Do you eat your calories you earn from exercising?

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  • alpine1994
    alpine1994 Posts: 1,915 Member
    Yes I always eat them back, but on a weekly basis instead of daily. I keep track of weekly calorie intake and weekly calorie burn, and make sure to net my goal (1550) by the end of the week. Makes weekends more fun!
  • jonjhayden
    jonjhayden Posts: 165 Member
    I find that is the beauty of MFP. I know what my target is to lose weight if I do absolutely nothing at all. For me it is 1600 cal (and I should lose about 1.5lb/wk). However, I love to eat and I know that the more I work out the more I can eat. I am extremely disciplined about working out and my kids are teenagers so I can find the time to work out almost everyday. On a typical day, I burn between 800 and 1200cal. That bumps my daily goal from 1600cal to between 2400 and 2800cal. Eating healthily, I find it rather difficult to eat that many calories but I will eat between 1800 & 2000 calories. I feel great and when I hit the gym the next day I am able to really exercise intensely. If I don't eat enough calories, the next day my workout suffers and it is pure drudgery getting through my workout.

    I also think it is important to throw your body curve balls. Vary your calorie intake within in your goal range. This keeps your body from going into a starvation mode.

    I started working out and eating healthily following the plan I outlined above (slowly building up to my present calorie burn) on January 6, 2013. At that time I weighed 270lbs. As of today (5/7/2013), a little over 4 months later, I weigh 211.5lbs.

    My suggestion eat some of those exercise calories back and workout even harder the next day. Then youcan eat even more calories back the next day and still be in a rather significant calorie deficit and lose weight.
  • HPLW0705
    HPLW0705 Posts: 102
    I have my calories set to 1800 a day. I'm doing Insanity and it was recommended I up my daily calories. I don't log how many calories I burn, but I know that I'm at least netting 1200 per day if not a little more. Before Insanity, I was eating 1400 per day and eating back my exercise calories then. I have noticed that I'm not as hungry as I used to be since upping my calories and in reality, I'm netting less. Maybe it's a mind over matter thing? I don't know...

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