Earning calories through work outs

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lovingmylifein2013
lovingmylifein2013 Posts: 54
in Food and Nutrition
Question: Do we need to eat the calories that we burn off ? I earned 600 plus calories by working out not sure if Im going to be able to eat all that.... says I have 1230 remaining for the day and its supper time!!

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  • ladynocturne
    ladynocturne Posts: 865 Member
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    Yes you're suppose to eat them.

    Your normal goal already contains your calorie deficit for the day to lose weight with no exercise.

    Be careful though, MFP tends to exaggerate certain exercise burns such as the elliptical and zumba, I'd recommend eating more like 80% of those calories.

    If you can't eat them all today, eat some tomorrow.
  • lovingmylifein2013
    lovingmylifein2013 Posts: 54
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    My minimum calorie intake is 1200 so Im guessing as long as I consume my 1200 calories im ok?
  • Arnegard
    Arnegard Posts: 22 Member
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    My minimum calorie intake is 1200 so Im guessing as long as I consume my 1200 calories im ok?
    1200 is super low, especially if you have burned 600 calories. Seriously, I would not make that a daily habit.
  • lovingmylifein2013
    lovingmylifein2013 Posts: 54
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    I stay around 1200 easily which is usually right under or a little above every weight loss sight etc. recommends me to eat at least 1200 calories. Im only 5'2 What would you suggest?
  • jeffpettis
    jeffpettis Posts: 865 Member
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    A lot of people will tell you to eat exercise calories back, and a lot will tell you it's counterproductive because if you are burning those calories to help create your deficit why would you eat them back.

    Just be careful about eating them back because any way that you figure calories burned is going to be an estimate at best. Heart rate monitors, calorie burned counters on equipment, calorie burn calculators, etc. are not as accurate as some believe. You just want to be cautious because if you eat back calories you didn't burn in the first place you could potentially not be in a deficit. You see this all the time, people think they have hit a plateau when really they are just eating back calories they didn't burn in the first place, or consuming more than they think.
  • PaulHalicki
    PaulHalicki Posts: 576 Member
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    My sense is that the amount of calories it gives you as credit is very high, like maybe twice as many as it should. If I work out I allow myself to go a little over my target, but no way do I eat all those calories back. For instance, last night rode my bicycle for about two and a half hours and "earned" 1,987 calories, but I only ate 128 calories over what my calorie budget was without the exercise, meaning I had a calorie deficit of 1859 calories above what's built into my calorie budget. (My post workout drink is chocolate milk, about 200 calories.)

    Oh yeah, and I woke up a couple pounds lighter than I was the previous morning (a pound or so of that is water weight that I will drink back during the day).

    But the point is losing weight, so why replace the calories you just spent if you don't feel like you need it?
  • jacksonpt
    jacksonpt Posts: 10,413 Member
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    It depends. There is no 1 right answer to that question.

    If you included exercise when you calculated your daily calorie goal, then no you don't eat them back. If you didn't include exercise, then yes you should.

    More reading:
    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/383956-exercise-calories-explained
    and
    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/818082-exercise-calories-again-wtf
  • lovingmylifein2013
    lovingmylifein2013 Posts: 54
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    Thank you!
  • PaulHalicki
    PaulHalicki Posts: 576 Member
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    It depends. There is no 1 right answer to that question.

    If you included exercise when you calculated your daily calorie goal, then no you don't eat them back. If you didn't include exercise, then yes you should.

    More reading:
    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/383956-exercise-calories-explained
    and
    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/818082-exercise-calories-again-wtf

    Interesting.
  • parallax1978
    parallax1978 Posts: 13 Member
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    Yes you're suppose to eat them.

    Your normal goal already contains your calorie deficit for the day to lose weight with no exercise.

    Be careful though, MFP tends to exaggerate certain exercise burns such as the elliptical and zumba, I'd recommend eating more like 80% of those calories.

    If you can't eat them all today, eat some tomorrow.

    The elliptical thing is jarring. I run 65 minutes a day every day on an elliptical that tracks my calorie burn which ranges from 640 - 675 a day... if I just put the time into MFP it has it burning nearly 800 calories... that is a major difference. To sum up trust the machine, or do some research and enter all of that in manually.
  • bacitracin
    bacitracin Posts: 921 Member
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    Huh. MFP has always UNDERESTIMATED my burn according to the machines I use, using heart rate and my weight.
  • bettybremner
    bettybremner Posts: 13 Member
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    Should we also take into account that muscle weighs more than fat? If someone is working out they may lose the inches, but plateau due to muscle gain. I wouldn't eat back my calories earned because it is counter productive.
  • PaulHalicki
    PaulHalicki Posts: 576 Member
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    I think what it comes down to is that the calorie estimates attributed to exercise are just that: Estimates. There's probably a pretty wide variance in terms of efficiency from one person to the next. So I might lift a 50-poiund weight to a height of 4 feet to accomplish 200 foot-pounds of work (equals 0.065 kilocalories). I might be 50% efficient, so I actually have to expend 0.130 kilocalories to do that work (twice the work accomplished). Someone else may be only 25% efficient and so has to expend twice as much work (0.260 kilocalories) to accomplish the same work. If you have good technique in your motion, you will be more efficient. If you're all noodly and do a bunch of unnecessary movements in doing the work, you will expend more calories.

    So calories spent by your body can never be more than a rough estimate with stuff you enter into a website. You would need controlled laboratory conditions and instrumentation to get a better estimate.

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