losing with precision is important to me, this it is important to account for exercise calories.

arcticfox04

I'll eat generally around 50% to 100% of mine. Depends on the quality of food I have during the day.

HIITMe

I work out every morning ussualy burning 300-500 calories. to this point i have only been eating my original calories aloted to me by MFP. Should I be eating all the calories I have?

I eat my exercise calories back no matter what.
Why?
Because if our calorie deficit is too great, we can easily suffer from
loss of muscle mass (slows down your metabolism) and impaired general progress.
You have to find what is right for you but you also need to remember that your body
is a machine and without the right type and amount of fuel there could be problems
either with loss of muscle, loss of energy, less weight loss/plateaus, etc.
Check out this topic:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/238282-700-calories-a-day-and-not-losing-redux?hl=700+calories

I try to just stick with the MFP recommendations.
Good Luck To You

When you have a lot of weight to lose, losing muscle mass is the least of ones concerns.

Ive lost 70 lbs since Labor Day.... I WISH I had started weight training earlier... losing muscle mass has impeded my success, despite my success being pretty good...

blondie0942

Personally, I eat back half of them on most days. It really depends on my hunger for the day- sometimes, I find myself being suuuuuuper hungry and having to exercise so I'm not going over my caloric goal for the day! :laugh: what can I say, I like to eat. But like I said, it depends on whether I'm hungry or not. If you find yourself hungry and you have extra exercise calories, go for it!

jesssonj05

I use some of mine. I have cut down to 1200 calories a day and with exercise I burn between 300 to 500 calories. I use some of them so my body does not go into starvation mode and hold on to the weight. Also, if you are able exercise in the morning , it will help jump start you metabolism. Good Luck-- Feel free to add me

Jessica

marias2gaa

I use them if I get hungry which usually I dont

Meg_Shirley_86

I didn't for the longest time, but now I do and have better results because I eat foods that help my muscles repair. I want to burn more fat, so I try to gain muscle. It's quite possible that I couldn't gain muscle because I wasn't fueling them for repair. FYI, I just learned that during the time your muscles spend on recovery, your metabolism is actually raised. However, if you can stay under your calorie goal and use efficient post-workout fuel, go for it!

weird_me2

What do you have your calorie goal set at? Mine's over 2200 per day because I only have my goal set to lose 1 lb per week. If your goal is higher like that, I don't think it's as big a deal to eat them back. If you are closer to 1200, then I'd definitely say aim to eat some back. For me, I eat them if I need to. Last weekend one day I had 1100 exercise calories left (over 2 hours of total activity) and didn't touch them. The next day I had 50 calories left. I try to follow my appetite more than the numbers. That being said, I'm rarely ever under 2100 calories per day, so I definitely eat.

wibutterflymagic

Yes. Atleast enough to keep you within a couple hundred calories of your daily calorie goal. You're body needs fuel to function. If you are exercising to the point that you are consuming below1000-1200/day then you should eat back calories. You want to lose weight in a healthy sustainable way and if your daily calorie intake is too low you are doing more harm then good.

weird_me2

I work out every morning ussualy burning 300-500 calories. to this point i have only been eating my original calories aloted to me by MFP. Should I be eating all the calories I have?

I eat my exercise calories back no matter what.
Why?
Because if our calorie deficit is too great, we can easily suffer from
loss of muscle mass (slows down your metabolism) and impaired general progress.
You have to find what is right for you but you also need to remember that your body
is a machine and without the right type and amount of fuel there could be problems
either with loss of muscle, loss of energy, less weight loss/plateaus, etc.
Check out this topic:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/238282-700-calories-a-day-and-not-losing-redux?hl=700+calories

I try to just stick with the MFP recommendations.
Good Luck To You

When you have a lot of weight to lose, losing muscle mass is the least of ones concerns.

Pretty sure that it shouldn't be if it is. If you don't try to maintain muscle mass while you are losing, you are probably going to have a harder time maintaining. If you lose a lot of muscle mass, your BMR & TDEE will be lower and your body fat % will be higher. This means that if 2 people start at the same height, weight & body fat lose 50 lbs each but one maintains muscle mass while the other doesn't , the one who has maintained their muscle mass will be able to eat more calories because they will burn more calories, plus they will generally be healthier because they will have a lower body fat %.

Bobby__Clerici

I work out every morning ussualy burning 300-500 calories. to this point i have only been eating my original calories aloted to me by MFP. Should I be eating all the calories I have?

I eat my exercise calories back no matter what.
Why?
Because if our calorie deficit is too great, we can easily suffer from
loss of muscle mass (slows down your metabolism) and impaired general progress.
You have to find what is right for you but you also need to remember that your body
is a machine and without the right type and amount of fuel there could be problems
either with loss of muscle, loss of energy, less weight loss/plateaus, etc.
Check out this topic:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/238282-700-calories-a-day-and-not-losing-redux?hl=700+calories

I try to just stick with the MFP recommendations.
Good Luck To You

When you have a lot of weight to lose, losing muscle mass is the least of ones concerns.

Why go from fat to skinny fat?
I guess I just wanted more for myself.
To each his own.

ChangingAmanda

It depends on how you set your activity level when you started with MFP. If you included your exercise already, then no, you do not want to eat them back because they're already calculated into your daily goal. If you did not include your exercise, i.e. sedentary, then you do want to eat them back. How much you eat back depends on how you calculated the calorie burn. In my experience, my heart rate monitor is about half what MFP says when I use MFP to calculate my calorie burn. I set up MFP with a sedentary activity level and eat back the calories my HRM says I burned. That's me, as you can already tell, everyone has an opinion.

justal313

Most of, but not all of them. I leave a little "on the table" to have a buffer against estimation errors, incorrect nutritional information and the like.

I am trying to come within 100 without going over. Some days I don't quite get there, oh well.

WhoIsAmber

Sometimes I eat them, if I feel low on energy, but most of the time, I try NOT to.

glubben

Thanks for the responses everyone! I think ill try to eat the majority of them form here on out.

smittybuilt19

I would eat back almost all of my exercise calories, when I was actually exercising lol. Why not? They're there for your consumption. I wouldn't tell myself "I earned them" just because I didn't want to reward myself for something I should be doing already, but hey, I did put in the work!

FutureSkinnyMama03

I eat back 50-100% of them if I feel hungry. Which is probably 90% of the time. I also raised my calorie minimum from 1200 to 1300 this week & plan to do another raise in 2-4 weeks because I'm pretty sure my BMR is closer to the 1500 range. After I eat exercise calories, I'm usually hitting 1500-1600 calories. Some days more. So far I am losing slow & steady just like I hoped for. Although this week is looking like I might have a higher loss than my normal weeks. We'll see come Monday. If so, raising my calorie level may pay off more than I thought!

Iceman420

I never use my excercise calories because I have to much weight to lose. I plan my meals out before adding any excercise in.