Am I supposed to eat all exercise calories?

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mrsbuckwheat
mrsbuckwheat Posts: 10 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I am new to MFP and am a little confused about goal vs. food vs. net.

I am a 42 yr old female, 5'5" and as of this morning 147. I would like to get to 130-135 and be more toned. I am training for a marathon in April so I am logging some long runs. Yesterday was just under 6 miles and MFP estimated that to be 669 ca. It has my daily goal as 1200 so should I eat 1200 + 600ish? I don't want to under-eat and not loose weight yet dont want to undo all the hard work i am doing with the exercise.

I checked back and ate 1640 yesterday so some of the exercise I ate back? Is this correct? I have a 8-9 mile run Tomorrow and want to make sure I am doing this right!

I was doing WW but didn't t seem to be loosing like I want to so figured I would try thus app instead.

Replies

  • smokeytex74
    smokeytex74 Posts: 55
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    If you are looking to loose, then no, you are not suppose to eat back all of your exercise calories. You have to have a deficit to loose, or so that is my understanding.
  • Dnarules
    Dnarules Posts: 2,081 Member
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    IMO, you don't have much to lose, so you should be eating more than 1200 anyway. If you are training for a marathon, you should definitely be eating more than 1200. So, yes, you should eat them back. But you may want to re-evaluate your calorie goals to fuel your runs. Hopefully runners will come in this thread and give you some advice.
  • youtubeworkouter
    youtubeworkouter Posts: 19 Member
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    For me personally I try to stay 100 cals under the exercise goal. I have lost about 2lbs a week, but i also started at 215lb and I am now 160lbs six months later. (I heard it is easier to lose when you have more to lose, but I will see with these last 30lbs how much harder it is to get those off) I burn around 500 cals per day with exercise and eat most of it back.
  • Dnarules
    Dnarules Posts: 2,081 Member
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    If you are looking to loose, then no, you are not suppose to eat back all of your exercise calories. You have to have a deficit to loose, or so that is my understanding.

    This is incorrect. MFP is set up to eat your exercise calories,. But you do need to make sure they are accurate.
  • mrsbuckwheat
    mrsbuckwheat Posts: 10 Member
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    Well the reason I am questioning if I should eat them is I have my profile set to lose 1.5 pounds a week and for that I have a goal of 1200 calories. So, if I was not getting any additional exercise shouldn't I still loose at 1200? I want to have enough energy for the long runs while still loosing slowly.
  • Dnarules
    Dnarules Posts: 2,081 Member
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    Well the reason I am questioning if I should eat them is I have my profile set to lose 1.5 pounds a week and for that I have a goal of 1200 calories. So, if I was not getting any additional exercise shouldn't I still loose at 1200? I want to have enough energy for the long runs while still loosing slowly.

    Because you don't have much to lose, you should set MFP to lose 0.5 pounds a week. That is a good rate of loss when you get close to goal. And then you should still eat a good portion of your exercise calories.
  • MeanderingMammal
    MeanderingMammal Posts: 7,866 Member
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    It has my daily goal as 1200 so should I eat 1200 + 600ish?

    Yes.

    Essentially you need to fuel your training whilst leaving enough energy in your system to avoid doing it too much damage. As you're eating in a deficit your system will lose fat, muscle and organ tissue. Broadly speaking around 1200 calories is the minimum necessary for a woman to avoid too much cannibalising your own system. You should be avoiding a net consumption of less than that, so you do need to eat back what you're burning.

    As marathon training is itself pretty hard on the body you may even need slightly more than 1200.

    The MFP calculator essentially assumes no exercise, hence needing to account for what you burn.
  • c9claire
    c9claire Posts: 3
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    Hi there,
    You should be eating your exercise calories, but take care with the nutrition chart as well to ensure you are eating good calories,
    Eg you could eat fish and chips and be under your calorie goal, but way over on fat etc....... For this Type of long distance cardio you need to focus on your protein and good carbs, brown bread, brown rice nuts, seeds etc to give you max energy from your calories, hope this helps and good Luck ;-) xxx
  • sargessexyone
    sargessexyone Posts: 494 Member
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    I am so glad to have come across this post as I was a little confused too. Just so I am completely clear If my target calories are 1200 and I burn 300 I should eat 1500 calories??? Would that be losing weight or maintaining?
  • editorgrrl
    editorgrrl Posts: 7,060 Member
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    With such a small amount to lose, a healthy goal is .5 lb. per week. The calorie counts & burns are estimates, so many people eat back half their exercise calories to reduce the margin of error. If you eat at a deficit, you will lose weight. Everybody's different, and weight loss takes a whole lot of trial & error to find what works for you.

    Read this: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1080242-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants
  • vwbug86
    vwbug86 Posts: 283 Member
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    If you are looking to loose, then no, you are not suppose to eat back all of your exercise calories. You have to have a deficit to loose, or so that is my understanding.

    Um, no. That is why in your diary it says, "You have earned so many extra calories from exercise" MFP already gives you a deficit. If you are exercising, and don't have much to lose you need to fuel your body.

    Also you are trying to lose weight, and make you pants loose. (sorry grammar correction)
  • Sjenny5891
    Sjenny5891 Posts: 717 Member
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    I am new to MFP and am a little confused about goal vs. food vs. net.

    I am a 42 yr old female, 5'5" and as of this morning 147. I would like to get to 130-135 and be more toned. I am training for a marathon in April so I am logging some long runs. Yesterday was just under 6 miles and MFP estimated that to be 669 ca. It has my daily goal as 1200 so should I eat 1200 + 600ish? I don't want to under-eat and not loose weight yet dont want to undo all the hard work i am doing with the exercise.

    I checked back and ate 1640 yesterday so some of the exercise I ate back? Is this correct? I have a 8-9 mile run Tomorrow and want to make sure I am doing this right!

    I was doing WW but didn't t seem to be loosing like I want to so figured I would try thus app instead.


    You do not have a lot to lose so it is going to seem slow whether you eat everything back or not.
    I have been told that you do not want to eat at a deficit when you are trying to build muscles. It did not come from a trained individual. You should probably talk to a trainer to get a better answer.
    do realize that muscle weighs more than the same ammount of fat space wise. You may see better results by the tape measure than the scale.
  • MeanderingMammal
    MeanderingMammal Posts: 7,866 Member
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    Just so I am completely clear If my target calories are 1200 and I burn 300 I should eat 1500 calories???

    Still yes.

    :)
  • MeanderingMammal
    MeanderingMammal Posts: 7,866 Member
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    I have been told that you do not want to eat at a deficit when you are trying to build muscles.

    That is correct, but the originator is training for a marathon, so the last thing she needs is additional bulk.
  • c9claire
    c9claire Posts: 3
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    Ok people, if you are using just a calorie controlled diet to loose weight , you will earn no extra calories

    If you are using calories plus low to medium exercise you may wish to not consume your calories earned this will speed up weight loss

    If you are doing medium to high, eg high impact training / marathons as mentioned before you should be eating your calories to fuel your body for exercise, don't think by not eating them you will increase weight loss long term, In fact you will short term but you won't have the energy to do this for very long, also you would burn muscle rather than fat as your body will crave fuel but will leave the fat in place to protect it as the body sees muscle more disposable than fat xxx
  • Mr_Knight
    Mr_Knight Posts: 9,532 Member
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    It is going to be very difficult to maintain a marathon-worthy training schedule on a large caloric deficit. You'll need to eat back most of your exercise. Fortunately, you are primarily running so it's easy to get a solid estimate on what you are burning...

    net calories burned running -> 0.63 * body weight in pounds * miles run

    For the run you mentioned in the OP, that gives a number about 100 calories less than you got from MFP. This is consistent with MFP giving gross burn numbers instead of net burn numbers (i.e., MFP doesn't back out BMR/RMR).

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