Earned calories

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kaylap789
kaylap789 Posts: 1 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
What has your experience been with eating the calories you earned from exercise? I want to lose weight, so not sure if I should ignore the calories I earned from working out.
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  • rosebarnalice
    rosebarnalice Posts: 3,488 Member
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    General consensus here seems to vary between eating 1/3 - 1/2 of calories back. Me, I tent to try NOT to eat my exercise calories back during the week, and "save" them to "spend" about half of them on eatin' and drinkin' on the weekends.
  • diannethegeek
    diannethegeek Posts: 14,776 Member
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    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/818082/exercise-calories-again-wtf/p1
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
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    I can't imagine *not* eating to support my activity. I did it when I lost weight (40+ pounds) and continue to do so now that I'm maintaining.
  • heartofplastic
    heartofplastic Posts: 68 Member
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    I usually burn around 420-520 calories in an hour of cardio and always have a 150 calorie protein bar afterwards. I think that's a good amount to refuel and still lose weight!
  • lorrpb
    lorrpb Posts: 11,464 Member
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    I just consider exercise cals as "bonus burn" that offsets any errors in logging. I usually eat around 1700. I'm not able to go much less than that on a regular basis.
  • TeaBea
    TeaBea Posts: 14,517 Member
    edited August 2016
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    kaylap789 wrote: »
    What has your experience been with eating the calories you earned from exercise? I want to lose weight, so not sure if I should ignore the calories I earned from working out.

    It's going to vary from person to person. Eating back exercise calories is how MFP is designed. You got your calorie deficit BEFORE exercise.

    That said, there are lots of estimates in play. Your activity level (not including exercise) is a range. You could be on the high end or the low end. Exercise calorie burns are estimates. Some forms of exercise are easier to guessimate than others. The food you log is an estimate too. Some people are very accurate when using a digital food scale and choosing entries wisely.

    Try eating back 50-75%. See how your weight loss is impacted. Many continue to lose at the pace they signed up for after a bit of tweaking. You may lose faster if you eat back nothing, BUT larger deficits make it harder for your body to support existing lean muscle mass.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    edited August 2016
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    Hard to answer. Ideally you SHOULD eat your exercise calories back because you want to maintain a steady weight loss and fuel your activity level appropriately. The problem is a lot of calculators for how much you burn in calories for a given activity can be wildly innacurate which makes it difficult to judge how much you should "eat back" to compensate.

    The going wisdom seems to be eat half what the calculators recommend and if you find after several weeks that you are finding yourself too tired to workout or weaker than you were the previous week then you should probably eat more. If you find after a month you aren't losing weight you should probably eat less.

    I'll admit I find it difficult to swallow "no pun intended" when MFP tells me I just burned 4500 calories on that dayhike. Not like I could stomach eating that much back even if I wanted to. I'll usually eat an extra 1500 and call it good. That said I would think it foolish to not eat any extra if you are working out a lot.
  • MzKrystle
    MzKrystle Posts: 74 Member
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    I usually eat mine back however I lost weight faster when I didn't. I'm too hungry if I don't and I need the energy to keep up with my toddlers. I have however started incorporating a 5:2 intermittent fast. Those days are rough....
  • DanSTL82
    DanSTL82 Posts: 156 Member
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    If you're just trying to lose fat, then don't eat back your calories (or eat back only about 1/3 of them). If you're trying to build/maintain muscle, then eat back your calories (probably around 3/4 of them to make up for some trackers overestimating your burn).
  • kendahlj
    kendahlj Posts: 243 Member
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    I would like my body to burn fat for the energy it needs and it feels like eating back exercise calories defeats that goal. It seems to be working...I have plenty of energy (eating on a deficit) and don't feel hungry all the time and get 4-5 workouts in a week.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
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    kendahlj wrote: »
    I would like my body to burn fat for the energy it needs and it feels like eating back exercise calories defeats that goal. It seems to be working...I have plenty of energy (eating on a deficit) and don't feel hungry all the time and get 4-5 workouts in a week.

    But there is a limit to how much fat your body can burn at a time. If you're already eating at a deficit, then not eating back exercise calories can result in losing muscle instead (depending on how much your activity is increasing your deficit).
  • quiksylver296
    quiksylver296 Posts: 28,442 Member
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    janejellyroll wrote: »
    kendahlj wrote: »
    I would like my body to burn fat for the energy it needs and it feels like eating back exercise calories defeats that goal. It seems to be working...I have plenty of energy (eating on a deficit) and don't feel hungry all the time and get 4-5 workouts in a week.

    But there is a limit to how much fat your body can burn at a time. If you're already eating at a deficit, then not eating back exercise calories can result in losing muscle instead (depending on how much your activity is increasing your deficit).

    And usually, your body cannot sustain it, and you will eventually crash. No energy, very tired, irritable, hungry, etc.
  • Spliner1969
    Spliner1969 Posts: 3,233 Member
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    I always subscribed to the "eat back half" method. Worked for me. Now that I'm in maintenance I still only eat back about 80% because I know that both exercise, and sometimes product labels, are over-estimated. It's still working for me to maintain my weight. If I see the scale go up more than 2 lbs in a couple weeks I take a very serious look at my sodium intake and adjust it, wait a week, and sure enough the weight drops back off. If it doesn't I adjust my calorie intake, but I have not had to do that in the last few months. Right now I'm set at around 2800 calories a day, and eat typically 2400-2500 and do 90 minutes of hard exercise (walking/elliptical/HIIT/Cross Training) six days a week. I always said when I hit maintenance I was going to slow down on the exercise but honestly I increased it to tone and build muscle during recomp. It's been working so far albeit slowly at maintenance calories (no surplus to build extra muscle). Body fat has dropped to around 13% and I expect it to be around 10% by year end at the latest if I keep up this pace. 10% body fat was my ultimate goal beyond just my weight.

    So yea, if you are already at a deficit based on MFP calculations, then you add exercise.. you need to eat at least some of those calories back or you'll likely be burning muscle along with fat. Nobody is the same, adjust as you need to adjust it. YMMV.
  • Angierae75
    Angierae75 Posts: 417 Member
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    I've consistently lost weight eating back all the calories my Fitbit gives me. From entered exercise, those seem inflated so I eat back half.
  • stephenearllucas
    stephenearllucas Posts: 255 Member
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    janejellyroll wrote: »
    kendahlj wrote: »
    I would like my body to burn fat for the energy it needs and it feels like eating back exercise calories defeats that goal. It seems to be working...I have plenty of energy (eating on a deficit) and don't feel hungry all the time and get 4-5 workouts in a week.

    But there is a limit to how much fat your body can burn at a time. If you're already eating at a deficit, then not eating back exercise calories can result in losing muscle instead (depending on how much your activity is increasing your deficit).

    Does anyone know what the actual limit is to how much fat a body can burn in a day or a week? I've never seen that number anywhere. Anybody know?
  • dopeysmelly
    dopeysmelly Posts: 1,390 Member
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    I would say it depends how intensive your exercise is. I did an hour brisk walk every day while I was losing and didn't eat back the calories. If you're exerting yourself more, then you need to fuel your body to do that, at least partially, or you'll find you get incredibly hungry which could lead to bingeing.

    It would also probably depend upon how long you've been exercising for since your body does become more efficient the more you do something.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    My experience - ate them all back when losing weight and lost weight at expected rate.
    I eat them all back now I'm maintaining, as you will have to when you get to goal.
  • RGv2
    RGv2 Posts: 5,789 Member
    edited August 2016
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    DanSTL82 wrote: »
    If you're just trying to lose fat, then don't eat back your calories (or eat back only about 1/3 of them). If you're trying to build/maintain muscle, then eat back your calories (probably around 3/4 of them to make up for some trackers overestimating your burn).

    This isn't true. If you're using MFP as designed, you'll struggle to maintain muscle, let along build any if you're eating back your exercise calories (let alone -25%), and if you don't eat any back at all, you'll be sacrificing more than just fat.
    kendahlj wrote: »
    I would like my body to burn fat for the energy it needs and it feels like eating back exercise calories defeats that goal. It seems to be working...I have plenty of energy (eating on a deficit) and don't feel hungry all the time and get 4-5 workouts in a week.

    If you're using MFP as designed, it's not defeating the goal. Let us look at the math, remembering MFP gives you a calorie goal assuming you do no exercise.

    Let's say we have a person who puts all of their stats into MFP to lose 1lb per week. This person gets a maintenance number of 2000, and a daily goal of 1500 to lose 1lb per week.

    2000 main cals - 500 cal deficit = 1500 per day to lose 1lb per week.

    Let's say this person adds in a daily run that burns 350 cals. Now, maintenance has changed.

    2000 old maint cals + 350 exercise cals = 2350 new maint cals

    2350 new maint cals - 500 cal deficit = 1850 cals per day to lose the same 1lb per week.

    Now, most on here advise to eat back about 50% of your exercise cals to start. The reason for this is both our Calories In and Calories Out are estemates. After 4 weeks if you're losing more or less than you're goal, then you can adjust your exercise cal intake up or down.
  • Pam_1965
    Pam_1965 Posts: 137 Member
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    I am allottted 1200 calories a day, so I eat back a good portion of my exercise calories. I am set at lightly active, even though I am usually highly active. I use a Fitbit Charge HR, but also track runs and intense walks with Runkeeper. This way I know that my burned calories are very accurate. I do not sync Runkeeper to MFP.

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