Can you eat back the calories you burned?

achoulat395
achoulat395 Posts: 27 Member
edited November 17 in Food and Nutrition
Can you eay back the calories youve burned? Should you? Googled it and found conflicting answers.

Replies

  • nrbutton
    nrbutton Posts: 165 Member
    edited March 2017
    Can you? Yes

    Should you? That all depends on your goals and trial and error. If you eat your calories back and aren't losing weight then you are either overestimating calories burned or underestimating calories eaten.

    To avoid issues with overestimating my exercise calories I just set my calorie goal for my current activity level and forget the "exact" calories burned during exercise.
  • TeaBea
    TeaBea Posts: 14,517 Member
    Depends....

    We are burning calories 24/7. So My Fitness Pal gave you a calorie deficit based on your activity level for your job.

    But if you are asking about deliberate exercise, the answer to your question is yes. MFP gave you a deficit with zero exercise calories factored in.

    Exercise calories are hard to estimate. Most MFP users eat back 50-75%. Then adjust up or down after a few weeks based on actual results.
  • AnvilHead
    AnvilHead Posts: 18,343 Member
    Take the 3 minutes it takes to watch this video discussion of it: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10503681/exercise-calories-do-i-eat-these-a-video-explanation
  • estherdragonbat
    estherdragonbat Posts: 5,283 Member
    I generally eat back half.
  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 25,690 Member
    I have to eat back at least half.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    achoulat395 wrote: »
    Can you eay back the calories youve burned? Should you? Googled it and found conflicting answers.

    A search on here would work better than Google searches.
    Most other sites work on a TDEE basis where you exercise is factored into your goal and you get to "eat back" an average daily amount rather than a variable daily amount.

    Eating back a varied amount on the day suits me better as I have a very erratic routine day to day, week to week and even season to season. Some of my long duration exercise also requires I fuel it on the day.
  • achoulat395
    achoulat395 Posts: 27 Member
    AnvilHead wrote: »
    Take the 3 minutes it takes to watch this video discussion of it: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10503681/exercise-calories-do-i-eat-these-a-video-explanation

    Very helpful thank you
  • achoulat395
    achoulat395 Posts: 27 Member
    Thanks for the advice guys
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