Eating Calories burned

jcpent
jcpent Posts: 2
edited November 9 in Fitness and Exercise
Hi! I have a question about calorie intake with exercise. Say my calorie limit is 1200 a day and then I burn off 500 calories at the gym. So does that mean for that day I can eat 1700 calories? Obviously working out is important to be fit and healthy, but I don't see why you would be able to eat back the calories you burned; wouldn't that just nullify the point of working off calories?
Thanks

Replies

  • melraejor
    melraejor Posts: 10 Member
    I believe MFP already calculates your calorie deficit for the amount of weight you want to lose per week. So therefore if you did no exercise you would still likely lose weight. When you burn calories you are using energy and it needs to be replaced. It is important for muscle growth and it is also important so that your body doesn't think it is starving. Otherwise it will hold onto that weight. Sometimes when I workout a lot it is hard to eat back all of the calories but I try to do at least half. If you are hungry I say eat, if not then have a larger deficit for that day.
  • Prefessa
    Prefessa Posts: 90
    JC:

    My wisdom tells me the following....Starvation Mode kicks in in 72 hrs after severe restriction. If 1200 cal is your calculated limit, then your BMR is likely ~800 or so, under no circumstances do you want your NET Cal (Cal in-Cal Out from Exercise.) to fall to your BMR or Below. Think about it, with the calorie burn from exercise, you are effectively starving your body to the point where it cannot support its own bodily functions even though you ate! Your body will eventually react to this by slowing down your caloric needs and making weight loss harder!

    I think it is fine to eat back a portion of your burn to accelerate weight loss so long as you don't over do it or under do it, and so long as every 3 days you make sure YOU DO eat up ALL your calorie burn and maybe even a tad more and go to maintainance calories or a very slight deficit Then you can choose to repeat this in cycles based on your exercise schedule. This is assuming that you exercise daily, or at least most days of the week.

    The body adapts to practically anything, so prolonged sustained calorie restriction, or severe calorie restriction is bad in the long term and lead to plateus and rebound weight gain. You want to be lean for life! Protect your metabolism!
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