Exercise calories really that important?

I never eat mine, i tried once for a few weeks and never lost a pound, theres loads of debate on here about this topic but i say its up to you xx

I was going to reference that thread too!

There is a difference between eating 1200 calories and your net calories being 1200. As long as your net calories are above 1200, it is probably ok in the beginning. As you hit a plateau, ironically, it becomes more important to eat back your exercise calories. Net calories = calorie goal + calories burned - calories eaten.

Everyone does this differently, as you'll see. Personally, I never eat my work out cals. To me (and I might be wrong- I'm not a scientist), but if I'm eating back my work out calories- why bother to work out? To me, it just creates more of a deficiency. Also, I've tried eating them back and my weight loss went downt the tubes- but other people are the opposite.

From my experience, eating more, including those exercise calories, helps me lose more FAT, rather than just losing weight, which is muscle and fat.

I might drop more *pounds* if I didn't, but less of those pounds would be fat.

I try not to eat back my exercise calories as I find it is the only way at the moment to lose the lbs.
I stick to a healthy diet with the odd treat, and if I do dip into my exercise calories from time to time then I don't worry about it

I run about 25 miles a week and there is no way I could continue my running training if I did not eat back most of my exercise calories. I stive to leave about 200 calories a day unused. I find that if I do not eat any of my exercise calories I feel starved all day and my running performace sucks.

I don't have the answer for this either, other than every single person is different and will see results doing different activities and having different diets. I can share what worked for me though:

Before joining MFP, I was going it alone. I knew 1,200 calories was the number to meet for a healthy diet. I'm 5'2" and thought that was a reasonable number. I exercised 6 days a week with P90X , 30-45 minutes on the elliptical every other day plus Taekwondo class twice a week for 45 minutes per class. I stuck with 1,200 calories as closely as I could with just tracking in a notebook.

Then I re-injured a knee and I had a bad hip. The exercise was aggravating both of them. It brought my workouts to a halt and I had to research ways to continue losing weight without activity. I came across an article about the benefits of getting a big breakfast with a lot of protein. I made the switch the very next morning and within 3 weeks I dropped 10 lbs. I had only dropped about 3 pounds in 4 months with doing all the exercise.

When I was able to start adding a little bit more exercise, I joined MFP and learned about eating back exercise calories. I decided to give that a try too and the weight kept coming off every week. When I started to plateau as I neared my target weight, it wasn't working as well anymore. I changed up my diet by going with a bigger deficiency and staying close to 1,200 calories again. Now I'm only .8 lbs from my goal weight and I continue to drop.

So, I guess in my case, eating back the exercise calories worked. But as I had less to lose, it wasn't as effective. My only advice is to experiment with both to see how your body will react. Eating more really does mean losing more in some cases. I like to compare it to a car driving down the highway at a comfortable 60 miles per hour. You will burn fuel consistently at that speed. But, if you rev your engine and gun it up to 80 miles per hour (exercise), you will burn a lot more fuel and you'll need to fill up the tank more often. Just my opinion on that though.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do!

Do I REALLY have to eat my exercise calories back?

No.


Queue militant argument...

I don't want to wreck my metabolism by going too low so I compromise and eat half of them back - but only if I'm hungry. I don't know if its important or not but so far I've broken my plateau and the weight is finally dropping again after a long hiatus. My calorie goal this week has pretty much been spot on so far and not netting too low or too high after exercise. Just hope it'll last!

Do I REALLY have to eat my exercise calories back? My whole MFP is set at 1 lb. a week but I wouldn't mind loosing 1 1/2 even 2 lbs a week in the beginning at least. I mean as long as I am eating at least 1200 I should be okay right? (And if I am hungry I will eat, but if not.. I don't want to.)

FYI - since you don't have a ton to lose (looks like have less than 20 lbs to lose), 1/2 to 1 lb/week is a reasonable goal. 1.5 to 2 is more appropriate for people with much more to lose than you do. It's just how it works - the less you have to lose, the less your body can safely handle more aggressive weight loss. Do yourself a favor and stick with the 1 lb/week goal and eat back at least some of your exercise calories.