Question for those who DO eat their exercise calories...

I've asked this before and was told it was negligable.(spelling)
I eat them all if I feel like it and am losing. :O)
Best of luck.

I eat them when it's a particularly hard workout and I'm feeling particulcarly hungry. The key for me is eating enough that I don't go crazy and binge.

I would eat the whole 500 back, although I usually have about 100 cals leftover at the end of the day anyway, just in case I forgot/miscalculated something so I suppose that makes up for resting calories.

Even if you eat every last one I don't think it would make that much of a difference unless you are exercising and recording HRM readings for a good part of the day. I don't see less than an hours resting calories that you've eaten, going to be anything substantial.

I believe that you ought to take off your BMR calories from any exercise that you do... But the big question is going to be; Is the exercise calculator that you are using correct. I always wear a Zephyr HxM heart monitor when exercising and you will be surprised how different the figure is from what an online calculator gives. Usually 25% lower. Then I take off my BMR calories of 110 per hour to get a final figure that I eat.

I would argue that if you don't do this accurately what is the point of counting calories at all! If you are going to ignore 100 calories here or there you might as well not be bothering at all.



Regards,

Chris, just added my calories from 10.8 miles road cycling. 580 as opposed to 740 calculator gives. 75% in fat burn or aerobic zones.

I eat some or all of my excercise calories. When they set your goals they give you a date (in 5 months etc. ) Example If you eat less than 1500 calories you will loose a total of 20lbs by July 20th. (5month). When you work off 500 calories, your speeding up your burning potential in your muscles, and also working out your heart! Many benefits come from exercise obviously. The biggie is your metabolism continues to rev more through the day actually burning more calories while at rest. Youre body would still not gain if you ate all your exercise calories. You are actually putting your body into calorie deficient when you exercise. So I would say go for it, that's the pay off of exercise, it allows you a few more goodies in the day. As long as you maintain your actual calorie (plus workout calorie)goal you will lose I promise!!!!

I look at it this way: 1.You are NOT going to gain if you eat your exercise calories. 2. If you don't eat your exercise calories you might lose a few extra pounds quicker, but you might burn yourself out or at times get so hungry that you go off your program just to satisfy an enormous craving. 3. I reward myself when I work out, I dont' eat like a mad woman but I make myself work out hard so it would allow me a few extra calories incase of a huge craving later in the day. 1500 calories isn't a whole lot of food, so to maintain my goal and stay satisfied ( and if I want that chocolate ice cream before bedtime) I have to work out before going to work in the morning! It's all give and take! I have stopped eating blindly I know now instead of eating that brownie I look at a brownie and think "Man that is like an Hour and a half on the treadmill!!!!!) Good luck

Some days I eat them all back, some days I dont eat them all. But I always eat some of them. I wouldnt think that it would matter that much if you took out the 100 that you would usually burn resting instead of running. I dont worry about that with any of my workouts. Plus its a good idea to vary how many calories you eat a day hope this helps!

I don't worry too much about the extra calories from my BMR because it's not typically that many and I figure that the elevated heart rate and sped up metabolism the rest of the day balances things out. My BMR is 1350ish so that's only 56 calories an hour (so 28 for a half hour). I'd like to believe that I burn more than that after exercising for the increased heart rate while I'm cooling down and the afterburn.

it depends on what you used to measure the calories you burned. Some HRM's take RMR into account when calculating exercise calories. Others, Polar for instance, does NOT remove RMR calories.

For most people RMR is between 90 and 130 calories per hour. For me it's about 120 (assuming I sleep for 8 hours), so when I do my 35 or 40 minute workout I usually subtract about 70 calories from it (since I have a polar), OR I won't start my HRM until after my 5 minute warm up is done, and I stop it before I do my 5 minute cooldown, it just about evens out the calories. It depends on what I feel like doing that day.

If you're talking about using the MFP calculations, well, that's really generic anyway, so using it is a crap shoot, so I can't really give you an answer. Really, if you're worried about RMR and exercise calories, you should have an HRM already, if not, then you're relying on MFP to be correct for YOU, which it almost certainly isn't.

Mine is about a calorie per minute (5'2" and 125). Since I use an HRM I do subtract my resting calories. Of course if I didn't it probably wouldn't make a big difference in the day. I work out for an hour and I'm subtracting a little over 60 calories. If I ate that it wouldn't hurt.

Thank you everyone for the replies...ESP to the the people who actually answered my question!!

My question was not wether to eat exercise calories or not...but rather to subtract your BMR cals from exercise cals or not.

I honestly don't think it makes a difference...maybe I'm wrong

I log my exercise as my cals burned during exercise - cals burned from normal activity(not BMR)

Hope that helps

it depends on what you used to measure the calories you burned. Some HRM's take RMR into account when calculating exercise calories. Others, Polar for instance, does NOT remove RMR calories.

For most people RMR is between 90 and 130 calories per hour. For me it's about 120 (assuming I sleep for 8 hours), so when I do my 35 or 40 minute workout I usually subtract about 70 calories from it (since I have a polar), OR I won't start my HRM until after my 5 minute warm up is done, and I stop it before I do my 5 minute cooldown, it just about evens out the calories. It depends on what I feel like doing that day.

If you're talking about using the MFP calculations, well, that's really generic anyway, so using it is a crap shoot, so I can't really give you an answer. Really, if you're worried about RMR and exercise calories, you should have an HRM already, if not, then you're relying on MFP to be correct for YOU, which it almost certainly isn't.

Mine is about a calorie per minute (5'2" and 125). Since I use an HRM I do subtract my resting calories. Of course if I didn't it probably wouldn't make a big difference in the day. I work out for an hour and I'm subtracting a little over 60 calories. If I ate that it wouldn't hurt.

That sounds super low, even for someone as little as you. How did you get to that conclusion? You didn't use an HRM did you? Most HRM's don't do very well calculating non-exercise heart rates.

I eat mine back, though I may just have elevated calorie needs because I seem to lose consistently on 1800 calories/day.

it depends mostly on your age, height, weight, activity level, lean tissue levels, and exercise. I.E. everyone's different. A heightened metabolic rate is simply someone who does more daily activity than others, unless you have a metabolic condition like hyperthyroidism I guess ( note that's hypER, not hypO. Or an overactive thyroid. Don't wish for it guys, I know a few people who have it, it's a horrible condition, worse than obesity any day of the week, trust me. But you'd know it if you had it.)

Considering that your metabo is raised for a long time after your cardio is finished, I would think that subtracting your RMR isn't necessary. I eat all my exercise cals and lose 2 pounds a week.