Calories Earned with Exercise - What do you do?

I always eat back my exercise. Everyone does it differently tho.

The way MFP is set up, you're supposed to eat exercise calories back. However, due to overestimation of calories burned, most will do only half of them.

I eat 100% of them. I took the time to figure them out by trial and error. Otherwise, I would be under-eating and my workouts would suck.

I try not to eat them back if I don't need to (aka feeling super hungry). That way I have wiggle room if I didn't exactly measure everything. My calories in could be higher so I find it nice to have that as a fail safe I guess is what you'd call it.

No, I don't eat them all unless I am hungry or if I go out to eat and I want to enjoy something special. I always leave daily calories as a buffer for the weekends.

MFP is not accurate, neither are the machines at the gym, and I read that fitness trackers are not 100% accurate either; and on top of that we are not 100% bullet proof with the measuring and/or weighing of our food. So as long as I eat above my BMI and as long as I have enough calories and nutrients in my body to fuel my life and workouts I am good to go.

Just do what is best for you. Try and learn.

I generally don't eat all of them back. It's not that I think the calories allocated for exercise are that far off, it's more that I recognize I tend to rest more after vigorous exercise. If I'm hungry though, I eat every last one of them.

I eat them back and then some, sometimes. Other times, no.

I try not to eat back my exercise calories or at least not eat them all back depends on my day too if I have had a horrible day I will be careful to not eat back but if I have a good day and a hard workout I will eat them back

I don't eat my exercise calories back. Seems a bit silly to me. However, if you do, I would recommend not eating more than half of what MFP gives you. They tend to be extremely generous in their burn estimates. You have other options too. Record your exercise but don't eat the calories. Don't record your exercise until after you've logged and closed your diary for the day. Just don't record your exercise (for me exercise is a daily part of my routine - I don't record it at all).

elawoman72 wrote: »

Hello, all!

I just realized my calories are upped with exercise. You must upgrade to change that feature to change that option.

Do any of you consume the adjusted calories?

I adjust the calorie burn (MFP tends to OVERestimate your caloric burn) by multiplying the amount of calories MFP says I burned by .666*** and enter that in my Exercise Dairy. Then I eat all or most (depending on how hungry I am that day) those calories back. (I do tend to try and leave a few extra calories for the weekend as that's when I will be mostly likely to exceed my calories and this helps keep my weekly amount in overall deficit..)

If you are following the TDEE method, you don't. If you are using MFP under its default setting, you would not be doing TDEE though so what I said could apply.

*** There are varying opinions on how much overestimation MFP does. Many cut the calorie estimate in half. For now, .666 is still working for me but if I discover my weight loss stalling (when my calories "look" at a deficit in my diary) then I will adjust the amount of exercise calories claimed downward.