Eat more on workout days?

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Jenni_MFP
Jenni_MFP Posts: 36 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Hello! Hope someone more knowledgeable than me can help me with this question :)

I'm a female, and I know that the bare minimum calorie requirement for women is 1200 calories per day. My daily calorie target is 1200 - 1400 calories per day. I usually try to keep it closer to 1200 but I give myself a range so that I don't go too crazy with the counting. When I log my exercise into MFP, it deducts this from the calories I have taken in... so that if I burned 300 calories, the tracker basically tells me I should eat 300 more calories to make up for it.

This doesn't seem right to me. I would hope that exercising would result in a little bit of a calorie deficit to help with weight loss, and that I shouldn't be trying to "make it up". If you look at my food diary for today (fell off the tracking wagon for a few weeks, so the last 3 - 4 weeks are not accurate), I am eating a LOT of food today. I can't possibly bring myself to eat more. I have a hard time getting that much food in!

So my question is... should I disregard what MFP tells me? If I burn 300 calories, and then my total calories taken in minus the calories burned now becomes less than 1200... do I still need to try and make up the difference?

Replies

  • Jenni_MFP
    Jenni_MFP Posts: 36 Member
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    bump :)
  • SideSteel
    SideSteel Posts: 11,068 Member
    edited October 2014
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    Please see here: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/818082/exercise-calories-again-wtf/p1
  • jsalzat
    jsalzat Posts: 225 Member
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    I wouldn't consider myself more "knowledgeable" than anyone else on this site, but I have used the calorie tracking tools as a point of reference more than anything else. When I don't log my calories, I tend to eat more without regard to how many calories I'm consuming, which tends to be more than I would estimate in my mind. The exercise calories provide me a little extra margin for error, not an obligation to eat more. Weight loss comes from consuming less than what I'm burning, so accurate logging is a much higher priority than worrying about whether I'm eating enough.
  • SarcasmIsMyLoveLanguage
    SarcasmIsMyLoveLanguage Posts: 2,671 Member
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    Read Side Steel's link he posted above. He's pretty much a god on these MFP forums. He explains a lot of things really well.
  • Jesssamesssa
    Jesssamesssa Posts: 116 Member
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    Yes. I lift weights and I eat 1400-1600 cal a day depending on how hard I lifted that day.
  • lili61
    lili61 Posts: 231 Member
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    You should probably be eating more anyway, regardless of exercise. 1200 is very low and combined with not eating your exercise calories back creates a really high deficit. This might speed up weight loss but is probably not sustainable.

    Personally I eat back about half of my exercise calories most of the time, sometimes more if I feel hungrier.
  • Jenni_MFP
    Jenni_MFP Posts: 36 Member
    edited November 2014
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    Didn't notice the responses until now, thanks! I agree 1200 is low, and I am trying to keep my intake closer to 1400... but factoring in exercise, I dont really know how to manage this unless I start smearing butter or ice cream all over my food. I eat a lot right now, it just happens to not add up to many calories.

    Off to read the link from SideSteel :)
  • steff274
    steff274 Posts: 227 Member
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    we eat more when we workout to sustain ourselves.. Bit different for me because I am actually maintaining and making sure I don't lose anymore weight!! If you are extra hungry on the days you have worked out then eat a few more calories :) If you don't feel like you need them then don't ;)
  • Fujiberry
    Fujiberry Posts: 400 Member
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    Yup. I eat more on workout days. If I'm going to work my butt off, I need the extra energy.
  • librarydebster
    librarydebster Posts: 177 Member
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    I am still in the losing phase, not maintenance yet. I know I will never be satisfied with 1200 calories and I'm no nutritionist but I doubt that you can get what a healthy active woman needs with so few calories. When I do hours of hiking at a time I never usually eat all those calories I'm allowed but I do eat when I'm hungry. I can burn 2000 calories from hiking on a particular day but my body doesn't seem to need to eat that much. So on the weeks that I hike a lot I usually lose more weight.

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