Do you eat back your exercise calories?

Yes, I eat back between 50%-100% of them depending on how hungry I am that day.

Some of them. It's a nice reward for getting my butt out there in the 100 degrees and doing something.

I will sometimes eat some of them. Sometimes I do not eat any of them. I have never eaten all of them. I personally try to burn between 300 and 500 calories a day. To me, I see it as extra weight loss. Everyone is different though. I have a lot of weight to loss and am trying to get it off quickly.

Not always, if I do eat them back a bit sometimes, I don't freak out too much.

It depends, I work a pretty active job, so if I have a day where I work an 8 hour shift, and also happen to do a walk. run, zumba, whatever, I'll eat back somewhere between 50-100% of those calories. I basically just judge by if I'm extra hungry.

If it's a day where I'm off, and other than a short workout, I've been pretty lazy, I'll probably eat back more like 0-30%.

I don't unless I have a massive calorie burn day that makes me extra hungry - then I eat back some of them.

I don't usually eat all the exercise calories. On days when I do a long bike run oddly enough I'm not always super hungry.

I eat somewhere between half and all of them back. I'm on a pretty low calorie goal though (1200) so eating back some helps me keep to that goal. I also tend to lowball my exercise calories because I think MFP calculates them too high for a lot of activities.

I do most of the time and after 11 weeks, I avg 2.5 lbs down a week.

Yep I eat back roughly 85% of my calories burned through exercise leaving 15% for error in calculations and lost weight... I am a firm believer that you must fuel your body for the workout you are demanding of it to do....... Best of Luck

I did not used to eat them back and I was seeing regular consistent weight loss. Now that I have started to (mostly cause I have lost track of eating right/appropriate amounts) I do, but I have seen nearly no weight loss since that started.

The advice from a personal trainer and physical therapist were to NOT eat back what MFP recommended because it was much too high. At first I was eating them back, but now I will not. I am just starting to work out regularly and it makes me proud to not eat them back.

this is what I was told and so I usually don't eat any of mine back.

I eat back a little, but not much at all.

Yep I eat back roughly 85% of my calories burned through exercise leaving 15% for error in calculations and lost weight... I am a firm believer that you must fuel your body for the workout you are demanding of it to do....... Best of Luck

^^^ Hmm.. ok, thinking aloud here.. If I eat back most of my calories, I won't have much of a calorie deficit. So, how will my body experience a weight loss? Wouldn't what you suggested be more relevant closer to the maintenance period? I am just wondering how it works..

The idea is that you already establish a calorie deficit. Say your BMR + your activity level works out to you needing 2400 calories a day just to maintain your current weight. A 500 calorie per day reduction should work out to roughly 1 lb per week of weight loss. So you target 1900 calories per day to lose 1 pound per week.

So, if on a given day you eat exactly 1900 calories, but then go for a run and burn 500 calories, you have now netted only 1400 calories for the day because you just burned 500 calories you had not previously accounted for in your calculations (BMR + sedentary, nowhere in there is a 500 calorie burn figured in).

Given that, if you eat back that 500 calories, you are still on target to lose 1 pound per week, because that puts you back to your 1900 "net calories/day" goal.

For me, why this is important is that I am targeting 2 pounds per week of weight loss, which is about as high of a safe recommended level that any sane long term weight loss is good for. That means a net reduction of 1000 calories per day. If I do a long run burning 800 calories, plus that 1000 calorie deficit, I have a total deficit of 1800 calories that day, roughly a 3.5 pound per week calorie reduction. That is not sustainable long term, my body will run out of energy or start storing extra energy as fat to compensate for not taking in enough.

That's the theory.

All I know is that I am still losing 2 pounds per week after several weeks of eating back my calories. I'm happy with that. It works. Keep in mind that my target daily calories is a 1000 calorie reduction to begin with, so I am only eating back calories to that point, so that in total I have a 1000 calorie per day reduction even after eating back the exercise calories. If I don't exercise, I don't eat anything back.