Do I need to eat more when I exercise?

Claudiaaa1528
Claudiaaa1528 Posts: 20
in Fitness and Exercise
Hi everyone!
I've been eating better since one month now and started the gym 3 weeks ago and I lost 10 pounds so far! Really proud of myself btw! But I have a question... To lose weight the best way is to burn more calories than you eat.. I understand that and eat minimum 1250 because I don't want to be in starvation mode, and the average calories I eat a day is between 1400 and 1250. But If I exercise, Is it too low?

Replies

  • Serah87
    Serah87 Posts: 5,481 Member
    Yes, you need to eat back your exercise cals or at least half of your exercise calories.
  • Claudiaaa1528
    Claudiaaa1528 Posts: 20
    Well if I eat back all my exercice calories it's like not doing exercice at all no?
  • freelancejouster
    freelancejouster Posts: 478 Member
    You should definitely make sure you net over 1200 every day at the very least. The exercise still raises your metabolism, tightens muscles, burns fat. Eating just gets you more nutrients for food - it doesn't negate the exercise you did.
  • socomary
    socomary Posts: 52
    YES.

    MFP already calculates a calorie deficit BEFORE exercise. If you exercise, then yes, you should be eating back a portion, if not all, of your exercise calories.
  • Crazy4Healthy
    Crazy4Healthy Posts: 626 Member
    MFP already factors in your deficit, if you don't eat back your exercise cals you are eating a larger deficit and not fueling your body properly. You do not want to lose weight too quickly and eating too low will also make it much harder to adjust to eating normally again without gaining back weight. Eat your exercise cals, your body truly needs them. You should be netting what MFP has you set at (and in my honest opinion, that may likely be too low as well).
  • Claudiaaa1528
    Claudiaaa1528 Posts: 20
    Thanks! Good to know!
  • Shes1CraftyMama
    Shes1CraftyMama Posts: 152 Member
    YES! You will lose weight this way for now, but soon it will stall. There is an article on here that was eye opening for me. I was eating 1450 (MFP said) and I kept stalling. I upped to 1600 and lost 20 lbs+ stalled again. Read this article and now I am eating 1800 plus my workout cals and I lost 2 lbs in 5 days! I am telling you the 1200 or starvation is not accurate.
    You need to find out what your BMR is (Basal metabolic rate). This is the amount you need just to keep your organs alive. Think of it as if you were in a coma this is the amount the nurses would feed you to keep you alive. You need to eat more than that even. And very few women's BMR is 1200. So read this article, go to the site he mentions to get your body fat % and BMR and then follow his directions from there.
    I am telling you, your weight loss may not be super super fast, but you will lose quickly and you will feel amazing, you will avoid moments of feeling like you want to binge, and you will feel like you have more freedom to eat and workout!

    Hope this helps!!!

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/538381-in-place-of-a-road-map

    Ps I have 2 other MF pals who are following this article 100 % (mine is a bit of a modified version) and they have lost weight they have been trying to get off for months (within a week) and they both feel AMAZING too!!!
  • ironfitclub
    ironfitclub Posts: 18 Member
    YES! You will lose weight this way for now, but soon it will stall. There is an article on here that was eye opening for me. I was eating 1450 (MFP said) and I kept stalling. I upped to 1600 and lost 20 lbs+ stalled again. Read this article and now I am eating 1800 plus my workout cals and I lost 2 lbs in 5 days! I am telling you the 1200 or starvation is not accurate.
    You need to find out what your BMR is (Basal metabolic rate). This is the amount you need just to keep your organs alive. Think of it as if you were in a coma this is the amount the nurses would feed you to keep you alive. You need to eat more than that even. And very few women's BMR is 1200. So read this article, go to the site he mentions to get your body fat % and BMR and then follow his directions from there.
    I am telling you, your weight loss may not be super super fast, but you will lose quickly and you will feel amazing, you will avoid moments of feeling like you want to binge, and you will feel like you have more freedom to eat and workout!

    Hope this helps!!!

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/538381-in-place-of-a-road-map

    Ps I have 2 other MF pals who are following this article 100 % (mine is a bit of a modified version) and they have lost weight they have been trying to get off for months (within a week) and they both feel AMAZING too!!!

    nice explanation!
  • actiontime26
    actiontime26 Posts: 67 Member
    Thank you for this topic. I was wondering the same thing. I understood the part that you have to eat enough food to fuel your body but I wasn't sure about eating back the calories you lost for exercising.
  • musicalsunrises
    musicalsunrises Posts: 2
    Hi everyone!
    I've been eating better since one month now and started the gym 3 weeks ago and I lost 10 pounds so far! Really proud of myself btw! But I have a question... To lose weight the best way is to burn more calories than you eat.. I understand that and eat minimum 1250 because I don't want to be in starvation mode, and the average calories I eat a day is between 1400 and 1250. But If I exercise, Is it too low?

    Exactly what I needed to read this morning. Thanks for the posting of this because so many of us have this same question.
  • Chancewise
    Chancewise Posts: 1
    I have a hard time thinking I need 1600. And mfp says I have more calories to eat based on my exercise. It get high like today I ate over 2 k trying to keep up with the extra calories it says I should eat. And still I says I can eat 1700 more it's 10 pm. So no . I wish I understood. It says I burned over 2 k today ... I really try to eat healthy but it's hard to eat all this food
  • SingingSingleTracker
    SingingSingleTracker Posts: 1,866 Member
    I've been eating better since one month now and started the gym 3 weeks ago and I lost 10 pounds so far! Really proud of myself btw! But I have a question... To lose weight the best way is to burn more calories than you eat.. I understand that and eat minimum 1250 because I don't want to be in starvation mode, and the average calories I eat a day is between 1400 and 1250. But If I exercise, Is it too low?

    Depends on your goals. If still losing weight, then you do want to maintain a deficit and only eat some of the calories burned in exercise back.

    The dilemma is getting accurate counts on how many calories were burned during exercise. I would absolutely error on the side of being conservative because HR monitors use guesstimated algorithims to come up with a number, and MFP notoriously overcalculates the amount burned. And your body normally has about 2K calories in store that is available for fuel. In other words - it's easy to eat back too many calories if you say, burn 500 and eat 500 calories back.

    A good way to micro-manage this is get as accurate of a count of what you are eating each day, get one of the best HR monitors you can afford and read as much as you can about what people have found in terms of the accuracy level of the calorie count it measures. I prefer to use my BMR for my age, height, weight alone, then add my daily exercise to get the day's caloric needs. During weight loss, I had my goal set on losing 1 pound per week. And I weighed myself daily which was and is an effective micro-managing solution to know and quickly figure out if eating back all of the calories burned in exercise, or only a certain part of them to keep the weight loss happening. With a digital scale, it was pretty much like clockwork to manage this because in a 7 day week, I was watching the weight loss shed in the tenths of a pound per day. If I missed a day, or went up on a day or two - I would review my intake, my exercise, and how many of the calories I had eaten back. Again - that was during weight loss where the focus was on shedding the weight.

    Starvation mode? Myth or reality.

    Read this...

    http://www.aworkoutroutine.com/starvation-mode/

    In terms of the calories, exercise, deficit, why one is or is not losing weight....

    The best primer on the net is here and well worth the read over and over and over until you get it:

    http://www.acaloriecounter.com/blog/why-am-i-not-losing-weight/

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