Eating after your workout

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peachfigs
peachfigs Posts: 831 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
If you do an intense workout and free up lots of calories, is it ok to eat some of them back? Will this slow down your weight loss?

Replies

  • crewealexfan
    crewealexfan Posts: 7 Member
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    yea
  • sharleengc
    sharleengc Posts: 792 Member
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    If you use MFP the way it's designed, you should eat them back. I always eat mine back. Depending on the time of day I exercise and how much I exercise, I don't always eat all of them back but I always try to. I've learned that I can't eat more than an additional like 300 anymore so I try to keep my exercise around 300
  • MightyDomo
    MightyDomo Posts: 1,265 Member
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    Banana's, Chocolate Milk, Pasta, Granola or Oatmeal, Protein Smoothie.

    Lots of options to eat. Just remember to maintain your set deficit and eat back whatever exercise you need to :)
  • miracole
    miracole Posts: 492 Member
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    calories eaten back after hard exercise are the most delicious.
  • bobf279
    bobf279 Posts: 342 Member
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    I'm always Hank Marvin after a workout so I start eating them fairly soon
  • peachfigs
    peachfigs Posts: 831 Member
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    Thanks guys! I always see comments that you NEED to eat them back.. why is it important to eat them back? So that you don't go into starvation mode?
  • misssmarita
    misssmarita Posts: 130
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    MFP gives you a calories allowence based on your goals. What will happen if you don't eat your exercise calories back, and you stick to the calories MFP gave you to eat for the day, you'll have a bigger deficit, and lose more weight than the goal you set for yourself when you signed up for MFP. So it depends. If you feel hungry it's perfectly ok to eat them back, as long as you eat something relatively healthy.
  • jamers3111
    jamers3111 Posts: 495 Member
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    I usually eat 20% back.
  • misssmarita
    misssmarita Posts: 130
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    Thanks guys! I always see comments that you NEED to eat them back.. why is it important to eat them back? So that you don't go into starvation mode?

    The thing is, if you have a goal of 2 lbs lost a week, and you don't eat back any of your exercise calories, you might lose more than 2 lbs a week, and that usually isn't a good idea for long term, sustainable weight loss.
  • MightyDomo
    MightyDomo Posts: 1,265 Member
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    Depending on where you are in consumption and what your set deficit and BMR/TDEE-20% is. If you calculate your TDEE-20% correctly you will never eat anything back but what exercise you do out of the ordinary. Eating your BMR is eating what you need for your body to work.

    My program has me eating my BMR but exercising into a set deficit for at least 1lb loss a week, the times I need to eat more is when I have consumed my BMR calories and have exercised above my set deficit.

    I would suggest you look up the roadmap 2.0 and it will give you plenty of info.
  • alyssamiller77
    alyssamiller77 Posts: 891 Member
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    Yes as mentioned if you're following MFP's functionality, its calorie calculations are setup based on the expectation that you "Eat back" your exercise calories. Regarding eating after a workout specifically, there many that would recommend you eat something after a workout. The suggestion is that this helps fuel your body's recovery. A lot of people follow this method and are very successful (myself included) so I'd expect you'd be fine doing the same.
  • SomeoneSomeplace
    SomeoneSomeplace Posts: 1,094 Member
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    BC MFP already puts you a deficit for normal daily activity.
    If you go do an intense work out at the gym you need to fuel your body with extra calories to energize your work outs.
    Also eating within an hour after a work out is great (protein/carbs) because your metabolism is at an all time high and your muscles need the fuel to rebuild plus personally I find I'm starving after a good lifting session especially. Sometimes strangely intense cardio kills my appetite but if anything it's even more important to eat back calories burnt from intense cardio work out since that in itself can burn muscle especially when you're not fueling your body.
    As for lifting, that doesn't burn calories but most people whose focus is on lifting want to add mass so they will often eat at least their TDEE to maintain weight or eat at a surplus.
    Anyway a good general rule of thumb is don't net below 1200 and eat 50 to 75 percent of your calories back.

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