Should I eat exercise calories???
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Nardoned
Posts: 7 Member
Hi all!
I'm just starting back with MFP with around 1320 calories per day. Today after the gym I burned about 400 calories for around 6,200 "steps" total for the day. Should I eat those calories or should I try to only eat the 1320 calories? The cravings and hunger are so real! Today I ate the calories and did not go over my total calories for the day, with "burned" calories included (around 1700).
Thanks!
Danielle
I'm just starting back with MFP with around 1320 calories per day. Today after the gym I burned about 400 calories for around 6,200 "steps" total for the day. Should I eat those calories or should I try to only eat the 1320 calories? The cravings and hunger are so real! Today I ate the calories and did not go over my total calories for the day, with "burned" calories included (around 1700).
Thanks!
Danielle
0
Replies
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Of course you should. You should eat weekend calories, too.
EDIT: Exercise is like driving your car. Calories are like gasoline. When you drive your car, you have to put more fuel in it. When you use your body, the same thing applies.3 -
Thank you - that's what I thought. I'm definitely hungrier when I work out hard, but was confused.2
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What are weekend calories?0
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Listening to your body is the most important thing you can do. If you're hungry, eat a health snack! Like another poster said, your body needs fuel to do that hard work and as long as you aren't piling on empty calories, it probably isn't going to hurt you even if you go over.1
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healthy snack* lol.1
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What are weekend calories?
People have a lot of different strategies for losing weight. I've heard "don't eat your exercise calories they're a bonus," "eat a big spoonful of peanut butter before you go to bed," "eat as little as you can on the weekends since you probably watch a lot of movies then" and so many more. A lot of these don't make a lot of sense, well, they make sense to whoever is telling you to eat that way, but that doesn't help you.
I don't know how much weight you have to lose. I've lost 70 lbs so far and in an ideal world I'd like to get rid of a bit more. I've learned that there are only two things that really matter: calories, and not giving up.
Exercise makes you hungry, so you eat; it uses up energy, so you eat to replenish that. Best of all, exercise calories taste really good. If that motivates you to keep doing it, great! Eating exercise calories won't get in the way of your weight loss (as long as they're estimated reasonably) because that's how MFP works. You exercise, you get to eat more, plus it makes you healthy as a side effect.6 -
Frankly, I don't know why you wouldn't eat exercise calories. Like North said, your body needs the fuel!2
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Thank you everyone!!0
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Here is my plan, I am a diabetic so I am a carb counter mainly. 130g a day (roughly 1,200 calories)...unless I earn them after I hit 10,000 steps a day. So yes, I will celebrate with a few extra carbs (or calories) but only after I hit a minimum of 10,000 steps. This is because moving my body is so important to controlling my diabetes. Four 15 minute walks a day spread throughout the day (typically 1st thing in the morning and after each meal) is an hour's worth of walking and not so hard to achieve.1
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Calories burned is just an approximation and there's a lot of room for error when that number is calculated. Given that, I usually eat back 50-70% of my exercise calories to allow for that margin of error.5
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I don't ever eat back my exercise calories. I'm just not that hungry when I exercise at least 45 minutes to an hour a day. However, when I don't exercise, I get very hungry. I've gained nearly 15 pounds since losing 35 because of that. The game starts again.0
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Try macro counting.. on training days, you generally can consume more carbs, and less on Rest days.(we're all different) I actually eat more than I did before and am losing weight. Make sure each meal has all 3 macros..and aim for more carbs before your workout for fuel0
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i don't eat my exercise calories. They are a bonus to me. I do eat an Aussie Bodies protein bar after exercise though and count it
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I eat back 1/2 my exercise calories. Except on big days, today 1696 calories burnt snowshoeing, maybe eating back 5001
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And are you measuring your burn by your own heart rate monitor or the machine, or mfp's estimate0
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Just to see I entered 266 minutes of snowshoeing into mfp, it said 2573 calories, my heart rate monitor said 1696 calories. Mfp and the cardio machines over estimate calories burnt. I use a chest strap heart rate monitor ( polar m400)0
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Yes, just make sure you are not over estimating your exercise calories. For reference, I only burn about 60-70 calories per mile walked.1
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I eat back a portion. I do not really trust the readouts on the machines, or the calculators so just to be safe, I usually eat back about half.
This also gives me a little wiggle room in case I didn't weigh my portions properly (which I definitely do not).
All of this is trumped by the fact that if I am hungry, I eat them all back!1 -
I also eat back only a portion of my exercise calories. For example, for 60 minutes on the treadmill, the equipment says I burned about 400 calories, while MFP says it's almost 1000. I'll eat the 400, maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less, depending on how hungry I am, but not the full 1000. If I'm eating 1000 extra calories then I'm probably also not eating healthy foods.0
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