Do you eat back your carbs?

Asterie

I was wondering if, after you exercise, you guys eat back your carbs? I've noticed that MFP raises my carb levels after I exercise, so I stopped inputting my exercise to stick to my 25 g/day. It never really occurred to me that maybe my carbs actually are being burned and I can eat them back. (Been in ketosis for 3+ weeks now, for the record!) Appreciative of all answers.

danni_l

I've been caught out on this a couple of times! I just stick to my usual amount and don't eat them back.

jennb44

I don't exercise regularly right now, but when I do, I don't eat back my carbs.

albertabeefy

I will eat extra carbohydrate ONLY if it's on a meal before a HUGE exercise session, and I time it accordingly.

IE: If I eat a meal with 30g of carbohydrate (rare, but it happens) usually I'm at the gym (or jogging, or whatever) in 45 minutes from when I started eating.

... AND I still limit myself to a maximum of 10% of my calories (because I'm ketogenic). So even if it's a 3,000 calorie day, that means 300 calories will be from carbohydrate - ie: about 75g total...

shar140

I sometimes do post-exercise, depending on what it was (heavy lift day, for example), when it's more likely to go into my muscles rather than my fat cells. But I still try to limit my total carbs to an average of 100g or less per day, over the week. So I guess the answer is yes, but I've stopped adding exercise calories now, too, and aim for the 100g or less, rather than what MFP gives me.

SadKitty27

I see so many people say you should, but I'm guilty of never eating them back when I do exercise (I don't exercise that much these days.)

Citrislazer

Nope, I just concentrate on eating back my calories, not carbs.

LauraDotts

I don't eat back carbs or calories. My calories are already set to include my level of exercise. The amount of carbs is set as a percentage of the total calories.

BarbieAS

I try not to. Right now my goals are set to ~50g/day at 1300 calories (15%, which is a little high of a percentage but I feel like 50g of carbs is a good solid goal, especially since I eat a decent amount of fiber and I usually end up at ~35 net give or take a few), which is a pretty low calorie goal so I typically do eat back at least a portion of my calories. As long as I'm within spitting distance on protein for the day I sort of let the chips fall where they may on the other stuff while keeping carbs as low as I can stand. Basically, if I've burned a ton of calories for the day I don't stress as much if I go a few over on my carbs; even if I gain 700 exercise calories for a day (which would be a LOT for me; average is closer to 200-300) that still maxes my goals out at 75g of carbs, which to eat on a rare occasion shouldn't set me back too horribly far.

TL;DR version - I don't make a point to eat back carbs, but if I have a few extra carbs on a big burn day I don't get overly worked up about it.

BarbieAS

Also - I went to search for the link but I couldn't find it. I read in an article that the max levels of carbohydrate required for ketosis for each individual do depend on a lot of different biological things, but size does not seem to be a huge factor. Therefore, it would stand to reason that you could assume that if size is not a huge factor what they really mean is that BMR is not a huge factor (why else would size play a role?). And if BMR, or the number of calories you burn in a day w/o exercise, is not a major piece of the keto puzzle, it seems logical that if you burn more calories in a day though exercise (increasing TDEE) that also would not increase the max level of carbohydrates needed to maintain ketosis. So, that's my reasoning for why I *try* not to eat back too many carbs earned by exercise increasing my calorie and macro goals for the day (though, as I said, if I go over by a few I don't freak out).

Sorry I keep editing, I keep finding little typos! Need more coffee! Haha.

Marll

I wouldn't, there really isn't any point in doing so. If you are hungry and need fuel after a workout, eat something low carb and high fat and you'll feel satiated anyway without the need to potentially knock yourself out of ketosis. Many people see better results when they do things like lift heavy in a fasted state, and if your body required the fuel, without the carbs there it'll turn to it's own fat for fuel, which is exactly the goal of low carb diets.