Calories burned from exercise?

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jenniferlorraine88
jenniferlorraine88 Posts: 6
in Fitness and Exercise
Hi everyone. I'm new here. I'm just wondering about something -- when I burn calories through exercise and those calories are then added back to my daily allotment, do I HAVE to eat them? For example, I'm allowed 1600 calories a day. I just burned 360 calories with my workout, so now it says my daily allotment is 1960 calories. I guess I'm a little confused. Any help would be appreciated :smile: Thanks in advance!

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  • ME0172
    ME0172 Posts: 200
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    You don't have to eat them back if you don't want to. Go by how you feel. Some people do - some people don't. It all depends on your energy level and how you feel.
  • jenniferlorraine88
    jenniferlorraine88 Posts: 6
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    Thank you :) That helps. I guess I'm scared of not eating enough during the day and that hindering my weight loss. I'm 5'11 and 185 lbs and eating 1600 calories a day to lose 1.5 lbs/week.
  • scottjoh
    scottjoh Posts: 77 Member
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    You might try eating back only half just to make sure you aren't over estimating your exercise calories (especially if you are going by MFP's default #'s for each exercise).
  • thegilly6
    thegilly6 Posts: 137 Member
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    Dealer's choice. I'm trying to build some muscle tone (lifting heavy) so I make sure I'm back filling with some good protein calories.
  • TeaBea
    TeaBea Posts: 14,517 Member
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    Hi everyone. I'm new here. I'm just wondering about something -- when I burn calories through exercise and those calories are then added back to my daily allotment, do I HAVE to eat them? For example, I'm allowed 1600 calories a day. I just burned 360 calories with my workout, so now it says my daily allotment is 1960 calories. I guess I'm a little confused. Any help would be appreciated :smile: Thanks in advance!

    MFP gave you a calorie deficit BEFORE exercise. That way people who can't/won't exercise still lose weight. Not eating back any calories will result in faster "weight" loss. The reason I quote "weight" is this, when you lose too quickly your body will use muscle mass for fuel. So you will lose fat+muscle.

    I don't know if your weekly goal was already aggressive, but use the guide below. As other members have said, using calorie burns from machines & MFP can be inflated.

    Pounds per week
    75+ lbs to lose 2 lb range
    Between 40 - 75 lbs to lose 1.5 lb range
    Between 25-40 lbs to lose 1 lb range
    Between 15-25 lbs to lose 1 -.50 lb range
    Less than 15 lbs to lose 0.5 lbs range
  • jenniferlorraine88
    jenniferlorraine88 Posts: 6
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    Thanks everyone :)

    TeaBea -- I had calculated my BMR and it was around 1697 I believe. So that's what I'd burn per day by just lying in bed not moving. I totally understand what you mean about "weight" loss not just being fat, but can also be muscle loss. I don't really think I have a lot of muscle on my body, although I do weight train, I had my bodyfat tested in October and it was 37% which is horrendous, leading me to believe I have little muscle on my body. I'd like to just lose fat for now and then on maintenance I can hit the weights hard.

    I'd like to lose 25 lbs, possibly 30.
  • mxmkenney
    mxmkenney Posts: 486 Member
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    I eat back half of them, mainly because I get hungry when I work out. I would not recommend eating back all of them though, because MFP seems to have really high estimates for calories burned.
  • chelstakencharge
    chelstakencharge Posts: 1,021 Member
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    I never eat back exercise calories
  • monstergirl14
    monstergirl14 Posts: 345 Member
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    Hi everyone. I'm new here. I'm just wondering about something -- when I burn calories through exercise and those calories are then added back to my daily allotment, do I HAVE to eat them? For example, I'm allowed 1600 calories a day. I just burned 360 calories with my workout, so now it says my daily allotment is 1960 calories. I guess I'm a little confused. Any help would be appreciated :smile: Thanks in advance!

    I would follow the advice from the other posters.. but what I really wanted to say, is that your cat is adorable!
  • jenniferlorraine88
    jenniferlorraine88 Posts: 6
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    Aw, thank you! He'd my little love bug. :blushing: He was a rescue kitten that I happened to "meet" at the animal shelter I went to 3 weeks after my longtime cat of 16 years passed away. He has healed my heart! :heart:
  • jenniferlorraine88
    jenniferlorraine88 Posts: 6
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    Ah, I like this plan. I will try eating back half then. I'm considering getting one of those Polar heart-rate monitor watches so I can more accurately determine my calories burned from exercise.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
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    Well, if you set up your profile the way MFP tells you to then exercise is an unaccounted for activity. Not properly fueling fitness activity can ultimately be detrimental to your fitness goals as well as recovery from exercise. Exercise is good for you...but it also breaks down the body...the more vigorous the effort, the more you are breaking down the body...the more important nutrients and properly fueling that activity becomes.

    Look at it this way...if MFP gives you a calorie goal of 1500 calories to lose 1 Lb per week, that means MFP is estimating your NON EXERCISE maintenance to be around 2,000 calories....so you have a 500 calorie daily deficit built in. Now you go for a nice run and burn 300 calories...so MFP adds those calories to your 1500 calorie goal and now you have 1,800 calories...but you're still at a 500 calorie deficit because now you are also accounting for exercise in your maintenance number which would also increase by that some 300 calorie burn; so maintenance becomes 2,300 calories and 2,300 - 1,800 = 500 calorie deficit still.

    If you actually want to get into fitness and be fit and healthy it's actually pretty important to learn how to properly fuel exercise activity. Nobody here who is super fit is underfeeding their body...underfeeding your body is a recipe for bonking on your fitness and accomplishing virtually nothing from a fitness standpoint.

    The challenging part of MFP is not overestimating your calorie burn, which a great many people do...often substantially so.
  • jenniferlorraine88
    jenniferlorraine88 Posts: 6
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    ^^ Thank you! That's super helpful. I don't want to overestimate my calorie burn so maybe eating half to three-quarters of my calories burned would be better than eating all of them just in case I do overestimate my calorie burn.
  • Coraeth
    Coraeth Posts: 4 Member
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    Hi,

    I only eat what I am allowing myself to eat for you it would be like 1600 calories. And everything I burn off is extra that way even if you over estimate you can still be losing weight PLUS! it will help you lost faster. Never eat what you burn is what I am trying to say. This also makes a big difference on days where you may not go to the gym or workout because you will be used to eating only what your allowed that way you wont over eat on those days. hope this helps.

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