Do you eat back your calories from excercise?

For me, I set my exercise level to sedentary. I am a full time working mom, two kids, in a two story home. I walk a lot and do a lot of stairs.

I try to err on the side of caution when I log my food, and therefore when I exercise, I log all my cals. I use an HRM.

I eat back almost all of my exercise cals and have since I started on MFP two years ago.
When I started, I was struggling with those last ten pounds, which I firmly believed I would never lose. Ever.

I've lost close to twenty. Strictly by keeping at a very mild deficit (I've lost 5 pounds since I switched to maintenance), busting my *kitten* with my workouts, and eating what I want as long as it fits in my total cals for the day (including exercise cals). Yesterday... I burned around 1200 cals, and ate close to 3000.

If you are weighing your food, and being honest with your effort... there is no reason why, if you are following the MFP method, you can't safely eat at least 50 - 75% of your exercise cals back.

I think it depends on how much you have to lose and how large a deficit you have built into the MFP numbers already. If you have a relatively small amount of weight to lose and you have your MFP deficit set to 1lb per week and you are exercising a couple of hundred calories per day, then you can probably get away with not eating them back. However if you are set to a 2lb per week loss and exercising 500+ calories per day, then you should probably eat some of them back. When I started on MFP I was on 1680 calories with a 2lb per week goal and at my doctor's instruction I did not eat my exercise calories back. I lost weight and MFP lowered my calories down to 1230, which was still at 2lb per week deficit. But I could no longer recover from my exercise as well. I calculated my TDEE and discovered I was eating at a > 50% deficit. I switched to the TDEE method and increased my calories so that I eat the same amount each day and still lose 2lb per week. As my goal gets closer I'll reduce the deficit further.


It also depends on how you are getting your exercise calorie numbers. The MFP numbers are often significantly higher than those from my HRM. For example, MFP has 596 for my morning bike ride and my HRM has around 300 calories. When possible I get the calories from my HRM. When I don't have my HRM I typically use half the MFP calorie number. If you are using the MFP calorie number, you might want to try eating about 50% of your exercise calories back.

I try not to.....but sometimes, I'm too hungry.

1200 calories is not enough some days.

okay... so....

this thread again.


MFP is already set up so you lose weight. If you don't work out AT ALL, you're already at a caloric deficit.

Now, that said, the calorie burn estimates that MFP gives off are... well.. just that... estimates. Not eating back at least 50-75% of your calories isn't really doing you any favors.

If you're using MFP as it is designed, then you eat the calories back.

^^^ THIS! :flowerforyou:

I try not to, because then what was the reason for exercising?

Fitness and health is the reason for exercise.

Re: eating calories back.....MFP gave you a deficit BEFORE exercise. If the purpose of exercise was "just to burn calories" ....then eating them back would be silly. But many people exercise to maintain muscle mass while dieting....this only works when the calorie deficit is not too big.

Eat calories back* if you want to look good.

Don't eat calories back if you want the SCALE to look good.

*MFP and many machines give generous calorie estimates. Many MFP'ers eat a % back....say 60%.

when i was actively losing weight i did not eat them, but now that i'm at my target weight, i eat and drink them all!

If I'm hungry I eat them back, if not I leave it be. Keep it simple, don't be afraid to eat them back.