Need of a little help with Calories

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I have been reading some of the other post and Im not really sure on what the answer is.

Do you eat the calories that you burn when you exercise?? As long as you are above 1200 NET calories a day you are good to go right??

Please someone enlighten me on this topic.

Thanks!!!

:)

Replies

  • jgic2009
    jgic2009 Posts: 531 Member
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    Yes, you should eat your exercise calories back--your caloric defecit will remain the same.

    If you don't eat them back, you will create an even bigger defecit, which can cause long-term problems with your metabolism and overall health.
  • mdias23
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    it depends on how much you have to lose. when i was at my biggest i didn't but now that i'm down to the last 10 pounds i do eat them back. you should never lose more than 2-3 pounds a week if you are obese but if you are overweight 1-2 pounds is healthy weight loss. as long as you are eating 1200 calories then you are giving your body the calories it needs to provide basic functions :)
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,293 Member
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    Yes, you should eat your exercise calories back--your caloric defecit will remain the same.

    If you don't eat them back, you will create an even bigger defecit, which can cause long-term problems with your metabolism and overall health.

    Agreed. The reason you are supposed to eat them is that MFP ignores exercise (assumes you wont do any) when giving you your daily caloric goal. Once you exercise you burn more than MFP had in its equation therefore you should eat them back to make the equation balance to lose you goal amount of weight.

    Many professionals will tell you not to eat them, and that makes sense as when they give you a caloric intake they take into account exercise. So MFP may give you 1300 and they may give you 1600, but if you wokrout 5 days/week 400 cals a pop MFP would have you eat 11,100 (1300*7 + 400*5) whereas the pro will have you eat 11,200 (1600*7). See how close the numbers workout to be. What MFP does better those is if you workout more or less than planned you will still be on target to lose your goal amount of weight, which you would not be under the fixed cals/day.
  • smbakke77
    smbakke77 Posts: 273 Member
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    you definitely need to eat back your exercise calories. I fell into a plateau because I wasn't netting at least 1200 for a while. Now that I have changed my goals, increased my intake and started eating back my exercise cals I have been losing again.
  • prettyfitchick
    prettyfitchick Posts: 502 Member
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    Every one has a diffrent thoughts on this subject..
    I have seen many successes on here where people say they ate all there excersise cals back and I have seen post that said they never eat them back Either way you choose to do it there is already cal deficit built in your cal count but make sure you dont eat to few cal if you are burning alot of cal during workouts make sure you at least get close to your recommended amount of cals for the day.
    Sometimes I do and sometimes I dont or I eat about half of my excersie cals back