Confused about exercise calories-can you help?

I make sure that I stay within the alloted calorie count and don't eat the work out ones. if you are trying to just maintain your current weight, than yes, you can eat the workout calories. if you are trying to lose weight, than you dont want to eat them.

If you are trying to lose weight, you need to burn more than you eat, so eating those extra calories will help you maintain, not lose.

I make sure that I stay within the alloted calorie count and don't eat the work out ones. if you are trying to just maintain your current weight, than yes, you can eat the workout calories. if you are trying to lose weight, than you dont want to eat them.

^^^^ this is why there's still confusion.

http://shouldieatmyexercisecalories.com/

I have only been on MFP for a little over a week and am still learning so much, but there is something that still confuses me. I have been reading about "eating your workout calories" so does that mean that at the end of the day if you have worked out, you should eat your normal allotment AND the 500-600 calories burned at the gym so you are at as close to zero as possible? Up until now, I was trying to end my days that include a workout with as much banked as possible? Any thoughts or philosophies on what works best would be appreciated!

As always, thank you for your help and have a great day!

If you don't eat them you may end up damaging your metabolism. You should be withing 100+/- of your goal plus workout calories. So if you are set at 1350 and burn 500 at the gym you should aim for 1850 (1350+500) and will be fine eating between 1750-1950

Check the pinned post at the top of the forums. It will explain it better. I have found however, that when you have more than 75lbs to lose eating back you exercise calories is pretty much impossible if you are eating healthy, however I do allow more calories on exercise days. Feel free to browse my dairy. This week has been crazy, but today is a good example. Either way you should always eat at or above 1200 calories a day to prevent starvation mode.

You will find a wide variety of responses on if this is the most effective thing to do. Without making this a heated debate, I can’t answer that for you, but I can say that in short that is way MFP was designed. It determines your calorie deficit without factoring in exercise, so if you exercise your deficit is actually higher. Therefore for the most part, you should be eating back your calories. This is again, by design.

Now, you will have to do what works best for YOU. And with each workout routine, plan, regime, that will differ. So, my advice is to always do something, stick to it, see the results THEN make adjusts if/as necessary.


As a fairly new member of the family, please see some helpful links below.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/186814-some-mfp-basics

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/188509-my-take-on-exercise-calories-please-read-if-you-are-new

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/61706-guide-to-calorie-deficits

Watch the type of calories u take inn ,keep your sugars low,fats low, GOOD to have high intake of protein,& high fiber,just because a certain exercise burns calories and u get more according to myfitnesspal does n't mean use them all up ,due to metabolicdifferences between people calories burned is a rough estimate,I've hit my goal in 8 months 263-170 pounds u can add me if your interested in the methods I used diet,exercise,nutrition ect. By the way when you lack calories your body uses its fat as emergency fuel as long as u keep enough protein in your body you shouldn't lose Any muscle mass,you may feel fatigue but pushing through that with your will power will burn off excess fat fast! ( A bear before hibernation stocks up on calories it stores it as fat but because the animal needs energy to stay alive the fat burns off before the bear awakes ) its something to that effect,I did that and had amazing results look @ my photos all taken as of Sept.last year to current as OS yesterdays upload.ALOHA-Keola

I'm seeing some confused posts here. Your target calories for the day factor in your weight loss goal, so eating your exercise calories does NOT put you into weight maintenance mode. For you to maintain, you'd have to eat up to your adjusted BMR (your weight loss goal is the BMR adjusted for activity level minus the calories you give up daily to achieve your weekly weight loss) plus the exercise calories. You can "buy" some accelerated weight loss by not eating all your exercise calories. However, be careful to keep you net daily calories (consumed - exercise) above 1200 (1500 for men). Falling below 1200 on a consistent basis can have undesirable metabolic consequences (like putting your body into stress mode which may drop your BMR and make it harder to lose weight).

In a nutshell, if your daily calorie target is 1200, then you should be eating all your exercise calories. Whatever amount over 1200 your daily target is, then you can safely not eat that many exercise calories.

To make things easier on myself I set myself a daily target goal that was consistent and then stopped worrying about eating exercise calories back unless my net seemed too low. I eat 1900 every day because I exercise 5-6 times per week and 1900 equates roughly to the maintenance calories of an active person at my goal weight. Knowing how many calories I have to work with every day makes it easier to plan.

I make sure that I stay within the alloted calorie count and don't eat the work out ones. if you are trying to just maintain your current weight, than yes, you can eat the workout calories. if you are trying to lose weight, than you dont want to eat them.

Wrong - I have been losing constantly and I eat my exercise calories back. If you want to lose weight maybe a little faster then gain it all back once you are at your goal weight then don't eat your exercise calories back. HOWEVER, if you want to be able to maintain your weight once you hit your goal weight, then EAT YOUR EXERCISE CALORIES BACK!!!!