Feeling guilty following plan

Smittysmama
Smittysmama Posts: 24
in Food and Nutrition
Anyone else feel guilty when they eat back their exercise calories?? I now have almost 900 calories for the remainder of the evening due to an unplanned trip to the gym. I would love to hear from people about their successes following the plan as written. TIA

Replies

  • DopeItUp
    DopeItUp Posts: 18,771 Member
    Of course not, I earned every last one of them. It's a rare day that I don't come within at least 50 calories of my goal. I'm close to 80lbs down now so I'd say it's worked for me.
  • DavPul
    DavPul Posts: 61,406 Member
    I follow the plan as written. I reached and then lowered my goal weight
  • JesterMFP
    JesterMFP Posts: 3,596 Member
    No, I don't. I try my best not to feel guilty about food at all, and especially not about eating enough to fuel my body. I have always eaten exercise calories back, and that has worked pretty well for me too. I lost 54 lbs last year, mostly eating more than the goal MFP initially set me, and always eating exercise calories back.

    Feeling guilt about eating the recommended amount of calories is not a good thing. Food is not the enemy, calories are not the enemy. Your body needs energy to do everything you want it to do. Treat it well and stop feeling guilty for doing so! :flowerforyou:



    [If you use the MFP database to estimate your calorie burn, it is possible that it is an overestimation. I never found it to be when compared to my heart rate monitor, but other people have, so that's worth bearing in mind. If that's the case, you might want to only eat back say 2/3 of those calories]
  • SeahorseDolphin
    SeahorseDolphin Posts: 131
    At first it felt "wrong". You get this mentality like less calories the better, right? But when you think about your calorie goal for the day, especially if it's something as low as 1200 for example you HAVE to eat back your calories otherwise you're starving your body. If I just do a little rest day 30 min light cardio I sometimes won't even log it or eat them back. But when I really sweat I know I have to because I don't want my body to think it's starving. Let your body recover!
  • AmyRhubarb
    AmyRhubarb Posts: 6,890 Member
    Heck no - food is fuel - you burned it, MFP is set up that you are supposed to eat them back. You're already at a deficit with your base calorie goal - that's why MFP gives you more when you enter your exercise. If you don't eat them, then you're at a huge deficit, which is not good, and can cause problems for ya in the long run.

    When you work hard, you gotta fuel that body back up!
  • pspetralia
    pspetralia Posts: 963 Member
    EAT! you expect a lot out of your body. You need to fuel it!!!

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