Calories Burned Confusion

kimby1119
kimby1119 Posts: 9 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I noticed on my food journal that it said I "earned an extra 240 calories" today, and that it added those 240 to my daily calorie goal. When I burn calories, am I supposed to eat those back? I thought that I burned calories to put myself into a deficit in order to actually lose pounds. Is it counteractive to eat the calories I burn during a workout?

Thanks! :ohwell: Confused at the moment...

Kim

Replies

  • Mokey41
    Mokey41 Posts: 5,769 Member
    If you've set your budget right the deficit is already built in but if you only burn 240 calories in exercise there's probably no reason to eat those back. Consider it a bonus toward your weight loss especially since most of us are really good at under estimating our food intake and over estimating our calorie burns.
  • WaterBunnie
    WaterBunnie Posts: 1,371 Member
    I eat back mine because I'll often burn a lot more than that if I do an aqua class and an hour swimming after and would feel weak doing that on diet calories but many here do not hoping for a faster loss. If you are already set for a 2lb loss I think it's wise to eat back your exercise rather than creating too large a deficit.
  • frood
    frood Posts: 295 Member
    If you have your goals set up "to lose" then the deficit is already built in to your calorie number. When you exercise, you are increasing that deficit, so eating those extra calories puts your back in line with your goal of loss.

    It's easy to think that more deficit = more loss, but if you're trying to do that big of a calorie deficit, it's going to be much harder to maintain for the long term.

    tl;dr, it's not counteractive to eat exercise calories.
  • NaomiJFoster
    NaomiJFoster Posts: 1,450 Member
    If you look at the graphic on your main page, it sort of makes more sense. It's set up differently there. It tells you your goal calories, plus the calories you've eaten, minus the exersice you did, for net total for your day.


    So if your goal calories is 1400 per day:

    You've eaten 1600 calories today
    And you've burned 300 calories today.

    1600 - 300 = 1300, which is a deficit of 100 calories.


    1400 is your grand total goal. Not your intake goal. If you don't exercise at all that day, then you want your food intake to stay right around 1400. But if you're exercising that day, you have created 'space' to go beyond 1400.
  • Sujit8383
    Sujit8383 Posts: 726 Member
    If you look at the graphic on your main page, it sort of makes more sense. It's set up differently there. It tells you your goal calories, plus the calories you've eaten, minus the exersice you did, for net total for your day.


    So if your goal calories is 1400 per day:

    You've eaten 1600 calories today
    And you've burned 300 calories today.

    1600 - 300 = 1300, which is a deficit of 100 calories.


    1400 is your grand total goal. Not your intake goal. If you don't exercise at all that day, then you want your food intake to stay right around 1400. But if you're exercising that day, you have created 'space' to go beyond 1400.

    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^This...........
  • kimby1119
    kimby1119 Posts: 9 Member
    Awesome! Thanks so much! Makes a lot of sense now! More reason to exercise! :wink: And thanks for the math lesson. I'm a self professed non-mathematical big picture person so your explanations helped A LOT!
  • kimby1119
    kimby1119 Posts: 9 Member
    Thank you!!!
  • NaomiJFoster
    NaomiJFoster Posts: 1,450 Member
    Awesome! Thanks so much! Makes a lot of sense now! More reason to exercise! :wink: And thanks for the math lesson. I'm a self professed non-mathematical big picture person so your explanations helped A LOT!

    Me too! I'm a very visual thinker. That graphic on the main page is like a picture to me. And now that I've gotten used to how it works, the chart in my food diary makes more sense too.

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