CALORIES to intake

avilar1012
avilar1012 Posts: 16 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Beginner here !! Just wondering when you go to the gym and burn 500 cal of cardio should you being eating those calories or half or none ? Thank you

Replies

  • L1zardQueen
    L1zardQueen Posts: 8,753 Member
    seska422 wrote: »
    MFP is set up to eat exercise calories back but all of these numbers are general estimates to get you started. A good place to start is eating back half since calorie burns tend to be overestimated. Reevaluate in a month or two after you see your actual results.

    This^^

    I eat all of my calories back because I know my exercise calorie burns are correct. You just need to track your intake for a while.
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,333 Member
    I've always eaten all the exercise calories. If you keep good records for a month to six weeks, you'll know exactly what to do.

    The calculators are right on for some people, and a little off for others. Only way to know is to run the experiment. It's what we all have to do. This isn't an exact process, but close enough is good enough.
  • avilar1012
    avilar1012 Posts: 16 Member
    Thank you very much guys!!
  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,342 Member
    The MFP way is to eat most of them back - machines and the exercise database are inclined to over estimate the burn so err on the side of caution and eat say 50-75% of them.
  • avilar1012
    avilar1012 Posts: 16 Member
    Thank you very much. I see the difference in calorie burn on the treadmill versus my Apple Watch. Good to know. I was confused
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    avilar1012 wrote: »
    Beginner here !! Just wondering when you go to the gym and burn 500 cal of cardio should you being eating those calories or half or none ? Thank you

    That is the way MFP is designed to work. How many you would eat back would be dictated by how accurate your estimates are. I always ate all of mine back, but I had pretty accurate estimates.
  • AnvilHead
    AnvilHead Posts: 18,343 Member
    Excellent video explanation of it here: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10503681/exercise-calories-do-i-eat-these-a-video-explanation/p1
  • avilar1012
    avilar1012 Posts: 16 Member
    Mr_L33 wrote: »
    everyone does it differently. I don't eat my calories back. I calculate my calories through iifym and the calculator I believe already takes in account that u worked out. so if I eat 2k, and burn 1k, I wont eat 1k back, even though mfp is telling me I have 1k left.
    Thank you!
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    Mr_L33 wrote: »
    everyone does it differently. I don't eat my calories back. I calculate my calories through iifym and the calculator I believe already takes in account that u worked out. so if I eat 2k, and burn 1k, I wont eat 1k back, even though mfp is telling me I have 1k left.

    If you're only getting a 2,000 calorie target and regularly burning off 1,000 calories with exercise, you don't have you activity level set correctly.

    I use the TDEE method as well, but it's only going to account for your exercise if you actually have you activity level set correctly.
  • avilar1012
    avilar1012 Posts: 16 Member
    Thank you the video really helped me
  • fayenh
    fayenh Posts: 1 Member
    It completely depends on what your aim is, are you trying to lose, gain or maintain. If you are trying to lose weight you need to be in a deficit, therefore, depending on what you were wanting to lose you may not eat any of them or you may eat some of them, but you would be in a deficit. If you were wanting to maintain, it would be a case of working out what your body needs on a daily and weekly basis and going from there, but this all varies from person to person, different metabolisms and all that jazz.
  • TeaBea
    TeaBea Posts: 14,517 Member
    avilar1012 wrote: »
    Beginner here !! Just wondering when you go to the gym and burn 500 cal of cardio should you being eating those calories or half or none ? Thank you

    How are you calculating 500 exercise calories? Heart rate monitor is pretty decent for steady state cardio.

    Are you using My Fitness Pal for your initial calorie goal? Are you confident you are logging food intake accurately, do you use a digital food scale?

    Ideally you could eat back 100% of exercise calories and lose weight at the rate you signed up for (when using MFP as designed) - but so many things are estimates.

    Start by eating back 50%. Do that for a few weeks, then tweak that % based on actual results.
  • jefamer2017
    jefamer2017 Posts: 416 Member
    On days when I am pretty much sedentary I will not eat back any exercise calories, if I am at work and burning a bunch of calories I will eat a few hundred extra. My fitness pal will give me 1500 to 2000 more calories to eat by the time I get home from work. I cannot eat that much after I've already eaten 800 to 1000 calories. I'm set right now to eat 1460 calories but on work days I eat 1800 or so.
  • avilar1012
    avilar1012 Posts: 16 Member
    I was given 1200 cal daily. I log all my food, measure it and use a digital scale. My calories from working out , I added what the treadmill was reading .... but after reading that the numbers may not be accurate what I’m logging let’s say the treadmill says I burned 400 is probably only really 300. Today I used my Apple Watch and went to a different gym that asked you for your weight before you begin ... I weigh 113 pounds and I can tell you I had to work out a long tome just to see 200 calories burned. The accuracy of when u add ur weight was mind blowing when comparing it to other machines that don’t ask for that. I compared it to my Apple Watch and after 36 min of cardio my Apple Watch said my active calories were 187 and the treadmill that I entered my weight said 200 that was way closer in range.

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