Do YOU personally eat back your workout calories?

The guidance I've seen here on MFP is to eat back 50% of calories burned. I don't meticulously track that. But if it's a day that I burned a crazy amount of calories, I'd definitely eat a bit more.

Not all of them. I may go over my base calorie goal by 40-50, and this is most of then the calories in my pre-workouts. If I was still hungry I guess I would, but that's a non-issue for me.

CassieJones104 wrote: »

Just wondering if you personally eat back your workout calories?

Yep, some.

Depends how I feel but if I'm actively losing weight, I'll do something like this:

For light exercise like an 45 minute walk, I'll probably only eat about half back.

For moderate exercise like a 2 hour bicycle ride, I might go for somewhere around 75%.

For lots of exercise like a half marathon run or 4 hour bicycle ride or something along those lines, I might go for somewhere around 90%.

That's just my preference and seems to work well for me.

I eat them back (both exercise calories and the calorie adjustment from extra activity), and I have done since I started my weight loss journey in August of last year. And my weight loss is as fast as I wanted it to be.

The only exceptions:
- sometimes the estimates are a bit inflated (especially walks, and sometimes also runs if it's very warm) so I sometimes keep a small margin
- sometimes I don't eat them back on the same day: e.g. after a 4 hour hike, having eating regular meals AND half a tub of ice-cream as a snack, I'm not going to 'stuff my face' just for the sake of it. I might carry over some calories to the next day, or just leave myself with a larger deficit.

My weight loss rate is set at 0.5lbs (0.25kg) per week and I still have about 18 lbs to lose, so it's not a big deal if I have a slightly larger deficit occasionally.

I eat back 50% - 75%.
Yesterday I burned 570 calories, so I ate an additional 300.

I don't want to drop muscle, so I need to fuel my body. MFP is designed for you to eat back intentional workout calories.
I do however know my HRM tends to over estimate certain burns based on the activity selected, hence why I still maintain a bit of a drop. However if I was hungry- I would eat up to the estimated burn amount. As a small stature lady, if I didn't eat them back I could easily be well under 1200 calories a day, which isn't safe, healthy or sustainable.

No but if I go over every blue moon I see them as a cushion. I have lost 60lbs.
I try to stay in my calories budget daily... but if I feel my body is craving nutrients I grab that salad to fruit bowl or even a serving of left overs. If family brings food over got them if I want to use them. I don’t add the exercises to my activity logs I just exercise.

If I eat back all my calories every day my weight jumps up like a rocket 🚀. My cousin eats back his he looses still. It’s based on your body in the end

moonangel12 wrote: »

bex0r2016 wrote: »

Nope. And it's not a good idea to do so, especially when you're trying to maintain a smaller deifict or are closer to GW. the reason being that at 2 to 400 calorie deficit can be wiped out by just one or two mistracked or misweighed meals. Also provided that most fitness trackers are up to 20% inaccurate, it's just not worth it in my opinion.

MFP is designed for your to eat back at least some of your exercise calories - some recommend starting with 50% and adjusting based on your weight trend compared to your set goals. I eat back 100% and have not seen any ill effect on my weight loss efforts, even at .5lb/week. Ignoring them completely can lead to underfueling and undernourishing your body long term - fatigue, muscle loss, hair loss, and other nasty effects in time, especially if someone is already at a steeper deficit. And some people have higher calorie burns - on a Sprint triathlon day I will hit around 1000 burned. To ignore that would not be good for my body in the long run (and short term I would by tired, hungry, and grouchy!)

I usually just assume the people giving the advice not to eat them don't actually get what you and I would consider exercise (or else they'll have bonked bad and learned their lesson). ("Exercise" means different things to different people.. those meandering further around the supermarket aisles with a Fitbit can probably safely ignore them).

My answer to the original question: F* yes. I eat them. (I'll deduct some if I was in a paceline, add some for a trail/off- trail run).

janejellyroll wrote: »

MichelleMcKeeRN wrote: »

I selected active and 1/2 pound weight loss. I don’t eat back additional exercise calories.

If you used your level of intentional exercise as the basis of selecting "active," then that's just another way of eating back your exercise calories. You're just using a workaround to get them upfront.

Yes! It is a good easy option for those that are regularly active!

janejellyroll wrote: »

CharlizeGraves wrote: »

It depends on your health and fitness goals. If you want to lose weight, no. If you want to gain or maintain then yes. I think of it as a nice buffer zone.

I don't think you understand how MFP is designed. It gives you a calorie goal that is a deficit *before* any intentional exercise. With this set-up, it's perfectly appropriate for people with a goal to lose weight to eat back their exercise calories. Using it as a "buffer zone" can result in consuming way fewer calories than you need to support your fitness goals.

This- It would go so far as resulting in taking *negative* net calories in on a regular basis for endurance athletes. Admittedly, I've had a few days like that now and then depending on event timing, but would never think of not making it up the next day/several days (and I'm pretty sure the ravenous hunger the next day wouldn't let me even if I stupidly wanted to).