Why are we to add the calories we exercise off?

It depends on how you set up your original calorie goal. If you included your exercise in your activity level, then you don't want to eat back your extra calories. If you set up as sedentary, then you eat back at least some of the calories because you need them to fuel your workout. In my opinion, eat to lose weight, workout for fitness.

MFP, by default, already adds the deficit from eating less. For instance, if you set a weekly weight loss goal of 0.5 lbs per week, then your caloric intake is already deducted by 250 calories without exercise. Thus, if you burn 250 calories from exercise, you eat them back to stay within the 0.5 lb weekly plan. If you don't eat back some of the exercise calories, you are likely increasing the deficit.

I was wondering the same thing. So if I understand this...when I add my workout in do I really need to eat those extra calories?? It just doesn't make sense to me to eat back calories I just burned off...

I was wondering the same thing. So if I understand this...when I add my workout in do I really need to eat those extra calories?? It just doesn't make sense to me to eat back calories I just burned off...

The rule of thumb I go by personally is if you're hungry eat and if you're not, don't eat. There is nothing to be gained by eating when you're not hungry.

explanation here http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/818082-exercise-calories-again-wtf

I have mixed feelings about it. If you've set your budget with MFP you already have a deficit so theoretically you could eat those exercise calories back and still lose or maintain. Then comes the BUT. Most of us aren't that good at recording our food intake exactly. There's a lot of room for error unless you have some fabulous meticulous way of weighing, measuring and knowing that your counts are exact. Next comes the exercise that you did. Even with a HRM how do you know that you burned exactly X number of calories? What really counts as exercise over daily living? What you consider exercise might be part of what I just normally do in a day. Does your body really need to eat all those calories even if it is exact in order to function? Too may ifs and buts for me.

bump

MFP, by default, already adds the deficit from eating less. For instance, if you set a weekly weight loss goal of 0.5 lbs per week, then your caloric intake is already deducted by 250 calories without exercise. Thus, if you burn 250 calories from exercise, you eat them back to stay within the 0.5 lb weekly plan. If you don't eat back some of the exercise calories, you are likely increasing the deficit.

However, what my friend didn't say (but I know he's very aware of it), is that it is beneficial to try and consume the calories (in a healthy way) that you burned so that your body can use that energy to repair itself and keep your BMR at a level where you're not starving yourself (BMR is Basal Metabolic Rate - in other words, it's the minimum amount of energy that your body needs for you to lay in your bed for 24 hours and listen to the grass grow)... You don't want your BMR to dip too low. So healthy eating, and trying to stick to your limits can help keep your body from biologically reducing your BMR. (It reduces because if you starve yourself, biologically, your body will go into "reserve" mode and purposely lower it so that you're not expending unnecessary energy during those times... this is why when people who are anorexic try to start consuming a "normal" amount of food, they start to pack on the pounds so quickly)

You can approach it the way I do... you're now rewarded for the calories you've burned and can eat A) more than you normally would on a non-exercise day, or treat yourself to something of your choosing that you typically couldn't do on a normal non-exercise day. Hope this helped!