another question about excercise calories

donna56

I know you all are probably tired of answering this question, but...... in order to lose weight do I eat my excercise calories or are the eating of the excercise calories to maintain your weight?:grumble:

Lady_C_the_1st

You eat them, MFP has already worked out the calorie deficit in order for you to lose weight, so not eating exercise calories makes the calorie deficit even bigger, which is not healthy for your body. xx

jennylynn84

Eat to lose, baby!

Your calorie count for the day includes a deficit of your BMR (what you burn just being alive) so that you're set up to lose weight. So if you burn 300 calories working out that adds another 300 to your already established deficit. Sounds great, but it can still lead to starvation. I don't always eat ALL of my calories (sometimes its hard to get an additional 700 if I have a huge workout) but I usually eat a sizable chunk of them.

sonia2003

I also asked this question and was told to eat back half of my exercise calories. I tried it for a few weeks and for me, I lose weight by not eating back the calories.

I think each person is different, and everyones body responds in different ways, some people eat 5 or 6 mini meals all day and lose weight while others need 3 meals + 1 snack.

The best thing would be to try it out, eating half the calories back or eating all the exercise calories every other day or not eating them at all. It all depends on you!

Sorry it wasnt much of an answer, but I understand because I tried the advice and it didnt work for me so I had to do the hard work to figure out what does and doesnt work best for me.

jillybeanruns

There's no one universal answers for everyone in the debate over whether to eat your exercise calories. Some days I do, some days I don't. The most important thing is to make sure you get 1200 net calories a day. So if your calorie goal daily is 1200, you will need to eat all your exercise calories back. My daily calories fluctuate between 1400 and 1600, so I have a bit more leeway with what I eat after exercise. My body seems to respond well to my eating 1300 one day and 1800 the next, however not everyone's body is going to respond well to that. It's trial and error really.

But yes, MFP builds a deficit in so that you should lose if you stay meet/stay under your daily calories.

donna56

Thanks everyone for your replies, I guess I will play with it for awhile and try to eat half of the excercise calories and see what happens