Eat ALL or just MOST of Exercise Calories

Really you have to find a balance for what works for you. For me, I have my settings where MFP gives me 1200 a day. I can't only eat 1200. 1450-1600 makes me happy and not hungry and is very doable. I work out a LOT and tend to burn anywhere from 500-1000 cal. per day and I usually only eat 250-400 of those cals. back. I'm losing slowly but surely and this is the easiest thing I've ever done. Besides not feeling like I need to eat that much (somedays, I do if I'm having a hungry day) I don't do the math of backing out the calories I would have burned during my exercise session just by being alive so the numbers my HRM give me aren't ONLY exercise calories. Additionally, I like a little cushion in case the calories I eat aren't exactly correct. Again, you need to play with it to find what works for your body, there is no one answer.

I normally suggest 50-75% of them... but thats because MFP quite often over estimates calories burnt in exercise.... :drinker:

I normally don't have the hunger and stamina to eat all of them back, lol. Today I burned 820 calories according to my HRM, but I am only eating about half of that back.

Normally I plan my meals ahead of time to add up to about 1500-1600 for the day...which is my original 1200 plus about 300-400 exercise calories back. I typically burn around 600 or so...

And I have lost 3 pounds in 2 weeks doing that. Before I was either eating the minimum 1200 only OR eating all of the exercise calories back and doing either one of those, I lost nothing.

Ok I have to tell you it really depends on my day, if at the end of the day I am still hungry I will eat them! I think you sometimes have to listen to your body!

It really depends on a couple things. I probably won't cover them all here but:

1) how much are you eating? Is your goal to lose 1/2 lb a week or 2lbs a week? 2lbs is already a bigger deficit and you can likely not spare to be off too far in your calories. If you are shooting for a slower weight loss, your body may be able to tolerate dipping into a bigger deficit now and then. (Though, if you have only ie, 5 lbs to lose you have less wiggle room than if you have 30 lbs to lose and are set at 1/2 lb per week.)

2) Are you logging your food accurately? If you miss things here and there, even a sip of soda and a couple bites of hubby's sandwich - that can make up the difference between eating all and some of your exercise cals and you might not even realize it.

3) Are you logging your exercise accurately? If you are basing your counts on MFP or on the machine at the gym it might not be an accurate count for your body, so eating them all might be too much. When I got my HRM I found out the machine at the gym told me I burned almost twice what I really did! So if I ate them all, I would have been eating at maintenance count and thus not losing - which I may have blamed on the concept of eating exercise cals.

4) what exercise are you doing? Eating back all of the 200 Yoga calories is a little less accurate than eating all of your super hard cardio hour 500 calories. This is because in the hour following a hard work out you will burn more calories than if you had not worked out, but in the hour following a moderate or light (think easy walking / yoga / yard work) workout your body bounces back to normal maintenance burn right away. So, if you do Yoga 1 hour and burn 200 and eat all 200 - well, you double ate the calories you would have burned if you did not work out. But, if you work out hard and burn 500 calories, and eat all of those, you don't really have to worry about doubling up because, though you are technically eating some calories twice, the following hour you will burn more, which you don't count, and which make up for double eating what you would have burned if you had not gone to the gym. I point this out because if you "only" walk or do yoga, you should not eat all of them back or you could be sabotaging yourself.

5) how do you feel? You will notice when you are not eating enough if you really pay attention! If you feel lethargic, cranky, tired, unmotivated (you know, more than usual :laugh: ) try eating more. Give it a couple days and see how you feel. Each time I have felt this way and upped my calories, within 4 days I was back feeling great. For me, eating low (short 500 in addn to my deficit) for a week can be quick enough to make me feel this way too.

6) How often are you under and are you ever over? The "danger" comes when you are consistently under by a good amount. If you are under one day, right at your goal the next, under 200, under 650, over 500, at, at, at, under 100, over 300.... don't worry about it. If you are constantly under 500, under 800, under more.... pay really close attention to how you feel and what your weight loss does (ie plateau, drop TOO fast).

7) what are you eating with your exercise cals? If you are putting your 500 cals back in each day with a Blizzard or dbl quarter with cheese, that's counterproductive. Of, if you're doing all bad carbs or something. In those cases it would be healthier to eat back 1/2 your cals in veggies than all of them in junk :happy:

8) - I am sure there are many more things. This is why it is really not a black and white "EAT YOUR CALS" issue, but you have to find out what works for you and consider all the factors!

It depends on your daily calorie goal. If your goal is set at 1200, you want to eat all of your exercise calories because you don't want to eat fewer than 1200 net calories (calories consumed minus calories burned). If your goal is higher you don't need to eat all of the exercise calories, just enough to make sure you get at lest 1200 net cals.

Eating more than 50% of my exercise cals means that I don't loose, so I aim to eat as few as possible, but never leave myself feeling hungry. That seems to work for me.