Why eat exercise calories?

I have to admit that I don't always eat my exercise calories and I don't seem to have any problems.

Some people worry about starvation mode, but I hardly think I will go into starvation mode when I have fat on my body, it has never happened before and I don't expect it to happen in the future.

If my weight loss were to slow down I would up my exercise from two to three times per week as I have done before - it worked that time and it will work again.

I'm with you on that one

Mfp already calculates a safe calorie deficit to lose weight without your body thinking its starving.. If you dont eat exercise cals you increase that deficit, which will help lose weight faster,( until your body adjusts) but once you eat normally you will gain that weigh back

It confuses me, too. I never eat my exercise calories, even when other people tell me I should. I think it's pretty stupid, since that's what you just burned, and to eat them back seems ridiculous. I say, do what works best for you honey. If not eating them is working, by all means do it. Everyone's body works differently.

It's certainly up to you. I don't think MFP puts anyone on a calorie deficit so low that they would literally run into starvation mode. It's my understanding that for women that doesn't really happen unless you go under 1200 calories or so.

That being said, if you have exercised strenuously, it can sometimes make you feel hungrier. I view the exercise calories as something I can utilize if necessary. It's not permission to cheat, but it is good to know that I may not need to completely deprive myself either in order to reach my goals. Remember that it isn't good to crash diet. If you are really burning a lot of exercise calories, perhaps you are trying to lose more than a pound or two per week, and that is not healthy.

Honestly it's all too confusing. I don't eat my exercise calories. Before websites like MFP were created, people kept food diaries and ate to 1200 or 1500 or wherever and exercised without worrying about eating back calories.

Like i said, I don't eat my calories, but when the times comes and I hit a plateau, I might give it a try.

1.) Eating exercise calories- there has been tons of debate on this subject. Let me explain it to you the best I can. You body needs 1200 cals just to live. This 1200 cals is what is used if you sit on the couch all day without moving it is also roughly what your body needs to function properly. Now if you move around example going for a 30 min walk to the store and back you will roughly burn ( depending on how fast you move) 200 cals( just an example). So now your body needs 1400- to prevent it from thinking it's not been starved. Because you took this walk and burned 200 cals you have just tapped into the cals your body needs. Hence, now your body only has 1000 cals to live on for this day. It's is medically proven to be not enough!
2.) Starvation mode- is your bodys way of storing energy. It's not getting the required cals to live on. It will make it harder to lose weight because now your body is storing some "extras" just to make sure. Do you know where it stores it? In your fat cells. Therefore; turning it into Hydrogenated fat. The jiggly stuff that we are all trying to get rid of.

When I started on this site it required that I eat 1480 cals a day. I did, I eat all my excersise cals. I've lost 25 pounds. Now it has me only eating 1280 cals a day, and I still do eat my excersise cals. < ALL of them.
I don't want my body to be defied of anything anymore. I have been cruel enough to it for 10 years.
Hope this helps...if you have any questions just message me!:drinker:

1.) Eating exercise calories- there has been tons of debate on this subject. Let me explain it to you the best I can. You body needs 1200 cals just to live. This 1200 cals is what is used if you sit on the couch all day without moving it is also roughly what your body needs to function properly. Now if you move around example going for a 30 min walk to the store and back you will roughly burn ( depending on how fast you move) 200 cals( just an example). So now your body needs 1400- to prevent it from thinking it's not been starved. Because you took this walk and burned 200 cals you have just tapped into the cals your body needs. Hence, now your body only has 1000 cals to live on for this day. It's is medically proven to be not enough!
2.) Starvation mode- is your bodys way of storing energy. It's not getting the required cals to live on. It will make it harder to lose weight because now your body is storing some "extras" just to make sure. Do you know where it stores it? In your fat cells. Therefore; turning it into Hydrogenated fat. The jiggly stuff that we are all trying to get rid of.

When I started on this site it required that I eat 1480 cals a day. I did, I eat all my excersise cals. I've lost 25 pounds. Now it has me only eating 1280 cals a day, and I still do eat my excersise cals. < ALL of them.
I don't want my body to be defied of anything anymore. I have been cruel enough to it for 10 years.
Hope this helps...if you have any questions just message me!:drinker:

I agree with the above! When I first started I thought, "Why eat everything I just burned off", I lost a couple of pounds doing this. Not much maybe 1/2 - 1lb every two weeks or so. Then I realized I was still hungary and binge eating, because my body wasn't getting enough. Because I was only set at 1200 calories and burning around 300 a day. I started eating my exercise calories back a little at a time. And it started taking the weight off alot faster. 1 - 2 pounds a week. Now that I eat about 90% of them back, I am losing every week and I'm at a pretty good pace. I always leave around 20 calories or so, incase of miscalculation. Eating them back has worked well for me.

I love my exercise calories, though I don't eat them all everyday. I do eat them so I can still enjoy stuff I love. Tomorrow I'll burn about 1000 cal on a long bike ride, so I plan to have pizza, and I'll still end up under my calorie goal. Yay!

The way I look at it is...when you first start MFP it tells you how many calories you need in order to maintain your current weight...look under 'goals'........ but since you're trying to lose weight( i'm assuming) you need to eat less than that.

So say your maintaining calories is 2800 and in order to lose say 1lb a week you'll need to eat 1500 calories. Those 1500 are to be eaten if you don't exercise at all...

So say you workout and earn 300 calories from your exercise so instead of eating 1500 you now have to eat 1800 total. You are still eating the right amount of calories though it may feel like you are eating too many. You need to eat the calories you earn back otherwise according to some you will stop losing weight because you're body will go into starvation mood.

I hope I explained that well enough.