Eat back exercise calories?

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tinekamarie_
tinekamarie_ Posts: 6
in Health and Weight Loss
Hey guys, I'm sure you get these posts every day but I'm new and a bit confused.
Exercise calories.
Are you SUPPOSED to eat them back to prevent your body from going into 'starvation mode,' or is it optional?

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  • Cathleen77
    Cathleen77 Posts: 39 Member
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    Hey there,

    I'm not 100% sure, but I tend to eat some of mine back. Without them, I'd be staving! The more I work out, the hungrier I get. But, if your not hungry, don't bother. Just listen to your body. Hope that helped a little.
  • omma_to_3
    omma_to_3 Posts: 3,265 Member
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    If you are following MFPs plan, you are supposed to eat them. This assumes that you have accurate calorie estimates though. If you're not using an HRM for your cardio, you may be over or under-estimating your calorie burn.

    I use an HRM and eat back all my exercise calories. And I have been VERY successful doing that. Other people use MFP slightly differently than the plan intends, so those people don't eat back their exercise calories. Then there are others who are following MFP's plan but don't eat back their calories. That's a choice you can make, but it is not the way MFP was intended to work.
  • omma_to_3
    omma_to_3 Posts: 3,265 Member
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    Hey there,

    I'm not 100% sure, but I tend to eat some of mine back. Without them, I'd be staving! The more I work out, the hungrier I get. But, if your not hungry, don't bother. Just listen to your body. Hope that helped a little.

    Lots of people do this, but personally, I think it's a mistake. If I go for a run and burn 600 calories, believe it or not, I'm not hungry afterwards. The exercise works as an appetite suppressant for me. But, that's a huge calorie burn and my body would not be getting what it needed if I didn't eat those calories back.

    Here's an example. I have my net calorie goal set to 1200. I eat my 1200 calories for the day but go for a long run. I burn 600 calories. That leaves my body only 600 calories it can use for daily function. I know that my body needs about 1662 calories a day for daily function. My normal daily calorie need, if I was maintaining my weight (without additional exercise) is about 2000 calories. So in this example, I burned about 2600 calories for the day, but consumed 1200. That's a HUGE calorie deficit and isn't good for your body in the long term.

    OK, I don't know if that explanation helped at all or just confuses you more!
  • LorinaLynn
    LorinaLynn Posts: 13,247 Member
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    Yes. You're supposed to eat them.

    MFP has a pretty unique way of calculating calories, in that it starts you off with a base amount and only adds extra for exercise after you do it and log it.

    If I used another site to calculate my calorie needs, it would tell me to eat 1800 calories to lose one pound a week. That's about 500 calories below my TDEE (total daily energy expenditure).

    If I used MFP, would tell me to eat about 1300 to lose one pound a week, but after exercise I'd be right back up to that same 1800 calories. Otherwise, I wouldn't be 500 calories below my TDEE. I'd be 1000 calories below it, and that's too large of a deficit for someone who should only be aiming to lose one pound a week.
  • witchy_wife
    witchy_wife Posts: 792 Member
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    Yep, as the others have said, MFP already puts a defecit in. So if you exercise you eat those calories back and you are still at a calorie defecit and should lose weight.

    I have to say though, I don't always eat 100% of them as I think MFP can over estimate the calories burned for exercise. But if you have a heart rate monitor you can track and compare what it says.
  • cebreisch
    cebreisch Posts: 1,340 Member
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    I know Weight Watchers allows doing extra exercise for added points too.

    Anytime I've seen MFP adjust for exercise, I still try to stay within the "regular parameters" but I'm not running marathons and burning 600 calories either. If I were, I'd be trying to eat more *within reason*.

    It's a trick to make things like this work for you, and as long as you're cautious about how you proceed with it, you should be fine.
  • tinekamarie_
    tinekamarie_ Posts: 6
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    Brilliant, thanks guys! :)
  • onyxgirl17
    onyxgirl17 Posts: 1,721 Member
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    If anything, I'll eat half of them back just to correct for overestimations and underestimations on my calorie counts. I don't own a food scale and do some estimations though.
  • fishyheid
    fishyheid Posts: 3
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    I don't exactly play it by the book so I use the calories for say... Wine :-)
  • tinekamarie_
    tinekamarie_ Posts: 6
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    Haha wine is always good! ;)
    My daily calorie goal is 1200, by the end of today I will have consumed 1520 but then exercised 1007 calories off, which has left me with 687 calories remaining. When I click 'complete entry' it doesn't come up with the warning in red writing about starvation mode so I'm guessing as long as that message doesn't come up then I'm all good, right?
  • cedarghost
    cedarghost Posts: 621 Member
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    I don't. But I use TDEE - 20% as my goal so I don't really track all my exercise. However, if I get really hungry on an exercise day I may allow myself to eat a little more.
    I am not a stickler on trying to eat EXACTLY what my calories should be either. Of course I have about 25 to 30 more pounds to lose, so it isn't as critical for me just yet.
  • kathrynangelabaird
    kathrynangelabaird Posts: 53
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    I've just started back the gym and use my HRM to estimate my exercise cals and I try to eat most of the back as I'm at 1200 cals a day too.

    I cycle to and from work so I tend to know how much I burn with that and then at the gym I aim to burn 500 cals or more and try to eat it back with veggies and stuff when I go back home and last night I was full from my tea and had 400ish left over but ignored them as I wasn't forcing food down my throat.

    I'd say eat them back if you are hungry not for "the sake" of it.

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