Exercise

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BrittanyNicole934
BrittanyNicole934 Posts: 21 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
For those of you who exercise and count cal too, how much of your "burned" off calories do you eat, if you were to work off 500, do you eat all 500?

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  • robs_ready
    robs_ready Posts: 1,488 Member
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    I perform cardio for the added benefit of increasing my fitness levels and being able to eat slightly more. I personally eat back my calories but still allows me to be in a slight deficit even on days where I do weight training.
  • Sgt_Pepper33
    Sgt_Pepper33 Posts: 194 Member
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    If you find out the answer to this, I would also love to know. When I work out it gives me more calories to eat on here, but shouldn't I stick to the main calorie goal instead of eating back what I burnt off? I don't understand. Sorry, I am answering your question with my own!!
  • BrittanyNicole934
    BrittanyNicole934 Posts: 21 Member
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    @Sgt_Pepper33 you are supposed to eat more when you work out, your body if burning off a lot but I just never know if I should eat all the calories I burnt off
  • Jruzer
    Jruzer Posts: 3,501 Member
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    If you use MFP as designed you are supposed to eat your exercise calories. You calories goal does not include intentional exercise unless you have selected an activity level above lightly active.
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    That said, some people claim that the exercise estimates are too generous, so many users only eat back a portion of their exercise calories - say 50-75%.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    100%
  • bamfgoals
    bamfgoals Posts: 28 Member
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    If you use a heartrate monitor to measure the calorie burn of your exercise, I'd suggest eating back all of it. If you find out what your calorie burn is from MFP or an exercise machine, I'd eat back about half of it (it's normally inaccurate, leaning towards being larger).

    I myself use my Fitbit (Charge HR) and eat at a deficit to my daily burned calories :)
  • Quinn_Baker
    Quinn_Baker Posts: 292 Member
    edited April 2016
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    I choose to not eat back my exercise calories because I want the exercise to add to my deficit.
    I do, however, go over some days and use those extra calories as "padding", if you will, and I'm okay with that.
    So, it's a personal preference. If you are exercising solely to lose weight, I recommend not eating back the cals.
  • RiverMelSong
    RiverMelSong Posts: 456 Member
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    I do cardio mostly for fitness (I'm quite severely asthmatic, gotta keep those lungs healthy(ish)) and eat back about 1/3 of my exercise calories as I think MFP tends to overestimate calorie burns.
  • Jruzer
    Jruzer Posts: 3,501 Member
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    Here is a quote from an older post which I cant find atm explaining exercise calories:
    copy and pasted from another thread;;

    BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate): The number of calories you burn at complete rest.
    EAT (Exercise Associated Thermogenesis): Caloric requirements of training, or training expenditure.
    NEAT (Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis): Caloric requirements of activity that is not planned exercise. Vacuuming, driving, brushing your teeth, for example.
    TEF/DIT (Thermic Effect of Feeding or Diet Induced Thermogenesis): Caloric expense of eating/digestion.
    TDEE: (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) = Sum of the above. BMR+EAT+NEAT+TEF


    Exercise calories, as they are typically used in MFP specifically, is represented by EAT in the above definition. Whether or not you should eat your EAT (giggity) depends on what system or method you are using to calculate your intake needs.

    If you are using most other online calculation tools to determine an intake estimate, that estimate is going to already include EAT as part of the suggested intake. For example, it will ask you an activity factor that includes an average of your exercise, and with this it increases your TDEE to account for the fact that you are exercising.

    If you are using MFP to tell you how much to eat, that estimate is NOT going to include EAT as part of the intake estimate.

    Myfitnesspal uses a caloric estimation tool that expects you to eat back calories burned during exercise.

    Consequently, MFP will essentially give you a LOWER intake estimate than an external TDEE calculator would give you.


    In other words:

    You tell MFP: I'd like to lose 1lb/week.

    MFP says: Hey, you should eat X calories every day to lose 1lb/week.

    You then decide to exercise and you burn 400 calories.

    MFP says: Hey you pecker, you said you wanted to lose 1lb/week. Now you need to eat X+400 because you told me you wanted to lose 1lb/week.


    So based on this:

    If you are using MFP to tell you how many calories to eat, you should probably be eating back some portion of your exercise calories.

    If you are using an external calculator and then customizing your intake to match that, you should not be eating back your exercise calories.

    Lastly: Exercise expenditure is often over-stated.
  • capaul42
    capaul42 Posts: 1,390 Member
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    I eat back anywhere from 20-40% of my exercise calories. Just in case the logging wasn't accurate. And I never eat back the calories fitbit gives me for steps. Just for a logged workout.
  • CrabNebula
    CrabNebula Posts: 1,119 Member
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    I don't eat back exercise calories per se, I bank them for days, even weeks, later. That's just what I do though.
  • JeromeBarry1
    JeromeBarry1 Posts: 10,182 Member
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    "Eating back exercise calories" is a well-known hazard of people, including me, who follow an intense period of exercise by over-eating. I've done it. I've read of women who celebrate their aerobics class with a muffin. When I was exercising intensely for an hour 3 times a day (in 1989), I followed each exercise session with a big meal and maintained my weight of 320. That is to say, beware that you may use it as an excuse to over-eat. My 20-minute jogging each morning gets me plenty sweaty and makes my heart beat over 160, but my fancy treadmill calls it only 178 calories. That's not permission to have a second helping of anything in my plan.
  • Panda_Poptarts
    Panda_Poptarts Posts: 971 Member
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    I don't eat back any, unless I'm particularly hungry. In that case, I may go over my baseline allowance a bit.
  • Lewisg51
    Lewisg51 Posts: 220 Member
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    Never eat any back because it becomes a problem on days you don't burn any additional calories.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,170 Member
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    Throughout losing weight, I've estimated my exercise conservatively, and eaten back my exercise calories - pretty much all of them. It's worked just fine.

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