new member with silly question!

lizzigiles
lizzigiles Posts: 6
in Food and Nutrition
Just started today and l'm on 1200 calories a day. I have eaten 1142 calories (no dinner yet) .l did some exercise worth 1258 calories and mobile app says l have 1316 calories remaining. Now for the silly question....do l stick to the remaining calories from the orginial 1200 which would leave me about 60 calories for dinner or am l suppose to eat the 1316 calories that are remaining for dinner. 60 calories isnt much but 1316 way too much!!! Thanks Liz

Replies

  • NuggetLovesEdie
    NuggetLovesEdie Posts: 477 Member
    Definitely not a silly question since it comes up so much.

    I've just started reading the boards and earlier today found these two threads:

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/6556-the-answers-to-the-questions

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/10589-for-those-confused-or-questioning-eating-your-exercise-calo


    The short answer, is try to eat what the TOTAL (base + exercise) - food already eaten says for you.

    But I get that 1300 is a lot for one meal.

    What were you doing that you burned so many calories for your exercise???

    Good luck!
  • AmandaTWaH
    AmandaTWaH Posts: 181 Member
    Yes, you are supposed to try to eat up those exercise calories as well. Eating up all of those exercises will leave you with the same deficit as if you only at 1200 and didn't exercise.
  • bigsisterdice
    bigsisterdice Posts: 51
    some people say dont eat them, some say you HAVE to eat them all, most people say eat somewhere in the middle lol i typically eat about half of my exercise calories back, but use as many as you need to in order to feel full :) basically, the 1200 you have it set to has your daily deficit built in already, so you dont need to worry about staying below that (its really not healthy to eat under 1200 a day anyways), so feel free to eat them, but dont feel obligated to eat them all. good luck! :D
  • simonlcube
    simonlcube Posts: 73 Member
    Burning 1258 calories seems a lot': what did you do to burn do much? I am wondering if this is accurate.
  • gramacanada
    gramacanada Posts: 557 Member
    Me too. I'd like to know what exercise you did. It takes a lot to burn that many calories.
    Eat some of the extra calories if you're hungry. If not don't. No sense stuffing yourself.
    That's what brought a lot of us here anyway.:laugh:
  • lizzigiles
    lizzigiles Posts: 6
    I did a run for 75 minutes at 8km per hour according to my app on my phone called run keeper.
  • lizzigiles
    lizzigiles Posts: 6
    Thanks for being so quick in replying!!!
  • vtmoon
    vtmoon Posts: 3,436 Member
    if you decide to eat your exercise back make sure you are tracking it well, to avoid you eating more than you wanted to. Also if you are on 1200 I'm guessing you are not very big/tall , what are you doing that is burning that many calories?
  • lizzigiles
    lizzigiles Posts: 6
    ok i think l have found my mistake......runkeeper had info in km and fitpal had it in miles to record calories used...does anyone know how to change it in fitpal????
  • bigsisterdice
    bigsisterdice Posts: 51
    on the homepage, click on 'settings', then 'switch to metric measurements' :)
  • lizzigiles
    lizzigiles Posts: 6
    i have done that and my general information is in metric but walks and running remains in mph when you go to record exercise for the day.....do l just have to look it up myself???
  • TheRealParisLove
    TheRealParisLove Posts: 1,907 Member
    Try to eat back at least some of your exercise calories. Also, if you were running at about 4mph pace then you should be closer to 600 calories burned, not 1200+. 600 calories for dinner is pretty easy to hit.

    I literally rode my bike for 4 hours today ( training for a 100 mile ride in 3 weeks), and there is no way I can eat back all those calories. I did go over my usual amount by about 500 calories, though. I think I'll be really hungry tomorrow, but heavy exercise kind if kills my appetite.
  • simonlcube
    simonlcube Posts: 73 Member
    ok i think l have found my mistake......runkeeper had info in km and fitpal had it in miles to record calories used...does anyone know how to change it in fitpal????

    You can just convert that to miles:6.2 miles. So ... You ran 10,000 in 75 minutes. Was this on a treadmill or outside? If outside was it flat or hilly? Either way, you seem to have a good level of fitness. Would you mind posting your height and weight? I think you might have burned 700/800 calories.

    I recommend eating another 600 calories or so, and then waiting an hour. If your body still feels hungry, maybe have a last small healthy snack of another 100/200.
  • lizzigiles
    lizzigiles Posts: 6
    Thanks everyone LOVE immediate reply!!
  • amyschintler
    amyschintler Posts: 27
    Not a silly question at all. I had the same one but asked a trainer at my gym about it and she said you need to eat back the calories burnt. She said that she eat back 2/3 of what she burnt. I am going with her on this one. Good luck with it all:)
  • dizzycoolbabe
    dizzycoolbabe Posts: 28 Member
    I don't like the way they do this because if you want to lose weight you have to exercise to burn up EXCESS calories - if you're putting those calories back into your body you're hardly going to have much weight loss!
  • NuggetLovesEdie
    NuggetLovesEdie Posts: 477 Member
    Hehe... oops... metric conversion!


    dizzycoolbabe,

    Check out this thread that explains how MPF does the calculations:
    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/6556-the-answers-to-the-questions
  • SuziQueue
    SuziQueue Posts: 64 Member
    I would eat a sensible dinner worth no more than 350 calories since you burned so many calories. Otherwise, you'll wake up starving in the morning and overeat. Good luck - and welcome to MFP!
  • AliciaMcNamar
    AliciaMcNamar Posts: 2
    come on you guys!!! if you eat ALL the calories you excerised off you will NOT lose! BUT if you eat what you need to fulfill your need for food. eating good choices of course and the calories you don't eat equals weight loss.
  • fatmom51
    fatmom51 Posts: 173 Member
    come on you guys!!! if you eat ALL the calories you excerised off you will NOT lose! BUT if you eat what you need to fulfill your need for food. eating good choices of course and the calories you don't eat equals weight loss.

    What you seem to have forgotten is that the calorie goal MFP assigns to you takes a deficit into account. For example, to maintain my current weight I would have to eat roughly 2,000 calories. I want to lose about 2 lbs. a week, but since MFP won't assign anything lower than 1,200, they give me that and tell me I'll lose roughly 1.7 pounds a week. While it's tempting to try to go faster and lose more each week, the weight loss would be less likely to be permanent and I'd be more likely to lose too much lean body mass along with the fat.
    The only time you wouldn't want to eat back your exercise calories is if you were eating at maintenance every day but still wanted to lose.
    That said, I agree with some of the other "posters" who said to maybe only eat back about half of the calories since some of the numbers given for calories burned are on the high side.
  • selig0730
    selig0730 Posts: 509 Member
    im kindy of too late but yah go ahead and eat a good dinner and you burned off those calories so you have 1300 calories left to spare...you dont have to eat all of them though. maybe half or whatever you decide just not go over 1300 for dinner ...btw not a silly question
  • dhortonb
    dhortonb Posts: 2 Member
    Couldn't:smile: have explained it better myself
  • zaph0d
    zaph0d Posts: 1,172 Member
    come on you guys!!! if you eat ALL the calories you excerised off you will NOT lose! BUT if you eat what you need to fulfill your need for food. eating good choices of course and the calories you don't eat equals weight loss.

    endless stream of these people.
  • sharleengc
    sharleengc Posts: 792 Member
    MFP is designed so you eat your calories back.

    So, you can have more than your 60 for dinner.

    Personally, I try to keep my exercise under 400 just because I have a hard time eating more than that back and I don't like to have more than 150-200 left over.
  • SonoraflowerKim
    SonoraflowerKim Posts: 61
    Every time this subject comes up, I read what others have to say. Now there are some that will eat them back and there are some that won't eat them back. It's up to you and what your body needs. For me, I exercise a great deal and I know I have them to eat if I want to....BUT if I am not hungry, I am not going to eat all the calories it says I can eat. Plus, remember that these apps up here over estimate what you actually burn in calories and sometimes people don't accurately put in what they consume in food. That being said, it really depends on the person. You can read all the feedback up here and then be more confused than you were before you asked the question.

    I know it doesn't help you that much :-(

    I would also go research your question on the internet and maybe ask a Personal Trainer or a Doctor what their opinion is.
  • mnlght535
    mnlght535 Posts: 84
    I try to eat some of my exercise calories back and I eat only when I am hungry. I agree with what other people have said about MFP over-estimating some of the calories burned so maybe eat 1/2 or 2/3 back but not all and eat when you're hungry. At the end of the night, if you have a few hundred calories left and you are truly not hungry, don't eat just to change that number, at least I don't. But stay at or above the minimum recommended which is usually around 1200. Good luck :smile: P.S. Not a stupid question either.

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