Should you actually eat back your calories from exercise?

Also, it's important how accurate you are in logging your food. If you don't weigh your food and log every little thing that goes in your mouth, you may already be using up any cushion any exercise calories would give you.

By all means eat back your exercise calories! Like others have already said, MFP gives you a Calorie goal that already has a built-in deficit, so burning extra Calories by exercising and not eating those Calories back would put you at too great a deficit, which has a bunch of potentially detrimental side-effects relating to diet compliance and muscle sparing and metabolic adaptation and general energy levels and whatnot.

Two caveats, though:

1. Most people overestimate the amount of effort they're putting into their exercise. Also, the MFP database grossly overestimates the Calorie burn from doing some exercises and activities. So be conservative and don't trust that 800 Calorie burn from walking for an hour, or whatever. I've seen a lot of people recommend eating back half of the exercise Calories MFP gives you, which seems like reasonable starting point.
2. Make sure that the exercise Calories you're logging aren't already being accounted for in your MFP Calorie allowance. So if you set your daily activity level as "lightly active" because you take a daily 30 minute walk around the block, for example, MFP already takes that into account in your Calorie goal. Don't log that daily walk again!

cwolfman13 wrote: »

Fueling your fitness is kind of important...failure to do so will ultimately result in your body not receiving enough nutrients or energy (calories) for repair and recovery and you end up with all kinds of nagging injuries and whatnot...to boot, your fitness gains will be pretty much non-existent.

Your calorie target is provided to you as if you were not going to do any exercise whatsoever...it includes your deficit...when you exercise, your maintenance level of calories would increase, thus the amount you can eat and maintain the same deficit would also increase.

And, one must be cautious when determining their activity level which seems pretty vague and would lead one to believe their base calories for the day are actually higher than what is realistic. Because this is not a one size fits all app, it takes a little effort to figure out what works best for each of us. What has worked for me was setting my activity level at sedentary (it was winter and I was being a slug) so to lose 1 pound a week I was given 1200 calories. I ate back some of my exercise calories based on the assumption that the burn was not really as high as MFP gave me. I'm currently below my goal weight and now just playing with the numbers to figure out what maintenance really is.

FitnessGeek86 wrote: »

I disagree. If you are trying to lose weight, DO NOT eat back the calories you have burned off. (This comment is supported by my medical doctor as well.)

Your doctor's advice to you is meant for you. It's not meant for people she has never met or examined, whose medical history she has no knowledge of.

Plus, it seems pretty likely your doctor doesn't have a clue how MFP is designed.

I am not into suffering and self-flagellation AT ALL so I have eaten back nearly every single calorie I have earned from exercise, even the ones from machines at the gym and from MFP. I have lost 25 lbs over the past year and just went out yesterday and bought some cute bikinis because I now have my bikini-friendly body back. That being said, I still have 6 vanity lbs that I would like to lose, and haven't been losing over the past couple of months, so I will have to ratchet things up a notch to pare off the last few lbs. It's going to be different for different people, and everyone's mileage will vary, but if I don't eat right/enough, I definitely notice I am weaker and more tired in the gym.

FitnessGeek86 wrote: »

I disagree. If you are trying to lose weight, DO NOT eat back the calories you have burned off. (This comment is supported by my medical doctor as well.)

This is generally not the best option based on this post: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/818082/exercise-calories-again-wtf/p1

Great conversation.

I've been doing Weight Watchers for 18 months. I did REALLY well last year. 80 lbs lost, hit a healthy weight based on BMI scale for the first time in my adult life in October, and made "lifetime"....BEFORE they changed the program.

They basically took clean eating to the extreme, made lean protein cheap and anything with fat or sugar in it REALLY expensive on their plan. Additionally they pushed you to exercise...the more you did, the higher your goal was. Mine started at "27 fit points" and ended at 120 fit points. That was equivalent to 10,000 steps daily + 40 minutes of high intensity cardio every stinking day, and you were not to eat any of that back.

There were days I ran out of "points" at 1,000 calories (I started tracking calories along with points a few weeks ago). My weight loss stalled (with 5-7 lbs left to lose)....for 7 months! I've spent that amount of time gaining and losing the same 4 pounds and struggled to do it! I stayed on plan, planned, prepped, tracked and exercised at the level they dictated. You name it. And I gained and lost those 4 pounds over and over again. I joined a gym and took zumba and spinning classes 4 x a week for a month....and nothing!

I started MFP 9 days ago. It set me with 1420 calories daily to lose 1/2 lb a week. I've exercised, I've eaten back SOME of my exercise calories, I've eaten more daily in the last 9 days than I have daily for the last 7 months....and as of this morning I'm down 2.4 lbs.

Time will tell of course, but I'm now a firm believer in fueling your body to lose weight and keep it off.

Making_changes7 wrote: »

Another question - I think based on what everyone has said I will eat back my calories but how do I know that they're accurate?

What if it says I burned 400 but actually only burned 100 and then I am going in excess of 300? How do I monitor that? How accurate is MFP's exercise calorie tracking?

If your weight keeps going up, then you're likely not burning as much as you think. It's easier to track food calories than exercise calories for many.
I used to get this from yoga people all the time who believed (via their instructor) that they were burning 700+ calories per session when the real number was more like less than half that. Even just eating half their calories back resulted in no weight loss.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

You absolutely want to take your exercise calories into account for you total diet. Your total burn is important and you want to stay within 20% or so on your deficit.

sehartariq101 wrote: »

If you're trying to lose weight then most probably not, although some like to eat back some of them- guess that's personal preference and depends on what your goal is too. I however don't

That's how MFP is set up though, for you to eat them back.

When I followed MFP's goals, I did. Now that I do TDEE I don't, but that is because exercise calories are already factored in.