Extra calories earned - My fitness pal - do you eat yours?

stacw1987

Hey all,

Just a quick question. When you earn your extra calories through exercise do you eat them or not? I usually try and just stick to 1200 and I don't dip in to them unless sometimes if I'm over by accident.

I thought it might be defeating the purpose but I could be doing it all wrong. Advise please

Thanks x

snaithrichard

Overall, no if I have earned any extra then that is a good day, however on some days when I have earned tons extra calories say after a ten-mile walk then I can afford to have a blow out guilt free.
I hope this helps.

Shadowknight137

Hey all,

Just a quick question. When you earn your extra calories through exercise do you eat them or not? I usually try and just stick to 1200 and I don't dip in to them unless sometimes if I'm over by accident.

I thought it might be defeating the purpose but I could be doing it all wrong. Advise please

Thanks x

Yes, eat them.

trudijoy

i asked this and people were quite good with their answers (apart from the rude ones lol)


the way i have eventually understood it is you have a few options

1) just eat the mfp calories, no excercise ones. lose weight but potentially struggle to sustain the loss once you start eating more

2) eat the mfp calories, but eat a portion (half to 3 quarters ish, if you eat all sometimes its fine) of your burned calories back - apparently mfp expects this of you but doesn't tell you

3) work out your bmr and eat that, then excercise calories are bonus burn which you don't eat back

4) work out your TDEE (google it for a calculator) and eat 20% lower than that.

3 & 4 seem to be the most touted ones here. I do 3, and it's working. 2 is very similar to 3, ,but less regular.

hope that helps

Synapze

I never have before. Figured i worked hard for those calories burned, so high 5 for me, but i burned a fair amount yesterday and ate a lot of it back.

Didn't feel great afterwards, and the weight gain, even tho it was obviously just the food i ate and water weight, it has been enough to stop me from doing it again.

If i was hungry tho, id eat. I don't believe in the 'starving yourself' mentality, because someone doesn't want to go into the red.

That just doesn't make sense.

PurpleTina

I eat most or all of my exercise calories, dependent upon how hungry I am.

ladymiseryali

I eat 90-98% of my exercise calories. It's helping because I'm once again dropping weight. I try to net close to the calories I'm allotted throughout the day.

Railr0aderTony

Read this, It should be required reading for anyone new to MFP. Great information that tells you what works and WHY

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/654536-in-place-of-a-road-map-2-0-revised-7-2-12

kbeech06

I eat most of mine back, although some days I just can't manage it. I don't eat all of them back though typically, because for some reason I just don't trust my calculations every day. I like to leave a bit of a buffer if that makes any sense so I don't go over.

roguex_1979

I never did. I stuck to 1200 and then did exercise. AND I WAS MISERABLE! Sure, at first I lost 24lbs over the year, but I was grumpy and tired all the time and hated my life.

Then, over Christmas, I put on 7lbs, just like that *clicks fingers*. So I started again and started eating 1200 cals and doing no exercise. The loss was...disappointing, and once again, I was miserable.

Then I upped my cals to 1330 and started exercising AND eating back most of the exercise calories, and LO! I now have a steady weight loss of between 1.2lbs and 0.8lbs a week. Sometimes I even go over my cals, I still lose.

The thing to remember is that as long as you eat under your TDEE, you should lose weight. My TDEE is about 1700 cals a day and I eat 1300 now, but I also eat back most of my exercise calories, it's still a total deficit of 500 cals a day which should equal 1lb loss over a week.

But ultimately, you have to do what's working for you. For me, eating 1200 cals and exercising and not eating back the calories was the wrong thing to do NOW. It worked at first, but now it isn't, so I had to change things around.

Good luck!

jenilla1

That's the way MFP works. I eat them and have always been successful. I've been on maintenance now for a couple of years.

roguex_1979

Ok, just seen that you only have 5lbs to lose and without knowing how tall you are, I would say you need to eat a lot more than 1200 cals. But if you're going to stick to 1200, definitely eat back your exercise calories!

Givemewings

It's important to eat back exercise calories or at least most of them as MFP has already worked out a deficit into your calculations and so if you do this you will have more of a deficit than advisable. Make sure your settings are set to sedentary and eat back any exercise cals you create.

Ryokat

No, I drink them.

Grape extract. Yum.

auntygill

Yes i eat mine , thre might not be a lot of them sometimes , but i lose weight nearly every week , so eat them .

lunameow

I always see them as "I don't have to freak out if I want an extra cookie" calories.

sandradev1

This question is asked so many times!!!!!!!!!!


MFP site provides all the facilities you need to log both your food and your exercise. Once you have correctly input your personal data it then does all the work for us and calculated our daily calorie goal.

Then.......

When we log our exercise, it changes the calorie goal on our food diary.

Why does MFP do that?????????

To make it awkward for people as they now have to remember to now ignore the calorie goal and just look at those consumed?????

Would there be any point in the MFP system doing this if there was not a reason for it?????

Why does MFP include the facility on your Home Page to show you how many NET CALORIES you have eaten????


I personally follow the TDEE - a reasonable deficit %. If following MFP though, you should actually - follow MFP!!!

PurpleTina

Gosh, you really do like your punctuation, don't you? LOL

JesterMFP

Yes, I eat all of them back, and always have.

It doesn't defeat the purpose. The goal MFP gives you already has a calorie deficit built into it. If you never exercise, you should still lose weight with that goal. MFP gave you that goal on the assumption that you would log exercise and eat those calories back. Otherwise, it would have given you a higher goal to start with. If you exercise, and don't eat the calories back, you may have too large of a calorie deficit, which may not be healthy for you. This is especially true the closer you are to a healthy weight. Eating as little as possible will only leave you feeling weak, miserable and make you lose more muscle mass than is necessary, and may mess up your hormone functioning along the way.

So why bother exercising if you're going to eat those calories back? Well, so that you can eat more, so that your heart and lungs are fitter and healthier, so that you maintain as much lean mass as possible, so you feel fitter and stronger and have more energy, so you look fitter and stronger (and more "toned"), to boost your mood, to maintain bone density, to prevent various lifestyle-related diseases... etc.

ETA: there are lots of people on MFP who do not eat back their exercise calories, and are "doing it right" - because they have customised their own calorie goal and eat more than MFP recommends. They work out their own goal based on the exercise they are going to do, so they don't need to add those calories as extra.

aaiokeefe

Hi All

I would love to say that I do eat my extra Cals I have worked off, but I feel that what I have earned?, and what I have worked for ? Is what I have achieved.

But to each his own

Cheers Andy

lauren3101

Yes. I welcome any reason to cram more food in my mouth. :happy: