"You've EARNED 250 extra calories from your workout today"

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mollysmomma81709
mollysmomma81709 Posts: 30 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Okay, I have always taken that to mean that if I work out and burn 250 calories, then I can eat that much more and still be at my target caloric intake for the day. Then I read an article that said something like "if you burn 250 calories, make sure and subtract that from your meal plans. Burning extra calories doesn't give you a free pass to splurge." I guess that's EXACTLY what I thought it meant.

Any input??

Replies

  • dmenchac
    dmenchac Posts: 447 Member
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    Eat 60% of your exercise calories back. And what you read is correct. You can't just splurge just because you exercised.
  • mollysmomma81709
    mollysmomma81709 Posts: 30 Member
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    But as long as I stay at 1250 calories for the day, where's the harm?
  • Pascal56
    Pascal56 Posts: 53 Member
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    You can eat the 250 back if you want to. Just be sure you don't go beyond it. Some advocate only eating half or so back to account for any counting inaccuracies.
  • rljohnsufl
    rljohnsufl Posts: 48
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    I say, eat the 250 extra calories and see if you are losing weight. If not, you may have to re-evaluate and stop eating back the exercise calories or only eat some back.

    Personally, exercise makes me want to eat more, but not as much as MFP seems to think. On those days I eat more of healthy food. I may get a soup and sandwich instead of soup and salad. Last night I got a bag of potato chips because I burned 400 calories but I don't want to make that a habit! :wink:

    However, I don't think it would be good to binge on junk food just because you exercised. You get more calories because your body needs more nutrition and energy to recover so that's what you should focus on.
  • dmenchac
    dmenchac Posts: 447 Member
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    But as long as I stay at 1250 calories for the day, where's the harm?

    If you are on a 1250 calorie diet and you burn 250, it means your body only has 1000 calories to work with for that day. You will break down quite fast on 1000 calories per day.

    You should probably be eating much more than 1250 as it is. Let me guess you put in 2 lbs a week weight loss?
  • asciiqwerty
    asciiqwerty Posts: 565 Member
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    or get more accurate with your food log and eat all of them back

    whatever works for you
  • Lizzy622
    Lizzy622 Posts: 3,705 Member
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    All the numbers and calculators are estimates, as are the food calorie counts. Due to a hypo active thyroid, I know that my exercise calorie burns are less than the estimates and do not eat the full amount. Yes you can eat your "earned calories" but be aware that it is an estimate and you may want to eat a little under to be safe.
  • livinatthegym
    livinatthegym Posts: 81 Member
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    agree with post above. And be careful if you are getting those calories from a machine (treadmill, bike, stair climber) Studies show that even if you enter your weight and age they can be up to 30% off (telling you you burned more than you did). As a general rule if my treadmill says i did 1,000 calories I take 25% off for 750, divide that by 50% for 375 calories and that is what I add to my diet. It seems to be working well (for me at least).
  • JTick
    JTick Posts: 2,131 Member
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    MFP uses a NEAT calculator to generate your calorie goal. In other words, it doesn't include your exercise. It expects you to eat at least part of those calories back, or you risk creating too high of a deficit.

    Articles that say "don't eat them back" are probably looking at a TDEE calculator. These calculators already account for exercise, so you don't eat them back.

    Also keep in mind that most people who read weight loss articles don't log their food, weigh their food, etc. The article telling them not to eat those calories back is removing the error from them eating more than they think they are.
  • No_Finish_Line
    No_Finish_Line Posts: 3,662 Member
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    to answer you initial question, yes that is exactly right.

    perhaps when the article said 'subtract it from your meal plan' they meant, if you've eaten 1500 cals, then subtract 250 from that, so your net cals so far for the day woudl be 1250. 'not an excuse to splurg' might just be a reminder that you've only bought yourself 250 cals worth and not a whole pizza
  • No_Finish_Line
    No_Finish_Line Posts: 3,662 Member
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    i mean, the only other way to interpret 'subtract that from your meal plan' would be to take a 1250 calorie goal and change it to 1000 cals if you burnt 250 through exercise, which makes no sense at all.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
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    Okay, I have always taken that to mean that if I work out and burn 250 calories, then I can eat that much more and still be at my target caloric intake for the day. Then I read an article that said something like "if you burn 250 calories, make sure and subtract that from your meal plans. Burning extra calories doesn't give you a free pass to splurge." I guess that's EXACTLY what I thought it meant.

    Any input??

    Your first assumption is correct. MFP gives you a calorie goal assuming you are not exercising. That represents a certain deficit (like 500 caloires) below your maintenance level. If you exercise on top of that then your maintenance level of calories increases and so the amount of calories you eat increases to stay at that 500 calorie deficit.

    If you burn 250 calories you should eat 250 calories more. The complication comes in getting accurate estimates of your calories burned. Many people assume those estimates are overestimates and to fudge they eat back 50-75% of what they burn so they eat say 125-175 calories extra with a 250 cal burn.
  • mollysmomma81709
    mollysmomma81709 Posts: 30 Member
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    Thanks everybody. That makes a lot of sense. I'll try and eat back only half of it so as to allow for errors in counting.
  • mollysmomma81709
    mollysmomma81709 Posts: 30 Member
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    Yes I did. Is that bad? I read that to maintain your current weight you should take in 1000% of your weight. So if you weight 165 and want to stay at 165, you should take in 1650 calories a day. Is that right?
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
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    Yes I did. Is that bad? I read that to maintain your current weight you should take in 1000% of your weight. So if you weight 165 and want to stay at 165, you should take in 1650 calories a day. Is that right?

    No that is not right, not sure where you read that from. Its not that simple. After all do you think a 165 pounds 5' tall bodybuilder with 8% bodyfat has the same maintenance calories as a 165 pound 5'6 tall sedentary woman with 36% bodyfat? No.
  • dmenchac
    dmenchac Posts: 447 Member
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    Yes I did. Is that bad? I read that to maintain your current weight you should take in 1000% of your weight. So if you weight 165 and want to stay at 165, you should take in 1650 calories a day. Is that right?

    No

    Calculate your BMR and TDEE

    Your caloric intake to maintain depends a lot on your activity level.

    Someone who weighs 165 who works out 7 days a week will need A TON more calories than someone who weighs the same but is in a coma.
  • StaciMarie1974
    StaciMarie1974 Posts: 4,138 Member
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    IMO 250 calories is not a splurge. Some people may take a machine readout saying they burned 750 calories during a 30 minute session and use that a justification for eating a huge amount of food. Harmful in terms of reaching your goal because the machine readouts are often high.

    If you have a more accurate measure of calories burned (such as a heart rate monitor) or you're already going for a big deficit (like 1.5-2 pounds per week) then eating back your exercise calories to some extent is a good idea.

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