Do you eat back the calories you burn?

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  • Hildy_J
    Hildy_J Posts: 1,050 Member
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    Blimey. I've eaten them back with relish. 300 calories left? I crack open a Snickers. 3 left? I eat 3 peanuts.

    I need to leave more on the table! :-/
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,574 Member
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    If you are following MFP caloric intake guide you should be eating them back.

    Say MFP gives you 1450 calories to lose 1 lb/week, and you plan on exercising 5x/week for an average of 400 cals per workout. well MFP will tell you to eat 1450 on the days you don't workout and 1850 on the days you do whereas a "professional" may tell you to eat 1700 everyday regardless if you workout.

    So for the week MFP will have you eat 12,150 (1450*2+1850*5) whereas doing it the other way will have you eat 11,900 (1700*7) almost the same number of cals for the week (250 dif). The issue in not following MFP is if you don't workout the full 5 days or burn more or less than planned. If that is the case you may lose more or less than your goal, whereas MFP will have you lose your goal amount regardless how much you actually workout.

    What many MFPers do is take the low 1450 and not eat back exercise calories which is wrong, if you are not eating them back then your daily activity level should reflect the higher burn with would be covered in the 1700/day above.
    THIS.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
  • walleymama
    walleymama Posts: 174 Member
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    Blimey. I've eaten them back with relish. 300 calories left? I crack open a Snickers. 3 left? I eat 3 peanuts.

    lol. That's like me. I would have no trouble eating more calories than I need.

    Fortunately, I'm feeling pretty satisfied with ~ 1500/day right now. But I do get tempted every so often to increase it.
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,293 Member
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    I don't as I feel as though it's undoing my hard work. I hate exercise so I personally don't want to put myself through a hard workout just to eat it back, but everyone is different x
    With so little to lose it is even more important that you eat them back to avoid a large % of your weight loss coming from muscle instead of fat. So, are you trying to lose weight, or fat?
  • harleygroomer
    harleygroomer Posts: 373 Member
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    never never NEVER
    I am exercising to lose weight not to stay where I am or lose a pound here and there. The goal is to lose
  • DancingMoosie
    DancingMoosie Posts: 8,613 Member
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    I've found that, since trying to maintain my weight, if I don't eat back those exercise calories, I keep losing. The estimated burns don't seem to be too high for me because my weight keeps dropping. I didn't eat all of them back while losing, maybe because I had enough fat stored for energy that I didn't always feel hungry enough to eat them all. But, as I got closer to goal and maintenance, I find it more necessary to eat them all, but still struggling to do so.
  • littlebee26
    littlebee26 Posts: 116
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    No. Instead of eating them back, I use the handy dandy search button and read the hundreds of other posts about this very topic. (Sorry for being snarky, I'm in a snarky mood.)

    ^ You could have simply chose not to respond to her question instead of being snarky about it. Being snarky does no good whatsoever to someone who is just trying to figure it all out.

    No shortage of snarky MFPers!!!!
  • kasimarie29
    kasimarie29 Posts: 128 Member
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    I think it's pointless to exercise and burn calories if you're just gonna eat them back..
    just my opinion...
  • rachaelgifford
    rachaelgifford Posts: 320 Member
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    I struggle to get mine back with healthy food. I do try to though.
  • mrslcoop
    mrslcoop Posts: 317 Member
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    If you are following MFP caloric intake guide you should be eating them back.

    Say MFP gives you 1450 calories to lose 1 lb/week, and you plan on exercising 5x/week for an average of 400 cals per workout. well MFP will tell you to eat 1450 on the days you don't workout and 1850 on the days you do whereas a "professional" may tell you to eat 1700 everyday regardless if you workout.

    So for the week MFP will have you eat 12,150 (1450*2+1850*5) whereas doing it the other way will have you eat 11,900 (1700*7) almost the same number of cals for the week (250 dif). The issue in not following MFP is if you don't workout the full 5 days or burn more or less than planned. If that is the case you may lose more or less than your goal, whereas MFP will have you lose your goal amount regardless how much you actually workout.

    What many MFPers do is take the low 1450 and not eat back exercise calories which is wrong, if you are not eating them back then your daily activity level should reflect the higher burn with would be covered in the 1700/day above.

    Thank you for that answer! I just switched to TDEE - 20% and was wondering if I was still supposed to be eating the calories back or not...

    This is great info. If you eat TDEE-%, then do NOT eat them back. Unless you have an unusual day, like an all day hike, bike ride, etc and it not considered in your normal TDEE. Then enjoy more food.

    If you allow MFP to set your calorie goal, this is NET calories, so you need to keep up with exercise calories burned and eat those.

    TDEE-% is much easier in my opinion and you don't get all obsessed about "how many calories did I burn". Just train hard (meaning lift heavy things, put them down, and repeat :wink: ) and eat to fuel it.

    That's a really good explanation of the TDEE method. I biked 10 miles yesterday at a 14 mph pace, which is outside of my norm. I was STARVING even after eating my TDEE-%. So I ate a bit more. Up to my BMR as I believe I should never be netting below that.
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,293 Member
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    I think it's pointless to exercise and burn calories if you're just gonna eat them back..
    just my opinion...

    But in this case your opinion is not correct. MFP is designed so you lose your goal amount of weight/week, in order to do that you must eat the exercise cals back, or your deficit will be larger and a large deficit may lead to negative side effects.

    Exercise is to help with body composition and fitness, it comes down to diet (deficit) to lose weight. For weight loss exercise just allows you to eat more while losing weight. You need to fuel your exercise.
  • BamaBreezeNSaltAire
    BamaBreezeNSaltAire Posts: 966 Member
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    Eat back...because at 1200 I was gonna kill somebody! 1950 and lost 30 lbs!
  • VpinkLotus
    VpinkLotus Posts: 849 Member
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    Hell to the YES.

    Because more food makes me happier than less food.
  • NyssaDuck
    NyssaDuck Posts: 50
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    I eat half of them back, or to make my goal (about 1300). I don't eat them all back in case the calories are a bit exaggerated... don't want to accidentally overeat.
  • mazdauk
    mazdauk Posts: 1,380 Member
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    never any problem eating exercise calories! :drinker: :bigsmile:

    But what I (try to) do is to use my "normal" calories for a basic healthy diet and use my "exercise" calories for the fun stuff like wine and chocolate:happy: That way I'm not exercising just to eat more bulk, but to eat more stuff I couldn't fit into the basic calories otherwise.
  • Luckykh4
    Luckykh4 Posts: 4 Member
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    .
  • Luckykh4
    Luckykh4 Posts: 4 Member
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    No. Instead of eating them back, I use the handy dandy search button and read the hundreds of other posts about this very topic. (Sorry for being snarky, I'm in a snarky mood.)

    I guess snarky is the MFP way of censoring another word that ends with a Y?
  • mathairmhor
    mathairmhor Posts: 3
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    I usually don't eat back the calories I burn, If I do, I'm usually well over my calories for the day.
  • Luckykh4
    Luckykh4 Posts: 4 Member
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    No. Instead of eating them back, I use the handy dandy search button and read the hundreds of other posts about this very topic. (Sorry for being snarky, I'm in a snarky mood.)

    Pangea250 burned 10 calories doing 5 minutes of cardio excercises, including, "being snarky"
    Poster #1: Great burn girlfriend!!
    Poster #2: You eat those calories...You earned it!
    Pangea250: Lol thanks!

    hahahahaha
  • SmallMimi
    SmallMimi Posts: 541 Member
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    only if I am hungry

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