To eat or not to eat???? Exercise calories

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  • chiremba
    chiremba Posts: 30 Member
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    Eat them!!! You need to net at LEAST 1200 a day or your body will go into starvation mode. Your body will think that you are not feeding it enough so it will hold on to weight in case it needs it to survive. I eat some of them back. I eat my recomended at;east and if I excersies I eat back enough to make sure I net 1200.

    I disagree, eat at least 1200 calories , exercise as much as you can/like. The exercise calories are a bonus, eat/use them if you are hungry. if you eat them back you will still lose weight because 1200 is still less that you daily requirement but you will do better is you do not eat them and more importantly by learning to eat when you are hungry ( ie responding to you body's needs) is more sustainable than calorie counting.

    EAT LESS and DO MORE
  • chiremba
    chiremba Posts: 30 Member
    Options
    Eat them!!! You need to net at LEAST 1200 a day or your body will go into starvation mode. Your body will think that you are not feeding it enough so it will hold on to weight in case it needs it to survive. I eat some of them back. I eat my recomended at;east and if I excersies I eat back enough to make sure I net 1200.

    I disagree, eat at least 1200 calories , exercise as much as you can/like. The exercise calories are a bonus, eat/use them if you are hungry. if you eat them back you will still lose weight because 1200 is still less that you daily requirement but you will do better is you do not eat them and more importantly by learning to eat when you are hungry ( ie responding to you body's needs) is more sustainable than calorie counting.

    EAT LESS and DO MORE
  • chiremba
    chiremba Posts: 30 Member
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    I dont eat them. I makesure I eat my required calories but I try not to eat the exerise calories. Sometimes I save them for something special during the week, like dinner out on saturday or cocktails witht he friends.

    I agree!!!!!!!!!!!
  • chiremba
    chiremba Posts: 30 Member
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    After wearing a BodyMedia Fit and monitoring my closer to exact daily caloric burns each day I can definitely say that you should be eating your exercise calories. If I didn't eating I'd be at well over 1000 calorie deficits every single day (which I was before the BMF and not losing a single thing and always felt tired). Now I'm losing again, my belly pooch has already started slimming a bit and I get to eat more food. That's what I call a trifecta of win. lol

    If you are hungry or feeling tired then the sensible thing to do is to eat better which may or not include eating the exercise calories. It should not be a target to consume them all
  • Jaynequ
    Jaynequ Posts: 39
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    I have clicked myself on the 'Active' section of the lifestyle assessment, and I would consider that to include 30 mins exercies 5 times a week, which is the UK recommendation for a healthy lifestyle, not a weight loss lifestyle. So I only eat back more that 30 mins moderate exercise 5 times a week.
  • Pebble321
    Pebble321 Posts: 6,554 Member
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    Eat them. You want your calorie dairy to be close to "0" at the end of the day.

    0 count means you have broken even. To do better don't eat them unless you are hungry, making sure you make a good food choice. by not eating them you even out your consumption for days that you go over eg at a dinner party .

    0 count does NOTmean that you have broken even, if you are using MFP.
    0 count at the end of the day means that you have eaten the calories MFP has calculated for you (based on the info you put in) minus the deficit MFP builds in.

    Whether you eat the cals or not is up to you, personally I eat most of them, because I know that even when I eat all my exercise calories, I STILL have a deficit at the end of the day, which will allow me to lose weight. And I know that if I'm asking my body to do extra exercise I need to give it good fuel to work on.

    So, it's up to you, but don't make the mistake of thinking that if you eat all your exercise cals you won't have a calorie deficit.
  • wolfchild59
    wolfchild59 Posts: 2,608 Member
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    After wearing a BodyMedia Fit and monitoring my closer to exact daily caloric burns each day I can definitely say that you should be eating your exercise calories. If I didn't eating I'd be at well over 1000 calorie deficits every single day (which I was before the BMF and not losing a single thing and always felt tired). Now I'm losing again, my belly pooch has already started slimming a bit and I get to eat more food. That's what I call a trifecta of win. lol

    If you are hungry or feeling tired then the sensible thing to do is to eat better which may or not include eating the exercise calories. It should not be a target to consume them all

    But if someone is creating too large of a caloric deficit for too long there is a risk of lowering your metabolism because you're not giving your body enough fuel. And I never felt hungry, plus I have poor sleep habits, so I just always attributed the tiredness to that. But since I've been eating more, even though I haven't been sleeping more, I feel less tired during the day. If I don't eat back almost or all of my exercise calories I was ending up at a 1200-1500 calorie deficit each day, which isn't healthy. Unless you're on a doctor recommended diet, a person shouldn't be doing deficits higher than 1000. Especially with my current BMI and how close I am to my final goal weight, I should really be closer to a 500 calories deficit to continue this journey in a healthy way. So without eating more of my exercise calories than I already was, I was running the risk of killing my metabolism along with the fact that I wasn't losing weight or inches.

    I was totally one of the people saying not to eat back all of the exercise calories, but seeing real numbers, charts and data on what my body burns and needs on a daily basis I discovered that the folks telling everyone to eat back those calories (as long as you have your basic settings correct/true to your lifestyle in MFP) are right.
  • chiremba
    chiremba Posts: 30 Member
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    Eat them. You want your calorie dairy to be close to "0" at the end of the day.

    0 count means you have broken even. To do better don't eat them unless you are hungry, making sure you make a good food choice. by not eating them you even out your consumption for days that you go over eg at a dinner party .

    0 count does NOTmean that you have broken even, if you are using MFP.
    0 count at the end of the day means that you have eaten the calories MFP has calculated for you (based on the info you put in) minus the deficit MFP builds in.

    Whether you eat the cals or not is up to you, personally I eat most of them, because I know that even when I eat all my exercise calories, I STILL have a deficit at the end of the day, which will allow me to lose weight. And I know that if I'm asking my body to do extra exercise I need to give it good fuel to work on.

    So, it's up to you, but don't make the mistake of thinking that if you eat all your exercise cals you won't have a calorie deficit.

    Point taken, I meant if you have a 0 balance you have a pass mark, in school that would be a "C' and as in life not everyone can be an A-student or wants to an A student but I feel that we should encouge everyone to reach their full potential. the reason we are all overweight is that we have been " under achieving". I concern reading the threads is the obsession with numbers what can and cannot be eaten when the best thing is to

    DO MORE and EAT LESS

    If you did this without calorie counting you would still lose weight and maintain a healthy weight. I do not pay too much attention to the numbers, the actual activity of maintaining a diary has made me change my food choices and comit to a life still change. I still end up with a 300 cal surplus on most days without trying to hard and not being hungry. I know I didn't get overweight overnight. I have lost 40kg in 5 months before but gained it all back because I was doing things that did not come naturally to me so I could not sustain them. The numbers are a guide for me but really I'm just

    EATING LESS AND DOING MORE
  • backinthenines
    backinthenines Posts: 1,083 Member
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    The absolutely best advice on the subject is on this thread.

    No armchair experts, just clear professional advice.

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/173853-an-objective-look-at-eating-exercise-calories
  • chiremba
    chiremba Posts: 30 Member
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    Eat them. You want your calorie dairy to be close to "0" at the end of the day.


    WHY?
  • meggonkgonk
    meggonkgonk Posts: 2,066 Member
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    Eat them. You want your calorie dairy to be close to "0" at the end of the day.


    WHY?

    Because it is the way the MFP tool was designed. If you go and read the FAQ's and look at your "GOALS" page you will see that your goal is meant to be in NET calories. When you sign up, MFP calculates an estimate of how much your body burns in a day- based on age, height, weight, gender and activity level (this number can be found on your "GOALS" page as well, it's labelled "Calories Burned from Daily Activity"). Then you select how much you wish to lose per week, and MFP creates a deficit base on this. For 1lb, this means 500 calories a day.

    This often leads to confusion because most diet and exercise plans use both exercise and diet to create this deficit. For those plans however, if you miss a workout your deficit is reduced. With MFP you have to account for and properly fuel each specific workout. Reduced calories over a long period of time (typically weeks) often leads your metabolism to slow to preserve itself, so you will need continually less calories to lose. Not only does this throw off all of MFP's calculations for you (making the tool essentially useless) it also deprives your body of necessary nutrition and energy. Where as if you keep your calories up, your metabolism will stay where and how it is- so you will be able to eat more (especially if you are getting these calories in a healthy way) and still lose consistently.

    Eating less and doing more is great to an extent, but like everything else it should be done in moderation. Many of us are on MFP to relearn eating habits- eating enough is just as important as not eating too much.

    I hope this clarifies the why behind eating exercise calories.

    Best,
    Gonks

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