DO YOU EAT YOUR EXERCISE CALORIES

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ArcticRolls
ArcticRolls Posts: 1 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Hi, i am new, according to my fitness pal i should be eating 1200 cals a day to loose weight, thats fine,i have a sedentary lifestyle,have a underactive thyroid. I am doing 3/4 times 30 mins of exercise on my stationary bike , do i eat these calories, any help would be appreciated.

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  • jjenf1950
    jjenf1950 Posts: 13 Member
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    ArcticRolls wrote: »
    Hi, i am new, according to my fitness pal i should be eating 1200 cals a day to loose weight, thats fine,i have a sedentary lifestyle,have a underactive thyroid. I am doing 3/4 times 30 mins of exercise on my stationary bike , do i eat these calories, any help would be appreciated.

  • jjenf1950
    jjenf1950 Posts: 13 Member
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    Try one day eating the calories you earn from exercise and when you complete the days diary it will tell you how much you are expected to lose in 5 weeks. Then the next day don't use the calories you earn and see if you get a lower expected weight. Hope this helps. I don't eat the ones I earn, hoping it will help me lose more quicker.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,867 Member
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    if you put sedentary for your activity level and then you exercise...well, suffice it to say that activity is thus unaccounted for...that's why you get calories to eat back...you're not accounting for that activity in your activity level and you should account for it somewhere.

    That said, you need to make allowances for estimation errors in both intake and your burn...this is the difficulty with this method. Also, fueling fitness activity becomes more important as your exercise activity becomes more strenuous...light exercise activity isn't all that taxing on your body...your'e not really breaking it down...moderate to strenuous exercise activity is good for you, but it is also a big time stress on the body and breaks the body down...to repair what has been broken down requires energy (calories) and nutrients.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    Eating back exercise calories is the way this site is designed to work.
    Give it a try for a few weeks and see what your weight loss results are. Modify based on your actual results if required.

    PS - I grew up on BirdsEye Arctic Rolls, nostalgia trip....
  • 999tigger
    999tigger Posts: 5,235 Member
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    If you are using the MFP default merhod then toyr deficit is created initially by just eating less food. Exercise calories in theory are there to be eaten back 100%. As MFP is known in certain circumstances to be overgenerous in estimation, then start off by eating 50% back as see if you are losing, should you stop losing for an extrendd period 3-4 weeks, then you may wish to reduce your calories by eating less of these back i.e 25%. If you are on an accurate 1200 though, then you should lose and should never in any event go below as thats the min you need for nutrition.

    Be flexible in your outlook and dont worry if you dont feel like eating them that day, then eat them at another time during the week. Look for keeping to the 1200+50% of MFP exercise cals over the week imo.
  • aswanso1
    aswanso1 Posts: 1 Member
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    I think the baseline calorie recommendation is from your age/weight and activity level. It is a guess at what you'd burn if you did nothing else. So if you exercise, that is additional burn.

    For example if you want to lose 1 pound per week and with nothing other than your regular lifestyle it says to eat 1500 calories per day, then if you exercise you can eat the exercise calories and still theoretically lose the 1 pound per week. This is assuming the original estimate of your daily burn rate and the exercise calorie burn calculations are correct.

    For me I eat the exercise calories and am losing at about the goal pace. So it seems to be fairly accurate. It takes 6-8 weeks to get a good feel for how close those things track in my experience. As a side note, for me personally, if I don't eat the exercise calories I end up feeling so hungry I end up eating even more eventually.

    Cheers,

    Aaron
  • SingingSingleTracker
    SingingSingleTracker Posts: 1,866 Member
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    ArcticRolls wrote: »
    Hi, i am new, according to my fitness pal i should be eating 1200 cals a day to loose weight, thats fine,i have a sedentary lifestyle,have a underactive thyroid. I am doing 3/4 times 30 mins of exercise on my stationary bike , do i eat these calories, any help would be appreciated.

    CICO

    http://www.acaloriecounter.com/blog/why-am-i-not-losing-weight/
  • kxforg
    kxforg Posts: 36 Member
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    I only eat about 1/2 back, if any, because most calorie counters are in some way inaccurate. My intake is also 1200 calories, I have a lightly active life style, but I also have I high weekly loss goal, -2lbs, per week.

    My advice would be to stick with what you are doing for atleast 3 weeks because by that time you will have some personal experience as to what is working for you. This will also give you some time to begin to built up your stamina on your exercise bike.

    If you like how you are feeling, like how you are losing, then keep it up. If you are not losing any lbs then you might consider cutting how many calories you are eating back.

    Either way good luck and keep it up :p
  • Xo_c_e_b_xo
    Xo_c_e_b_xo Posts: 70 Member
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    I try not to eat my exercise as I like to
    Think of exercise as a bonus to my diet . It is nice to know you can have s few extra calories if you are hungry after a work out though : )
  • daniwilford
    daniwilford Posts: 1,030 Member
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    If you are a shorter female, and not obese, you will not loose if you eat back all your exercise calories. MFP will default to 1200 calories even if you might need a bigger deficit to loose. This is because it is almost impossible to get the nutrition you need from food eating lower than 1200. If you are taller then average and or weigh over 200 lbs and accurately counting then eat away.
  • jlaw_1992
    jlaw_1992 Posts: 40 Member
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    I do if I'm hungry enough to do so. I'm trying to get in the habit of only eating when I'm hungry after working out because then if I have extra calories to bank for the week, I'll likely use them on a few drinks on the weekend or something. I mean, I went on a 16-km run the other day, and to try to eat that back the same day was not happening, but over the course of a week I'll be glad to have had that big deficit on that day. So I think it really depends. I think you should do what's right for you. Using those workouts to create a slightly steeper deficit on a few days and not eating them back is totally fine, but if you're a bit hungrier and want to eat them back, there's no reason not to, provided you have an accurate measure of your calories you're burning working out.

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