do you leave calories on the table?

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shathaway123
shathaway123 Posts: 13 Member
in Introduce Yourself
Just wondering what y'all do? I'm allowed about 1450 cals a day. After my exercise, that number increases quite a bit, but I try to stay within the 1450. Do you eat your additional exercise calories? Or leave them on the table? Just wondering. I love seeing the message "if you did this every day you'd weight 144 in 5 weeks"

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  • queenliz99
    queenliz99 Posts: 15,317 Member
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    Yes, you should eat back at least half your calories if not all of them. This how MFP was designed.
  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
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    Eat them, they taste the best!
  • SailorKnightWing
    SailorKnightWing Posts: 875 Member
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    queenliz99 wrote: »
    Yes, you should eat back at least half your calories if not all of them. This how MFP was designed.

    That's how it's designed, but almost all the exercise calorie counts are drastically overestimated. A good practice is to start by eating back half your exercise calories. If you continue to lose weight and aren't hungry, keep doing it. If you lose weight but are hungry, eat more back. If you don't lose weight, eat fewer back.

    These calculators help you track your input a lot better than your output.
  • sjlr16
    sjlr16 Posts: 4 Member
    edited January 2016
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    TavistockToad wrote: »
    Eat them, they taste the best!

    Hahaa that's hilarious
  • tobykeohane
    tobykeohane Posts: 24 Member
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    I don't understand why you would eat your calories you've just worked hard at burning. I thought you had to eat less cald that's you excercise to loose weight so surely eating them will make you gain weight !
  • MonkeyMel21
    MonkeyMel21 Posts: 2,395 Member
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    tobykeohane wrote: »
    I don't understand why you would eat your calories you've just worked hard at burning. I thought you had to eat less cald that's you excercise to loose weight so surely eating them will make you gain weight !

    Your calorie count that MFP has given you is calculated to allow you to lose weight WITHOUT exercise. Added calorie burn from exercise is extra and eating those back just fuels your exercise. But I always hear the suggestion of just eating half back to account for any errors/miscalculation. You don't HAVE to eat them back but it is how the program was designed.
  • Gremlin131313
    Gremlin131313 Posts: 13 Member
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    tobykeohane wrote: »
    I don't understand why you would eat your calories you've just worked hard at burning. I thought you had to eat less cald that's you excercise to loose weight so surely eating them will make you gain weight !

    You've already burned them, so eating them back won't cause you to gain weight unless the burns logged are much higher than what was actually burned. Most people here are aiming to keep their weight loss to a certain level each week, and their calorie goal already factors in that deficit. Without eating back exercise calories, it just creates a bigger deficit, however eating them will just leave you with the original deficit.
  • shathaway123
    shathaway123 Posts: 13 Member
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    Thanks for all the great information. My WW tracker broke so I am giving this a try, first week I was down 4 pounds!! My weight loss at WW was on a stall, so happy I hopped onto MFP
  • kami3006
    kami3006 Posts: 4,978 Member
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    I eat all of mine. It kept my rate of loss steady and fueled my workouts allowing my to increase my lifts. Doing the same at maintenance.

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