Do you eat your extra exercise calories?

2112540
2112540 Posts: 71
edited September 2024 in Food and Nutrition
The one thing that scares me a little about Fitnesspal is it encourages me to eat a lot more calories than the other tracker websites I have been on! Do you eat your extra calories or leave them in a reserve? How has it affected your weight? Any help would be great!! Good job guys, keep up the good work:)

Replies

  • Just1forMe
    Just1forMe Posts: 624 Member
    Eat them, eat them, eat them! If you can eat them and lose, why wouldn't you? I am pretty sure this has been working for me :wink:

    You will get a lot of varying opinions on this, but it seems the majority on MFP agree that eating your exercise calories is the way to go. Research the threads yourself using the search buttons...you are definitely not the first to ask this question. :laugh:

    You can start with this one...
    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/175241-a-personal-view-on-exercise-cals-and-underfeeding
  • h3h8m3
    h3h8m3 Posts: 455 Member
    I'd say it's a vocal minority that actually eat all their exercise calories. Most of the folks i have run into eat back a percentage of them. Myself, I eat back maybe 20-25% of them. I get to enjoy some extra food when I work out hard, but not nearly as much as I ate. It's been working for me.
  • NurseLocke
    NurseLocke Posts: 103 Member
    Weight loss is CALORIES IN V. CALORIES OUT. Eat less, exercise more. Period. If you don't eat much now, try making healthier choices. If you need a snack after you exercise, eat a banana. It has the potassium you're body needs to replenish and build muscle.
  • NurseLocke
    NurseLocke Posts: 103 Member
    *your not you're =)
  • Just1forMe
    Just1forMe Posts: 624 Member
    Weight loss is CALORIES IN V. CALORIES OUT. Eat less, exercise more.

    Very true. The part she left out is that MFP calculates your deficit into your calorie goals that you set in the beginning so that if you do NO exercise at all, you are already set up to lose (a pound, 1.5, whatever you chose) just by eating the number of calories your goal is for the day. If you exercise a LOT on top of that (which is fine, because it boosts your metabolism & of course tones/builds your muscles & core), your deficit grows to a much larger number which can actually be detrimental and unhealthy, actually slowing your metabolism down over time. This is why people eat their exercise calories back. Your NET cals on your home page are the number to watch...you should really (at the very least) keep that number above 1200. Hope this is helpful...
  • ghoztt
    ghoztt Posts: 69 Member
    Time for a math lesson!

    Whatever you put into MFP as your goal loss per week already calculates how many calories you can eat WITHOUT exercise and still lose weight. So if your goal loss is 2lbs per week that is a 1000 calorie deficit per day. Why? Because 1 pound is about 3500 calories so 2 pounds is 7000 calories divided by 7 days a week comes out to 1000 calories per day. So if you eat what MFP tells you to eat per day without exercise you will lose about 2 pounds per week.

    Now say you start exercising every day and burn off an additional 500 calories per day. You're now at a 1500 calorie a day deficit and while those with a lot of weight to lose may be able to sustain that much deficit those down to their last 10 or 15 pounds or so who try to do this will find their body begins to slow its metabolism trying to cling on to every calorie it can get its hands on. So what happens if they have an 'off' day and eat too much? The body has all these extra calories along with a slow metabolism so you start to GAIN weight.

    So if your daily goal is 1200 calories what happens if you go over by 200-300 calories on a 1000 calorie deficit? That means you only burned 700 calories that day and that's still a deficit so no big deal, you're still under your overall Total Daily Expenditure and that may put you back a half a day behind but what's the hurry? You didn't gain your weight in half a day so what's the big deal about wait a day longer?
  • Just1forMe
    Just1forMe Posts: 624 Member
    Time for a math lesson!

    Whatever you put into MFP as your goal loss per week already calculates how many calories you can eat WITHOUT exercise and still lose weight. So if your goal loss is 2lbs per week that is a 1000 calorie deficit per day. Why? Because 1 pound is about 3500 calories so 2 pounds is 7000 calories divided by 7 days a week comes out to 1000 calories per day. So if you eat what MFP tells you to eat per day without exercise you will lose about 2 pounds per week.

    Now say you start exercising every day and burn off an additional 500 calories per day. You're now at a 1500 calorie a day deficit and while those with a lot of weight to lose may be able to sustain that much deficit those down to their last 10 or 15 pounds or so who try to do this will find their body begins to slow its metabolism trying to cling on to every calorie it can get its hands on. So what happens if they have an 'off' day and eat too much? The body has all these extra calories along with a slow metabolism so you start to GAIN weight.

    So if your daily goal is 1200 calories what happens if you go over by 200-300 calories on a 1000 calorie deficit? That means you only burned 700 calories that day and that's still a deficit so no big deal, you're still under your overall Total Daily Expenditure and that may put you back a half a day behind but what's the hurry? You didn't gain your weight in half a day so what's the big deal about wait a day longer?

    There you go! Couldn''t have laid it out more clearly. THIS is why you eat your exercise calories!
  • Suziq2you
    Suziq2you Posts: 396 Member
    Time for a math lesson!

    Whatever you put into MFP as your goal loss per week already calculates how many calories you can eat WITHOUT exercise and still lose weight. So if your goal loss is 2lbs per week that is a 1000 calorie deficit per day. Why? Because 1 pound is about 3500 calories so 2 pounds is 7000 calories divided by 7 days a week comes out to 1000 calories per day. So if you eat what MFP tells you to eat per day without exercise you will lose about 2 pounds per week.

    Now say you start exercising every day and burn off an additional 500 calories per day. You're now at a 1500 calorie a day deficit and while those with a lot of weight to lose may be able to sustain that much deficit those down to their last 10 or 15 pounds or so who try to do this will find their body begins to slow its metabolism trying to cling on to every calorie it can get its hands on. So what happens if they have an 'off' day and eat too much? The body has all these extra calories along with a slow metabolism so you start to GAIN weight.

    So if your daily goal is 1200 calories what happens if you go over by 200-300 calories on a 1000 calorie deficit? That means you only burned 700 calories that day and that's still a deficit so no big deal, you're still under your overall Total Daily Expenditure and that may put you back a half a day behind but what's the hurry? You didn't gain your weight in half a day so what's the big deal about wait a day longer?

    ^^This^^
  • LilRedRooster
    LilRedRooster Posts: 1,421 Member
    Some days I eat some of them back, some days I go a bit over, but for the most part, yes, I eat a majority of them back, because having too large of a deficit can be really detrimental to building muscle and actually boosting your metabolism.
  • EricInArlington
    EricInArlington Posts: 531 Member
    you only have two choices, eat them if it works and not if it don't. your body is changing so your going to have to eat them more some weeks more then others I would say.
  • TTHdred
    TTHdred Posts: 380 Member
    The one thing that scares me a little about Fitnesspal is it encourages me to eat a lot more calories than the other tracker websites I have been on! Do you eat your extra calories or leave them in a reserve? How has it affected your weight? Any help would be great!! Good job guys, keep up the good work:)


    You have opened a can of worms!!! Sorry, I’ve seen this question turn into 10 page piss match, lol.:happy:
    That said: there are some that do and some that don’t. MFP is designed for you to eat them back because it calculates your deficit for weight loss into your required cals just in case you don’t work out. Someone else has already broken down the math.

    The other school is that the increased calories (though mathematically it’s not an increase) will cause you to gain weight. I eat back my calories. That’s my vote. Because that is how the system is designed to work. However, I am ok with being short 100-200 calories per day to account for human error: over/under estimated workout “calories burned” and food that I’m not sure how to log and may have logged incorrectly.
  • Purplebunnysarah
    Purplebunnysarah Posts: 3,252 Member
    I definitely advocate eating back most to all of your exercise calories. It's what I do and over time my average weekly loss is right on target.

    HOWEVER, if your deficit is very small you need to be very careful that you're measuring both your food and your calories burned accurately. Any error is magnified when your deficit is small (250 calories/day or less).
  • kjjm08
    kjjm08 Posts: 217 Member
    Time for a math lesson!

    Whatever you put into MFP as your goal loss per week already calculates how many calories you can eat WITHOUT exercise and still lose weight. So if your goal loss is 2lbs per week that is a 1000 calorie deficit per day. Why? Because 1 pound is about 3500 calories so 2 pounds is 7000 calories divided by 7 days a week comes out to 1000 calories per day. So if you eat what MFP tells you to eat per day without exercise you will lose about 2 pounds per week.

    Now say you start exercising every day and burn off an additional 500 calories per day. You're now at a 1500 calorie a day deficit and while those with a lot of weight to lose may be able to sustain that much deficit those down to their last 10 or 15 pounds or so who try to do this will find their body begins to slow its metabolism trying to cling on to every calorie it can get its hands on. So what happens if they have an 'off' day and eat too much? The body has all these extra calories along with a slow metabolism so you start to GAIN weight.

    So if your daily goal is 1200 calories what happens if you go over by 200-300 calories on a 1000 calorie deficit? That means you only burned 700 calories that day and that's still a deficit so no big deal, you're still under your overall Total Daily Expenditure and that may put you back a half a day behind but what's the hurry? You didn't gain your weight in half a day so what's the big deal about wait a day longer?

    This is said perfectly!
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