Eating calories from exercise

Some eat a portion and say it helps them lose weight. I leave them untouched and admire my calorie deficit and that helps me lose weight. I infer that the women who exercise at high intensity and eat a 1200 calorie food budget are the ones most enthusiastic about eating a portion of their exercise calories. Read enough of these discussions, and you'll see people advising against eating all the exercise calories.

I don't count them. To subjective and based on I guess based on some type of group average. everybody works out at a different rate so I wouldn't use it as a true indicator.

If you use MFP to calculate your calories goals then the assumption is that when you exercise you will eat more. In other words, if you said you want to lose 0.5kg a week, then you can eat more when you exercise and you should still lose 0.5kg/week.

Some people only eat a percentage of them becuase they don't trust MFP's calculation for calories burnt exercising.

Personally, I don't see the point in being a martyr and cutting my calories more than is necessary. I'd suggest that you aim to be as accurate as possible with your calories in (food), calories out (exercise) and see how that works out for you over a month or so. If you need to change your goals after that time, you have a good baseline to work from.

Note that if you calculated your calorie goals using a different method, then that will most likely have calories for exercise already built in, so you don't need to add anything. Usually when people say "don't eat exercise calories" it's because they don't understand that MFP uses a different method of calculation that most other sites.

maryhecker wrote: »

I had mine set to lose 2lbs a week. I started running and didn't eat all my calories. I was anorexic in high school, so when I hit a plateau, it said I was going into starvation mode, I decided to eat ALL of my calories and the next day I dropped 5lbs overnight! That continued until I ate myself thin, even stopping at the Chinese buffet after a 8 mile run to get all my calories in before bed. I lost 105lbs in 8 months and kept it off two years. So do NOT be afraid of eating calories your body needs to supply your muscles with the energy it needs!

5 pounds over night? Water weight.

diannethegeek wrote: »

This is one of my favorite write-ups on the subject: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/818082/exercise-calories-again-wtf/p1

pebble4321 wrote: »

If you use MFP to calculate your calories goals then the assumption is that when you exercise you will eat more. In other words, if you said you want to lose 0.5kg a week, then you can eat more when you exercise and you should still lose 0.5kg/week.

Some people only eat a percentage of them becuase they don't trust MFP's calculation for calories burnt exercising.

Personally, I don't see the point in being a martyr and cutting my calories more than is necessary. I'd suggest that you aim to be as accurate as possible with your calories in (food), calories out (exercise) and see how that works out for you over a month or so. If you need to change your goals after that time, you have a good baseline to work from.

Note that if you calculated your calorie goals using a different method, then that will most likely have calories for exercise already built in, so you don't need to add anything. Usually when people say "don't eat exercise calories" it's because they don't understand that MFP uses a different method of calculation that most other sites.

If you're using MFP as intended, you should be eating earned calories back.

I personally don't eat back calories.. I am on 1440 to lose 2lbs/wk.. but on days I don't work out I eat 1200ish. On my work out days I do eat 1300-1440 for energy. Some people do and some don't.. I think those with HR monitors probably have more success than me with that as I have no idea how many calories I really burn in a work out. The fitbits may give a better representation than the machines in the gym.