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eating exercise calories on maintenance

bitterbrownie
bitterbrownie Posts: 369
edited October 2024 in Social Groups
who has maintained by eating exercise calories on top of normal allowance?

i do if i have excessive calories left, but i count that as 200+...how does it work for everyone else?

Replies

  • Robin1117
    Robin1117 Posts: 1,768 Member
    Hi! I eat every exercise calorie I can get....and have been maintaining for over a year and a half.

    I try to average about 350-400 additional extra exercise calories per day, on top of about 1550-1600 daily base.

    When you say you count the exercise calories as 200+, does that mean you limit your exercise calories to 200 in addition to your base?
  • bitterbrownie
    bitterbrownie Posts: 369
    No I mean that I only eat back exercise calories if I've earned more than 200 on top of my 1500 daily intake.

    Thanks for the reply :)
  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
    you will need to eat back your exercise calories, or you will be creating a deficit.

    my maintenance cals are set to 1800, plus whatever exercise cals, so i generally net 2000 - 2100 per day.
  • Lp80
    Lp80 Posts: 29
    I love eating my exercise calories :)
  • Breadbar
    Breadbar Posts: 333 Member
    I am coming to depend on my exercise calories - I find myself very motiviated to get over to the gym to earn them each day
  • schnarfo
    schnarfo Posts: 764 Member
    definitely eat them back! :)
  • RiverTom
    RiverTom Posts: 216 Member
    I'm definitely eating most of them back. ;)
  • it_be_asin
    it_be_asin Posts: 562 Member
    I eat them back, well most of em anyway. Otherwise I would definitely still be losing, cause I often will burn 500 cal a day.
  • FITnFIRM4LIFE
    FITnFIRM4LIFE Posts: 818 Member
    definitely eat them back! :)

    This..Me2 and loving every hard earned bite:-) maintained since Sept 2011.115-117. Increased my weights and duration and started to drop again to 112-114 even though cals were 1900-2000. This week going up to 2200 -2300.I prefer 115ish.
  • DeeDeeLHF
    DeeDeeLHF Posts: 2,301 Member
    I eat most. If I eat too many, I start to gain again.

    D
  • M_lifts
    M_lifts Posts: 2,218 Member
    i would eat them back! ive been maintaining since april last year and have stuck to my 120-124 target range.
  • Altiv
    Altiv Posts: 174 Member
    I don't eat them, but that's simply because last time I tried (I burn an average of 550 cals, five times a week) I gained four pounds, so this time I'm sticking with 1600-1750 cals per day ;)
  • lornathewizzard
    lornathewizzard Posts: 165 Member
    Yes, I do eat mine back. Otherwise you are creating a deficit which isn't the aim here. I used to eat mine back anyway when I was losing, but I think its much easier to understand why you do it when you are maintaining - you're burning calories off, eat them back to get your net goal right! Sometimes I find it hard to eat them all back, especially when I do my two classes in one night, but I tend to look at my goal over the full week now, so it generally evens out. Less stress if you are over goal a day as well!
  • kitkat4141
    kitkat4141 Posts: 379 Member
    I eat most of my exercise calories but am still losing weight albeit very slowly. The only thing I can think of is MFP's calorie estimation for exercises is lower than what I am actually burning. Trying to achieve some sort of balance as I do not need to lose any more weight at this time.
  • MissMaggie3
    MissMaggie3 Posts: 2,464 Member
    I'm all for eating exercise calories! :bigsmile:
  • stuffinmuffin
    stuffinmuffin Posts: 985 Member
    Oh definitely eat them! That's half the fun of being in maintenance - high calorie feasting!!! I do tend to save some of mine to have a spike day once a week where I'll go out for a meal and drinks, and work more towards my 'weekly net' calories rather than daily. Sometimes I just love Sunday's because I can pig out on all my spare calories for the week! x
  • mikeyrp
    mikeyrp Posts: 1,616 Member
    I try and eat my exercise calories net over a week... Very long runs give huge spikes in available calories so it doesn't make sense to eat them same day.

    The best thing to do is experiment - if you are still loosing weight (and this is no longer your goal) you are not eating enough. If you are gaining, you're eating too much. Pretty simple really.

    Both the maintenance calories and the exercise calorie calculations (MFP, HRM, Gym machines) are approximations anyway - you will need to scale them according to what you observe in terms of weight loss/gain.

    Make sure you do this over time: I always gain weight the day after a long run and drop it again two days later - if the gain meant I adjusted my calories down I would loose too much,
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