Should I eat my exercise calories?

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  • bayles1
    bayles1 Posts: 408 Member
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    Yes,if you eat around half back as generally suggested,you will be on the right track.
  • kimcat73
    kimcat73 Posts: 687 Member
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    For the standard 1 - 2 lb a week weight loss based off of the allotted calorie intake from calorie tracking sites like MFP and LS, you are supposed to keep that net calorie goal; i.e. 1200 in your case; so burning 500 calories means you would need to eat an additional 500 to keep it at a net intake of 1200. Which applies to kamcat73's post.

    You may lose more weight [faster] than that by not eating all of your exercise calories back. Then again, people's bodies all react differently to intake, therefore people like Cycle4Fun may not agree with eating all of them back. Personally, I eat about half that amount. It may not be within the same day, but in my overall logged records on LS, I've currently consumed roughly 490K calories and burned about 885K since May of last year, and lost over 120 lbs since then.

    Your loss is impressive! Congrats! :)
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,293 Member
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    Not if you want to lose weight, and certainly not when you are not hungry.

    Bad Advice. MFP gives you a deficit to lose your goal amount of weight at 1200 and to ensure that deficit remains the same you must eat your exercise calories, this will ensure you lose your goal amount of weight
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,293 Member
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    but doesn't eating your burned calories defeat the purpose?

    No, if you don't eat them your caloirc deficit can grow to greater than 1000 which may lead to burning muscle not fat which would slow your metabolism down.
  • koolgurl84
    koolgurl84 Posts: 35
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    Thanks for the advice everyone. I will start taking in some of my exercise calories from here out. I havent really had a problem yet, with the way i've been eating but I know soon or later I will run into those stubborn lbs.
  • scagneti
    scagneti Posts: 707 Member
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    but doesn't eating your burned calories defeat the purpose?

    Exercise does more than just burn calories. If you don't exercise, you can still lose weight, but you won't have the fabulous lean muscle mass that goes along with regular exercise. Plus it gets the heart/blood pumping and tones the body.

    You can see the difference between someone at 150lbs who exercises and who just relies on dieting.
  • Spunkitude
    Spunkitude Posts: 1 Member
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    I used to follow Weight Watchers (WW) and it worked very well for me (when the leader of the group was a good leader). I have only recently started using My Fitness Pal everyday and love it. However, when in WW, I started by just reducing the food I ate and just ate my normal "points". This worked well for awhile. Then I worked in some exercise and didn't eat my exercise points. This worked for a few weeks and I dropped really fast. It was GREAT! However, then I hit a plateau that lasted about a month and I got really frustrated. I talked to the WW leader (a good one!), she looked at my food journal and immediately said "You are not eating your exercise points. You are in starvation mode. Eat your excercise points this week and tell me how it works." I thought she was a bit crazy but gave it a try and I started losing again at a nice steady rate. Therefore, I always eat all or almost all of my exercise points or exercise calories (I try to be within 50calories of the goal the My Fitness Pal give me now that I follow the My Fitness Pal and not WW.) This has helped me lose 11 pounds since Jan 1.
  • freerange
    freerange Posts: 1,722 Member
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    "but doesn't eating your burned calories defeat the purpose?"


    No, if your diet is already based on losing weight you should already be in deficit. So if you eat back your exercise calories you will still lose weight. If you eat only half of your exercise calories you should lose more weight, unless you are not eating enough and go into starvation mode, like mentioned above. So it all depends on your current weight, you weight loss goals, and how fast you want to lose weight.
  • danielled6875
    danielled6875 Posts: 53 Member
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    bump
  • antipholous
    antipholous Posts: 116
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    Why would you eat your exercise calories if you're trying to lose weight. The only way to lose weight is to create a calorie deficit so that your body is forced to pull from its storage (your fat cells) to reach its calorie requirement. This process burns fat, and loses weight.

    If you're already exactly where you want to be, then you'll need to eat the exercise calories back to maintain your weight.
  • fit_in_MN
    fit_in_MN Posts: 1
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    You need to be very careful when consuming less than 1200 calories per day - you will likely affect muscle mass rather than fat loss and that is the LAST thing you should do! In this instance it's NOT simply a "calories burned vs calories consumed" scenario. If you are having trouble consuming enough to meet your caloric goals, change the nature of your diet so that you don't fall below 1200.
    I speak from experience that eating so little will likely stall your weight loss and negatively impact your exercise - not what you want for a lasting, life-long attitude to health!

    Good luck!
  • ib5150
    ib5150 Posts: 3
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    I don't know if you got a response to your question about eating exercise cals back. But here is the reason. The deficit you are speaking of is already built into the daily calorie consumption number. So if you eat your target cals for the day, you will already be at your target deficit. Having said this....when you exercise you are creating a bigger deficit that might not be condusive to weight loss. If for example, you set up your goals to lose 2 lbs per week, then your daily calorie amount already has a 1000 cal deficit built into it.
    So if you eat your cal goal, and then burn off an additional 800 cals during exercise, you have now created a 1800 cal deficit which may not be healthy for your metabolism. This is why the exercise cals should be eaten back to put you back to the 1000 cal deficit that is healthy for a 2 lbs a week loss.
  • lipglossjunky73
    lipglossjunky73 Posts: 497 Member
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    I would say yes - because if you don't eat enough calories you could put your body into starvation mode and then you won't loose weight. I would say try and eat those calories if you can.

    starvation mode is only when she has been starving for such a long time, has no body fat left, and the body is forced to do whatever she can to survive. Not many people ever get to that point. At least not people who have access to computers...

    Edited to add: I rarely eat them back - and that was the only way I was able to lose weight.
  • ZebraHead
    ZebraHead Posts: 15,207 Member
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    Here's what I think about this:

    Beating_A_Dead_Horse.gif

    P.S. Please see this in the 'fun' spirit that it was intended, and not as a 'mean' response...

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