Eating back the calories you burn?

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dtoll87
dtoll87 Posts: 12 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Do you eat back what you burned during your excersize?

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  • BeaUtiful_1413
    BeaUtiful_1413 Posts: 200 Member
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    You can but I try not to.
  • itsbasschick
    itsbasschick Posts: 1,584 Member
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    i eat some of them. it depends on if i get hungry, and if i do, i usually have a non-fat yogurt or protein drink.
  • chandanista
    chandanista Posts: 986 Member
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    MFP was designed to have you do so.
  • dwaterfield
    dwaterfield Posts: 34 Member
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    I never do. Well, if I have a big workout like today I'll maybe let myself have an extra 100 calories or so but that's about it. I'm trying to lose at more than the typical 1lb/week though...if I were not pushing so hard I probably would eat back about 1/2 of the calories as many people here do.
  • ConicalFern
    ConicalFern Posts: 121 Member
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    I don't really see a distinction between exercise calories and other calories. All are a measure of how much energy I've used. I just eat to whatever my goal is, exercise or no exercise.
  • perkymommy
    perkymommy Posts: 1,642 Member
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    Sometimes I do but usually if I eat over my recommended calories per day I tend to not lose weight or even gain a little.
  • TeaBea
    TeaBea Posts: 14,517 Member
    edited March 2016
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    MFP gave you a calorie deficit BEFORE exercise, so eating back your exercise calories ideally gets you back to your original deficit. A reason you want to consider eating back exercise calories is larger deficits make it harder for your body to support existing lean muscle mass. If you want a larger % of fat loss, a moderate deficit will help.

    Exercise calorie burns are estimates. The food you log can be an estimate too. People do everything from weighing portions to eye-balling them. Also, your activity level is actually a range (you may be on the high end, or low end).

    So many MFP users will eat back a % of exercise calories, and then tweak that percentage up or down as weight loss progresses.

    I'm over 50 and want to retain as much lean muscle as I can, so I eat exercise calories back.
  • NewDeb16
    NewDeb16 Posts: 232 Member
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    I am determined not to but if I had a real active day, then I might be hungrier and am thankful for the "reserves".
  • punkrockgoth
    punkrockgoth Posts: 534 Member
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    Not usually, but I have my calorie goal set at a 500-600 calorie deficit. If I go hard or long, I'll claim a small percentage of calories burned during exercise.
  • chelsy0587
    chelsy0587 Posts: 441 Member
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    Yes, but only now that I have a fitbit and I have more of an understanding of how many of those exercise calories I should eat back.

    Love when I see the green bar that says "in the zone" :smiley:
  • rileysowner
    rileysowner Posts: 8,151 Member
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    You are supposed to since they are not, I repeat NOT included in your calorie goal. To not eat them, or at least a portion of them, is not simply to make your calorie deficit bigger, but for many, to take it from being a healthy moderate calorie deficit to being an excessively large deficit. Yes, you will lose weight faster, but much of that weight with an excessively large deficit is going to be lean mass. You are not doing yourself any favors in the long run by not eating exercises calories.
  • kandeye
    kandeye Posts: 216 Member
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    For cardiovascular I do elliptical mostly. I log half of what I actually do ( elliptical is notorious for being an overestimation) and eat the calories back. It seems to be working for me so far.
  • Hjaye7512
    Hjaye7512 Posts: 116 Member
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    I don't and i will start logging my workouts at the end of day so it doesn't show those calories added till I'm done
  • acheben
    acheben Posts: 476 Member
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    When I was losing weight, I ate back 50-75% of my exercise calories. I was training for a half marathon and if I didn't eat enough back, I would see a definite reduction of energy during my runs.

    Now that I'm in maintenance, I eat all of them back. It's fabulous.
  • kgirlhart
    kgirlhart Posts: 4,989 Member
    edited March 2016
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    I probably eat about 80% of mine. If you are using the goal that mfp gives you you are supposed to eat them back. If you used a TDEE calculator to get your deficit then you shouldn't. Mfp does not include exercise so the deficit it gives you is before exercise. If you are set to lose 2 pounds a week you already have a 1000 calorie deficit and you should eat the exercise calories back. This is also more important if you are set at 1200 calories per day (or 1500 for men). If you are set to lose .5 pounds per week (a 250 calorie deficit) then you can probably get away with not eating the exercise calories.
  • jaynee7283
    jaynee7283 Posts: 160 Member
    edited March 2016
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    Sometimes I do - other times I don't. For instance, last night I registered an 800 calorie exercise burn, but opted not to eat any back because I wasn't hungry. But on Sunday I ate back every exercise calorie I burned because I was HUNGRY. So I guess that means in a rolling-day average, I eat back 50% of what MFP says I've burned.
  • awolf2011
    awolf2011 Posts: 265 Member
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    I did some online research on this topic when I started MFP. I found the consensus to be that you should eat back 50% of the calories you burn. That being said, if you truly know how many calories you actually burn, you are good to go, but if you are using MFP estimates (which can be WAY off either direction), you could run into troubles. Sometimes I don't eat mine back, but that depends on the type of workout that I do and what time of day I do the workout.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 9,986 Member
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    Sleeper1968 wrote: »
    Oh yeah, should have mentioned - you should only be claiming back exercise calories if you chose the 'sedentary' level in the activity box, otherwise it's already included if you're a desk jockey.

    If you have a really physical job then YMMV, obviously.

    Mileage does indeed vary. I have a desk job, I log nearly every step I take outside (so not walking around the house or the office, but walking to the subway as part of my commute, or walking a couple blocks to get lunch does get logged) as well as lifting, cardio at the gym, yoga, dance class, shoveling snow, raking leaves, heavy house work...It all gets logged as exercise (using MFP estimates or cardio machine estimates, whichever is lower). And I still had to adjust my activity setting to active (not just lightly active) to get MFP's estimate of my burns close to what my food logging and scales show I actually burn (based on more than two and a half years of data).

    Pick an approach, stick with it, and adjust according to your actual results.
  • Ready2Rock206
    Ready2Rock206 Posts: 9,488 Member
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    I don't but I upped my base calorie goal to account for them. So technically I do - but I just don't log them separately.
  • mjwarbeck
    mjwarbeck Posts: 699 Member
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    Of course. My daily intake is set for target loss of 2 lbs a week. If I exercise (I only track cardio at the gym) then I eat that back or I will lose even more....

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