do you eat your exercise calories...

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manit1117
manit1117 Posts: 54 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
My daily calorie intake should be 1200 calories and then whatever I workout is added. Well I love food and since logging into MFP I see that I eat all my exercise calories too (around 1800 calories). I'm fine with this but I was wondering if anyone else does this? Did you still lose weight?

I've seen a lot of people just eating their 1200 calories which is great but realistically I will never be able to do that.

I am 5'3" 134lbs looking to lose 10lbs. To eat or not to eat...

Replies

  • jjclem07
    jjclem07 Posts: 127 Member
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    Sometimes I eat mine back and sometimes I don't. To lose weight you need calories..depends on what kinda day I am having.
  • calimari
    calimari Posts: 202 Member
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    Yes - I find I am highly motivated by food; I dislike exercise, so the tradeoff of getting to eat more if I exercise seems to work for me. I've been on MFP 4 weeks today; I eat my exercise calories - maybe not all of them, but I do always eat more than what I am given via MFP without exercising. Some days when I exercise alot, I have stayed 600-1000 calories under, still eating SOME of my exercise calories. But most days the exercise gives me a few 100 calories, and I might eat up to within 100 calories or so. One day I hit the exact number dead on.

    I lost 6 lbs in 3 weeks. Haven't done my next weekly weigh in yet.
  • cpip85
    cpip85 Posts: 15 Member
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    hey, I've been doing this now for 3 weeks, my 3rd official weigh in is tomorrow.

    I eat my calories, some days I eat all of them, sometimes a bit over, sometimes under, if I didn't eat them I would be starving!

    It seems to be working as I've lost nearly 4lbs so far, I've got a long way to go!!!

    Good luck x
  • brianna626
    brianna626 Posts: 156
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    Eat them if you are hungry if not do not eat them.
  • ChantalGG
    ChantalGG Posts: 2,404 Member
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    I try to eat mine back, I only have 1200 calories a day too so i need to eat the exercise calories to make me happy. but i only burn 2 to 300 a day. Do you have a HRM so you know you are burning that much so that you dont actually go over on your calories?
  • arotella
    arotella Posts: 98 Member
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    I eat mine and I still lose! I met with a dietician for a metabolism test last summer and she told me I need to eat at least 1650 a day so that my metabolism doesn't slow down. From what I understand (and I am not sure if it's true) your body can get immune to taking in the same # of calories and then your metabolism sets itself at that. So if you only eat 1200 caloires a day, then your metabolism will only burn 1200 a day. Again, not sure if that is a fact, but it's what I've heard. Also if I don't eat my calories back I'll still be hungry. I use to not eat them back and ended splurging on dinner becasue I would be so hungry!
  • tmston2
    tmston2 Posts: 13 Member
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    i do eat a good percentage of mine, but i try and make sure that those calories come exclusively from nutritional and benfiting foods. for instance i usually play basketball for about 1-1/2 hours, and that usually tells me i can eat about another 1000calories, so i make sure its somthing like yams,bananna's, stawberries, extra whole wheat bread, and maybe a little ice cream
  • jujubean1992
    jujubean1992 Posts: 462 Member
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    i usually end up eating mine. i always try to have my net calories with less than 500 extra because i don't wanna go into starvation mode. which i believe has been my problem with not losing weight in the past i never actually counted calories i just hardly ever ate. now i eat all the time.
  • cmarshel
    cmarshel Posts: 46 Member
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    Yes - I try to eat my exercise calories. Initially I was using it as the carrot to get me going. But am finding now that I enjoy getting out and feeling deprived when I don't...not because I don't get the extra calories but the actual getting out and about. Plus on weekends I've been doing hikes with my wife in the mountains which yields me plenty of excercise calories to enjoy the stuff like pizza on those days. :-)
  • vegansara
    vegansara Posts: 192 Member
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    I eat my exercise calories, though sometimes I can't manage to eat them all. Like a previous poster, I'm at 1200 calories a day, so if I do Bikram yoga that burns a ton of calories and I definitely need to eat more. And, I've been having success so I think I'm doing it right!
  • manit1117
    manit1117 Posts: 54 Member
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    I try to eat mine back, I only have 1200 calories a day too so i need to eat the exercise calories to make me happy. but i only burn 2 to 300 a day. Do you have a HRM so you know you are burning that much so that you dont actually go over on your calories?

    I ordered a HRM so it should be on its way to my house. I use an elliptcal in the morning which says 225-260 calories (20mins) then I've been doing TurboFire. I just log those is as kickboxing (including TurboJam) until I get my HRM. So it's about 600-1000 calories a day I burn depending on which TF workout I use.
  • FearAnLoathing
    FearAnLoathing Posts: 4,852 Member
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    no,not really
  • caresshudson
    caresshudson Posts: 31 Member
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    I don't eat up my exercise calories.... I'm trying to get ahead with my weightloss.
  • llkilgore
    llkilgore Posts: 1,169 Member
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    For the last few weeks I've been eating all of my exercise calories as step 1 of my transition to maintenance. Before, I left about a third of them on the table to offset any overestimation (I don't have an HRM). Two thirds of the calories kept me right on target with MFP's weight loss projections once I found the right mix of strength training and cardio. I've yet to hit any plateaus.

    In principle I think eating exercise calories is a good thing because it helps to keep your energy and activity levels up and contributes to a general sense of well being that makes it easier to stick to your program. In the short term it would have been tempting to torch off the pounds by hitting the gym every day to add 500 or 1000 calories to my deficit, but that would no more be sustainable for me than committing to an ultra low carb diet for the rest of my life. It would just be another form of crash diet, and we all know what tends to happen when crash diets end. For this "life style change" thing to really work, we need to be as realistic about the calories out side of the equation as the calories in.

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