Exercise calories - do I eat these? A video explanation.

ElleHeart22 wrote: »

amusedmonkey wrote: »

ElleHeart22 wrote: »

I guess I'm a bit confused on the "need" to eat those calories. Do you need to? Or i can? I don't usually because I figure this will help my weight loss even more if I'm burning even more calories and just leaving them burned.

It depends on your initial built in deficit and how steep it is. You can choose to eat or not eat your calories back if not eating them back would not put you at a deficit greater than 35% or even lower if already lean (some use a loss of 1% of body weight per week as an upper limit, but I don't like it because it can result in a calorie budget that is quite low for some people) or if your extra exercise is something like relaxed yoga or a short stroll which don't burn that many calories. You need to eat back at least some of your exercise calories if not eating them puts you at a steep deficit or if you are not obese (morbidly obese people can handle a temporary steep deficit better and may need to do so if the risk of staying fat is greater than the risk of losing fast). If you are lean, a steep deficit will cause greater muscle loss and hormonal imbalances that may affect your hunger levels leading to binges, your period, your energy, your gallbladder, and if your chosen starting calorie budget is already low, your nutrients, plus a host of other problems like greater metabolic slowdown and the like.

Now if you want to burn calories and leave them burned you could use the TDEE method. It's essentially the same as eating back exercise calories, except your account for your exercise in advance. Here is an example person whose sedentary (no exercise) maintenance calories are 2000 and wants to lose at a 500 daily deficit:

MFP method:
Sedentary maintenance is 2000
2000 - 500 = 1500 that's the starting budget
The person exercises for 250 calories, their budget becomes 1500 + 250 = 1750, so they need to eat back their calories to keep their deficit at 500.

The TDEE method:
The person exercises daily for 250 calories putting their maintenance at 2250
to achieve a 500 calorie deficit that means 2250 - 500 = 1750.
Since exercise is already accounted for in the budget, this person should not eat back their exercise calories.

This was really helpful thanks. I guess I probably should be eating more in this case.. my calorie intake is 1,380 and honestly, I only usually get to 1,000 at the most a day. I assume that's probably bad.

lynwak2016 wrote: »

I stand on my feet a few days a week anywhere from 4 to 7.5 hours a day at work in a supermarket. So you work out how many calories that is and then add it to the exercise section of myfitnesspal?