Should I eat my negative calories back?

Hi, I have a questions regarding the calories you burn during a cardio exercise. Every time I go to the gym or do some sort of Cardio exercise, those calories I burn transfer over to the negative calories, thus I end up eating some if not all the "negative" calories back.
After having a conversation with one of my friends, who also uses MFP, I was told that I should not eat those back, try to keep my goal calories and not adding the negative calories.
I need your opinions on this: should I or shouldn't I eat the Negative Calories back??
Thank you.

Replies

  • WBB55
    WBB55 Posts: 4,131 Member
    Depends, really.

    If you're not hungry, tired, or cranky, then you don't HAVE to eat them. But if your total calorie deficit is too high, that can be unhealthy, too. My general advice is to "net" your BMR at least. So, if MFP gives you 1400 calories to eat (and your BMR is 1300). Then you exercise for 200 calories, bringing your "net" for the day to 1200, I'd recommend eating at least 100, so your "net" is equal to your BMR.
  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,432 MFP Moderator
    How many calories are you eating? How much are you exercising? Do you use a food scale? And how do you measure calories burned.


    Answer these and we can give you a better answer.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    MFP from your selection of non-exercise daily activity x your BMR came up with a daily maintenance figure. Eat this with no exercise you maintain weight. Obviously an estimate.
    Say 2000.

    You selected a weight loss goal, say 1 lb weekly recommended.
    So 500 calorie deficit to your maintenance.

    2000 - 500 = 1500 daily goal when no exercise.

    You exercise for an hour, and correctly log it, and you burned 500 calories for an good hour.
    Your literal maintenance for that day just increased.
    2000 + 500 = 2500

    Now MFP takes the same deficit off.
    2500 - 500 = 2000 eating goal.

    You have the same deficit in place, and you eat more, when you actually do more.

    If you think that a bigger deficit is bigger - then why don't you just stop eating until the weight is gone?
    Because you realize it's not actually better in the long run.

    Neither is a bigger deficit better in the long run, or even the short run for many people, especially if you have just gone nuts on the exercise compared to what you used to do before.

    Also, while at the start of exercise you can do much wrong and still see improvement, you can see more if your body has something to work with to actually make improvements.

    Called fueling your workouts.

    Eat the exercise calories back, even if people say it's inflated.
    Those exercise days will make up for probably selecting too big a deficit on the other days.
  • Daily Calories: 1500
    Exercise: 3-4 times/week
    No food Scale, estimate only
    I measure the calories burned using the MFP app.

    Thanks.
  • MFP from your selection of non-exercise daily activity x your BMR came up with a daily maintenance figure. Eat this with no exercise you maintain weight. Obviously an estimate.
    Say 2000.

    You selected a weight loss goal, say 1 lb weekly recommended.
    So 500 calorie deficit to your maintenance.

    2000 - 500 = 1500 daily goal when no exercise.

    You exercise for an hour, and correctly log it, and you burned 500 calories for an good hour.
    Your literal maintenance for that day just increased.
    2000 + 500 = 2500

    Now MFP takes the same deficit off.
    2500 - 500 = 2000 eating goal.

    You have the same deficit in place, and you eat more, when you actually do more.

    If you think that a bigger deficit is bigger - then why don't you just stop eating until the weight is gone?
    Because you realize it's not actually better in the long run.

    Neither is a bigger deficit better in the long run, or even the short run for many people, especially if you have just gone nuts on the exercise compared to what you used to do before.

    Also, while at the start of exercise you can do much wrong and still see improvement, you can see more if your body has something to work with to actually make improvements.

    Called fueling your workouts.

    Eat the exercise calories back, even if people say it's inflated.
    Those exercise days will make up for probably selecting too big a deficit on the other days.

    THANKS!
  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,432 MFP Moderator
    Daily Calories: 1500
    Exercise: 3-4 times/week
    No food Scale, estimate only
    I measure the calories burned using the MFP app.

    Thanks.

    Whats your per week weight loss set at?

    To make it easy, change your account to lightly active and buy a food scales. Estimates = plateaus. It's very common for people to underestimate calories in (as much as 500)
  • neelia
    neelia Posts: 750 Member
    Hi, I have a questions regarding the calories you burn during a cardio exercise. Every time I go to the gym or do some sort of Cardio exercise, those calories I burn transfer over to the negative calories, thus I end up eating some if not all the "negative" calories back.
    After having a conversation with one of my friends, who also uses MFP, I was told that I should not eat those back, try to keep my goal calories and not adding the negative calories.
    I need your opinions on this: should I or shouldn't I eat the Negative Calories back??
    Thank you.

    I don't eat mine back.
  • I had been eating back all of my exercise calories, but I just met with a nutritionist yesterday. MFP had given me 1210 calories as my net calorie goal. The nutritionist changed my net calorie goal to 1400 (which will help on the days off where I don't workout) and then advised that on days where I work out 1.5 hours, to eat an extra 300-400 calories (so eating a total of 1700-1800 calories). So, Monday-Saturday I eat 1700-1800 calories and Sundays (my day off) I eat 1400 calories. I still log my exercise on MFP, but I only pay attention to the food calorie number in terms of calorie management. I use a HR monitor for all of my terrestrial workouts, so I think my calorie burn estimate is pretty accurate but I use MFP's calculator for swimming. Good luck!
  • LeslieB042812
    LeslieB042812 Posts: 1,799 Member
    Daily Calories: 1500
    Exercise: 3-4 times/week
    No food Scale, estimate only
    I measure the calories burned using the MFP app.

    Thanks.

    I agree, buy a food scale. Estimates are okay if that's all you can do (e.g. at a restaurant)--better than not tracking. But, you are likely eating way over what you think. Also, I recommend against eating any of your exercise calories and only eating some of them if you're really hungry because that is also not entirely accurate. Otherwise, you're not likely to lose, you're more likely to maintain.
  • tbgree00
    tbgree00 Posts: 25 Member
    Daily Calories: 1500
    Exercise: 3-4 times/week
    No food Scale, estimate only
    I measure the calories burned using the MFP app.

    Thanks.

    The best thing you can do for yourself is get a food scale and measure. You'll be surprised how much (or little) food is in a serving. I measure everything on a cheap 10 dollar digital scale. It doesn't take a ton of time and helps out a lot.

    Second best thing you can do is get a heartrate monitor. They're a little more pricey but I use it to get as close as accurate a calorie burn number as possible. I paid 60 for mine and it syncs to my iPhone. You can pay less and get it to sync to a watch.

    I've done this, I eat all my calories and don't eat the best diet and have lost over 50lbs in a year. There's gotta be something to it.
  • sarafischbach9
    sarafischbach9 Posts: 466 Member
    Hi. This is not an easy answer, because it varies widely from person to person. I personally do not base my calories burned on MFP. I record them at the gym and keep them as a memo in my phone, and then manually add my calories in when I get online later on in the day. I find that some exercises are inflated and others are pretty accurate. And some exercises are underestimated on MFP too, or at least when I compared. So it can go in either direction if you're just going by what MFP says.

    So some people have found that if they eat back their exercise calories, this helps them more. There have been people on here who hit plateaus and started eating their calories back, and then began losing again. Other people find that eating all their exercise calories back does not help them, so they only eat some or half, or 80% back.

    So I think it all depends on you. I think it can depend on your inensity and duration of workouts too. Obviously you need to eat more on a day you exercise for 2 hours as opposed to 45 minutes, or days where you do high intensity verses a 30 minute walk around the block. Also, active jobs make a difference too.

    If you're hungry, tired or cranky, like someone else said, then yeah, you should eat some of your calories back.

    Me personally? It depends on the day and how I'm feeling. I eat in between 1200-1600. Higher intakes are with higher calories burned at the gym or a more active day; 1200-1300 is normally reserved for less active days, but again it still varies. I normally eat some of them back but not all. I am usually hungry in the evening so I do eat some kind of snack.
  • I know everyone is different, but I consistently lose MORE weight when I eat my exercise calories back. Sometimes I can't eat all of them back because I'm just not hungry, but I'll eat at least some of them back.

    It makes a huge difference for me.
  • Thanks All for your Inputs!!