Do you eat back your calories after strength training?

Nightmare_Queen88
Nightmare_Queen88 Posts: 304 Member
edited December 2024 in Fitness and Exercise
Do you eat back your calories after strength training?

I'm just now getting into strength training. I'll be starting this Wednesday and I need to know if I should eat back the calories I lose. I'm wanting to preserve muscle while losing fat. I don't want to gain too much muscle (which I know I won't) in the process. I currently eat 1500 calories a day. I do cardio as well, 3x a week, which I'll be limiting to twice a week once I start lifting.

Replies

  • capaul42
    capaul42 Posts: 1,390 Member
    I always have, if I was hungry that is. My workouts tend to be late night so if I'm really hungry, I'll have a small snack.

    But calorie burns from strength training are not large at all. I burn maybe 100-150 a session.
  • KrazyKrissyy
    KrazyKrissyy Posts: 322 Member
    I rarely do. The main reason is that exercise wipes out my appetite for a long period of time, for some reason lol. I'll sometimes force a protein shake down after the workout but will make sure its accounted for my regular daily calories and just use it as a snack or meal replacement.
  • arditarose
    arditarose Posts: 15,573 Member
    When I was doing cardio while lifting what I would do was eat ALL the cardio calories burned, knowing it was probably a high estimate. And that's it. Now that I don't do cardio I do not eat strength training calories back. That activity fits right into my "lightly active" lifestyle with an average of 10-12k steps per day and heavy lifting 4x per week.
  • Nightmare_Queen88
    Nightmare_Queen88 Posts: 304 Member
    So it won't cause me to lose more than a pound a week by not eating back those calories?
  • carleeeyyy_6
    carleeeyyy_6 Posts: 7 Member
    I'm not sure if you should or should not. Depends on how large your deficit is. I don't eat those calories back, I don't even track the calories I burn in MFP
  • nossmf
    nossmf Posts: 12,179 Member
    I eat back the calories burned lifting in the form of a protein shake to up my protein intake on days I lift. For me the calories burned by 45 minutes of lifting just about exactly equals the calories gained from one ready-made shake. Days I don't lift I eat less protein, keep everything else more or less the same.
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