Do you eat your workout calories ?
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I started at 371 and now I'm at 196 (5'11"). At a higher weight I ate back probably 0-25% of my exercise calories daily. Now I'm at 196 and running 20 miles a week I HAVE to eat back the exercise calories due to the training load and the fact that being lighter I have many less calories to play with.
I use an Apple Watch to measure my runs and activity and I roll with the numbers it plugs into MFP for my exercise. My weight loss has been consistent so I'm happy that it's all worked out for me. I'm maintaining now I guess, but erring to a slight deficit just to see how I level out - not taking any chances!0 -
NorthCascades wrote: »
Me too. Eating exercise calories incentivized exercise for me.
This is one of those times I wish I could mark a post awesome and insightful at the same time.
For me, it's a little like the tortoise and the hair; slow and steady wins the race. Having the best body you can doesn't mean depriving yourself for a horrible week and then celebrating without regaining your weight back, it's a process, and anything we can do to make it easier and smoother and more enjoyable, is something we're doing to stick with it in the long term.2 -
Never , use the exercise just to see how much it would have equated too in food consumption0
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It's a no from me...if your goal is maintaining weight then fair enough eat away, but if you "save the calories up for weekends" just think of how much damage you're gonna do to your diet!
the whole idea of weight loss is to be in a calorie deficit...which is what makes you lose the fat! It's of course possible to still lose weight if you eat them back but it just won't be at the same rate as if you didn't as the deficit will be less 
Reward yourself for sure! But just try and remember the end goal
Also, last thing, I'm doing a cut at the moment so this probably doesn't apply as much to less aggressive weight-loss diets!0 -
I eat them because I'm on maintenance (240 to 171) for the last three years. Sometimes I do an extra work out when I know that I'm going to overeat. My diet is very healthy but I like to indulge on a pizza once a week or so. My normal workout is 100 on average miles of riding per week. I'm 73 years old and feel fantastic.0
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henryjamessimm388 wrote: »It's a no from me...if your goal is maintaining weight then fair enough eat away, but if you "save the calories up for weekends" just think of how much damage you're gonna do to your diet! the whole idea of weight loss is to be in a calorie deficit...which is what makes you lose the fat! It's of course possible to still lose weight if you eat them back but it just won't be at the same rate as if you didn't as the deficit will be less
Reward yourself for sure! But just try and remember the end goal
Also, last thing, I'm doing a cut at the moment so this probably doesn't apply as much to less aggressive weight-loss diets!
The way MFP is set up is for you to lose at the chosen rate without exercise. You then eat the calories back to fuel your body and keep that deficit consistent. And many people save calories through the week so they can have more calories on the weekends or special occasions. If they're still in a deficit for the week, they will lose.1 -
I eat back all of my cardio calories, but not the ones I burn lifting weights. It's working just fine for me.1
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henryjamessimm388 wrote: »It's a no from me...if your goal is maintaining weight then fair enough eat away, but if you "save the calories up for weekends" just think of how much damage you're gonna do to your diet!
I am thinking about it ... and ... happily ... it does absolutely no damage whatsoever!
MFP is set up so that you're in deficit when you enter your information, select sedentary as your activity level, select the amount you want to lose, and consume the number of calories MFP gives you. Exercise gives you bonus calories ... eat them!! Or at least eat some of them.
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NorthCascades wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »
Me too. Eating exercise calories incentivized exercise for me.
This is one of those times I wish I could mark a post awesome and insightful at the same time.
For me, it's a little like the tortoise and the hair; slow and steady wins the race. Having the best body you can doesn't mean depriving yourself for a horrible week and then celebrating without regaining your weight back, it's a process, and anything we can do to make it easier and smoother and more enjoyable, is something we're doing to stick with it in the long term.
Aw, shucks.
I'm not sure why this doesn't resonate with more people, actually. To me it was like a magic bullet - I get more exercise and I get to eat more food that I like. Win-win.3 -
Heck yeah! Food so yummy!0
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Yes, I eat back all of my exercise calories. I tried eating only half, as per the usual recommendation around here, but was losing weight too quickly that way. I'm a cyclist, and it seems that the calorie estimate from my Garmin is fairly accurate, or at least closer to the truth than the MFP database estimates. Makes sense, since it uses GPS to track my speed, distance, and elevation gain, knows my weight and the weight of the bike, and tracks my heart rate.0
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NorthCascades wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »
Me too. Eating exercise calories incentivized exercise for me.
This is one of those times I wish I could mark a post awesome and insightful at the same time.
For me, it's a little like the tortoise and the hair; slow and steady wins the race. Having the best body you can doesn't mean depriving yourself for a horrible week and then celebrating without regaining your weight back, it's a process, and anything we can do to make it easier and smoother and more enjoyable, is something we're doing to stick with it in the long term.
Aw, shucks.
I'm not sure why this doesn't resonate with more people, actually. To me it was like a magic bullet - I get more exercise and I get to eat more food that I like. Win-win.
And IPAs...
I gotta work for my IPAs...3 -
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Had some crackers with goat cheese as a morning snack. One of my coworkers came over and told me he's jealous that my activity level allows me to do stuff like this without gaining weight. I've put 75 miles on my bike in the last 3 days.2
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I do my best not to then again I'm being aggressive in my weight loss goals.0
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When I have an intense cardio workout day, I'll routinely burn 700+ calories, so I usually try to eat back 85-90% of the calories I burned. I know that if I didn't I'd be left with a lot of calories at the end of the day and would feel starving. The 10-15% wiggle room helps with any calorie count inconsistencies.0
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Is that not the point of working out ?1
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I personally don't but I'm maintaining and not trying to lose. I do however go back to my regular calories even if I go out to eat and don't know the exact amount of calories I've consumed. It's working since, with the exception of pregnancy, I've maintained my weight for 18 years. I think you should experiment if you're unsure. Try eating them back and see how the weight loss goes.0
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Is that not the point of working out ?
Last night I needed to go to the store, but I didn't want to drive and deal with parking. So I took my bike. The point of exercising was transportation. A happy side effect is that instead of having to put gas in my car, I had to put food in my belly. 1 -
That's a fine aphorism. It's great if it works for you.
By contrast, if I were told early on in the process that I shouldn't eat my exercise calories, I would likely have become discouraged. I would have been dissatisfied with my calorie budget, and I wouldn't have bothered to exercise very much.
Being able to eat the food that I like is a stronger motivator to me that hazy notions of strength and fitness. I am exercising more than I ever have, I'm in the best shape of my life, and I've maintained my 50 lbs lost for 5 years running, at least partly because I explicitly use food and beer as a motivation for exercise.3 -
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I think it really also depends on how much you've exercised. If you burn 150-200 extra calories a day I'd probably not eat those back and just take the bigger deficit. If I was active all day and got myself an extra 500 I'd probably eat 1/2 back just to avoid a binge if you're consistently too low on net cals. Even using the TDEE method I can sometimes have really high days where I 'earn' calories and i know from experience that eating at least some of those is better long term.0
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The point of working out is to create a bigger calorie deficet. If you eat those additional calories, you are essentially working out for nothing.
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mrssie1223 wrote: »The point of working out is to create a bigger calorie deficet. If you eat those additional calories, you are essentially working out for nothing.
Ummm the point of working out for me is to increase cardiovascular health, endurance, muscle strength and body composition. I don't consider those things "nothing". Increase in caloric deficit is a bonus to me.
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I sometimes eat them back, it depends if I'm hungry and its nice that on the days I do fancy some chocolate I know I can have some without feeling "guilty".
Since I reduced my daily calorie goal to the MFP recommendation of 1280 I've been losing a steady 1lb a week and thats with eating back some of my workout calories. 1lb might not sound a lot but I'm losing inches too and I can feel it in my clothes.
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Yeah, I eat after riding or running to refuel.0
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I do as much as possible. I think SOME entries are inaccurate but running and walking I have been able to eat back 100% of calories without any impact on weight loss or, now, maintenance. Obviously this does depend on you being able to measure how fast you were walking/running but that's fairly easy to do with the huge number of free apps that are available (I use Runkeeper).
If you are serious about improving performance with something like running, in my experience you have to fuel it. My pace has improved by about 30 seconds/km since I moved into maintenance and I feel much more able to push myself. If I hadn't been eating those calories back while in a deficit, god knows how terrible I would have felt!
The exercise calories I take with a pinch of salt are strength training, circuit training/aerobics and yoga. I log them and eat 100% of what I log, but I go for the "light effort" options and only plug in time actually spent exercising, not rest periods.0 -
Always. It's one of the main reasons why I exercise - for the extra calories.1
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