Eating back exercise calories

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Replies

  • TNoire
    TNoire Posts: 642 Member
    I don't, some days I go into the negatives
    honestly lol
    I try to eat what I can to get my body fuel'd
    usually between 1200-1300 cals
    I burn 500- 2000 sometimes more a day

    it takes 3500 BURNED cals to burn 1lb
    if your eating back all your calories you burn
    where you at?
    0

    I found personally in the years i been losing exp during the time I dropped 156lbs in 19 months
    eat what you eat and make sure its all healthy, 1200 for females and 1800 for guys no less
    you drop weight pretty well =)

    I gained some back when I lost track during the house buy/sell
    My weight I gained was from quitting smoking I went from 135 to 330 in a few yrs swapping smoking with fast food/junk food etc

    but im back on track now and I NEVER eat my cals back =)

    Thats just me, to each there own really, I wanna see results so i don't eat em back

    You burn calories by sleeping, eating, etc. There is already a deficit built into MFP.
    If you have a large amount of weight to lose not eating can speed up the loss for a bit but after a while you will lose muscle, your metabolism will slow and you will stop burning as many calories over all.

    Yep I burn almost 1700 just laying in bed all day (if thats what i ever decided to do so on top of that I burn another 500-2000 or more =) ~

    Muscle weighs more than fat and it also helps burn more fat =)
    I learned quite a bit going from 330lbs to 176lbs in 19 months =)
    Ive learned it all good and bad, thats why now I have my docs and my dietitian always there for me and helping me out
    I am thankful & blessed to have them with me as well as my friends/family that workout with me on a daily bases =)

    I eat my 1200-1300
    I can't eat anymore cause I don't get hungry for anymore
    My body has enough fuel to get though
    I can tell when it doesn't cause Ill want more food and I wont say no im not gonna eat it cause if i am hungry ill eat if not I wont =)

    3 meals + 2 snacks = make me happy

    I do zumba a lot and thats a workout lol
  • lisakyle_11
    lisakyle_11 Posts: 420 Member
    bump
  • Dstdiva01
    Dstdiva01 Posts: 18 Member
    I've been doing Jillian Michael's 30 day shred and am trying to figure out whether I should eat back any of my exercise calories. Has anyone read anything on this? What do you all do?
    MFP calculates our total daily calorie intake WITHOUT exercise to lose 1 pound or so per week.
    And after we log exercises, our daily calorie limit increases.
    Why?
    Because MFP telling us to eat our exercise calories.
    Large deficits are unhealthy, because while you will lose weight, what's the quality of the weight loss?
    In many cases you'll lose lean body mass - MUSCLE - which LOWERS your metabolic rate, making weight loss harder.
    These crash diets work well for a season -- and sure enough, the pounds melt away. But when you eat so
    few calories, you train your metabolism to slow down. Once the diet is over, you have a body that burns calories more slowly -- and you gain weight.
    Be smart.
    Exercise well both cardio and resistance, and eat back the calories.
    The exercise will RAISE your metabolism and burn more fat at rest.

    Best explanation I've read on this so far. I was so confused! Thank YOU!!!

    I agree and if you are not using a HRM to track the cal burned be very careful in my experience so far I found that MFP was over @ least 200cal more than my HRM on my workouts, big wake up call for me
  • jennifershoo
    jennifershoo Posts: 3,198 Member

    MFP calculates our total daily calorie intake WITHOUT exercise to lose 1 pound or so per week.
    And after we log exercises, our daily calorie limit increases.
    Why?
    Because MFP telling us to eat our exercise calories.
    Large deficits are unhealthy, because while you will lose weight, what's the quality of the weight loss?
    In many cases you'll lose lean body mass - MUSCLE - which LOWERS your metabolic rate, making weight loss harder.
    These crash diets work well for a season -- and sure enough, the pounds melt away. But when you eat so
    few calories, you train your metabolism to slow down. Once the diet is over, you have a body that burns calories more slowly -- and you gain weight.
    Be smart.
    Exercise well both cardio and resistance, and eat back the calories.
    The exercise will RAISE your metabolism and burn more fat at rest.

    This^^
  • jennifershoo
    jennifershoo Posts: 3,198 Member
    Your trainer needs a new job.

    :laugh: Exactly!
  • WickedGarden
    WickedGarden Posts: 944 Member

    I agree and if you are not using a HRM to track the cal burned be very careful in my experience so far I found that MFP was over @ least 200cal more than my HRM on my workouts, big wake up call for me

    I keep heaing this ^^^ MFP will only give me 450 (ish) calories burned for kickboxing, but according to my HRM, I burn 860 during a session of Kenpo (kickboxing/martial arts) with the P90x program. I am working out at my target heart rate too.

    EDIT: oh, that's why I figured out I needed to eat back my calories..or at least most of them. When I used the MFP calories burned, I suddenly kept getting tired and taking 3 hour naps. Now that I eat back the calories, I'm not tired and don't need the naps.
    I ♥ my HRM. hahahhaha
  • KathieSwenson
    KathieSwenson Posts: 179
    You need to eat back at least a small portion of the calories you burn exercising. Like everyone has said mfdp already calculates a deficit in there. 1200 calories is a deficit trust me on that one if you don't do the research. I do find if I exercise and I don't eat ,an extra meal at the least I will gain weight not loose it. Look at it this way. A friend told this to me yesterday and is a good example. The women body was created/designed to carry life for NINE months in a depression, Nine months is the gestation period for a pregnant woman. So that being said it will naturally be harder to loose weight if you don't eat because your body will kick into starvation mode and it will want to sustain life for nine months. You have to eat back some of your calories or your body is going to say "uh oh something is not right and I need to keep her alive for nine months". Okay. That's how I look at it. Since then I have ate more and didn't exercise and still lost weight. I struggle with it but loosing slowley is much better than loosing quickly.
  • shanlynt
    shanlynt Posts: 718 Member
    I suggest eating a majority of them back. It's really hard to know if the cardio machine etc is giving you a true number.
  • tigersword
    tigersword Posts: 8,059 Member
    I am wondering this too! By the time I add in my exercise burn I am quite a bit below my calorie intake because I am really
    trying to watch what I eat. But isn't the objective to be below so that you can lose the lbs? I have read some comments
    about people not eating enough - but if you don't have a calorie deficit than you don't lose the weight.
    I need more explanation I guess.

    Your MFP calorie goal factors in weight loss without exercise. When you add in exercise, you need to properly fuel that exercise by eating more, otherwise you risk losing muscle tissue and damaging your organs. By eating exercise calories you can ensure that you are maintaining health and losing fat.

    I'll put it this way. Do you think eating 500 calories a day is ok? Eating 1200 calories, but burning 700 in exercise is the same thing as just eating 500 calories. When you exercise, your body burns off the food you eat for the exercise, so it isn't available for your body rouse to support your normal life functions. It's no different than just flat out starving yourself.
  • tialynn1
    tialynn1 Posts: 884 Member
    There are some days that I don't eat the calories back, and some days that I eat almost all of my calories back from exercise. I have lost weight every week. I am eating healthier than ever, but I am not restricting myself of anything. I am exercising everyday for at least 1 hour.
  • mmarcy11
    mmarcy11 Posts: 38 Member
    I'm a little new at this, but it also really depends on your weight/height. If you are a woman eating 2,000 calories a day and you burn 500 calories at the gym that would be net calories of 1500 so no probably not best to eat your exercise calories back. BUT if you are only eating 1200 calories a day and go to the gym to burn 500 pounds thats a net calories of 700 which is bad. So I would say if you are only eating the minimum amount of calories for women (1200) and exercise then you should eat your exercise calories back to keep your net calories at 1200.

    Trust me, I started losing weight in January, I lost 4 pounds (about 1 lb per week) and I wanted to lose more weight. So I started burning about 700 calories at the gym 6 days a week. I wasn't tracking my calories then, just started this past week, but I bet I was eating less than 1000 calories per day. I actually gained .5 of a lb instead of losing more weight and I was devastated. I decided to start really being serious about this site and tracking my calories and my exercise and I realized my net calories would be 600 to 800 per day. I asked for help on the discussion boards and other members told me to eat my excess calories back so that my net would not go below 1200. I've been eating them and have lost 2 pounds this past week by doing so.
  • busym0m
    busym0m Posts: 96 Member
    I'm on Jillian michaels website and her calculation is different than MFP & that's why I'm confused.  this is what Jillian's site does:

    Set to lose 2 lbs per week, she says I should eat 1389 per day.
    Magic Number Calculation - 1389 = 1589 BMR x 1.2 activity level of lightly active + 500 exercise calories - 1000 calories to lose 2 lbs per week

    Her plan expects that you will follow her exercise routine 4 days a week and have 1 day of cardio.  You can see that she is adding 500 calories back in for exercising.  So, when you exercise and log your info on her site, you CANNOT eat the calories that you exercise off because she's already accounted for them in her "magic number calculation" with the 500 exercise calories.

    On MFP, I'm set to lose 1 lb per week and have a calorie budget of 1570.  No exercise calories are added back in, even if I put in an exercise budget.  When I actually exercise and log it, MFP tells me that I earned extra exercise calories and it INCREASES my "daily goal calories" by the amount of calories I burned for the day!

    It still doesn't makes sense why my calorie budget is so different on the two sites.  MFP is 1570 for 1 lb and Jillian's is 1389 for 2 lbs.  Yes, this is apples to oranges.  Apples to apples would be the same:

    MFP...  1570 - 500 calories for the 2nd lb per week (3500/7) + 500 exercise calories allotted per Jillian's site = 1570 and that's 181 calories more per day than Jillian's.

    Anyway, I think both systems expect you to eat back your calories.  Not sure why the calorie budgets are so different...  
  • Rays_Wife
    Rays_Wife Posts: 1,173 Member
    I've been losing more weight since I started eating my exercise calories back. I try to net 1400 cals a day right now. Last week my average calorie intake was 1750 cals and I lost 3 pounds this week! Before when I was not eating them back, I would be lucky to lose 1 pound a week. The weight loss really dwindled off. But when I stopped starving my body, BOOM! The weight started coming off faster. Just be careful you are calculating your burns correctly. I had to get a HRM and now I am confident in eating my calories back. MFP was wildly exaggerating my calorie burns by over 200 cals! I love my HRM. If you can you should get one. It really helped me get to the next level.
  • TNoire
    TNoire Posts: 642 Member
    I've been losing more weight since I started eating my exercise calories back. I try to net 1400 cals a day right now. Last week my average calorie intake was 1750 cals and I lost 3 pounds this week! Before when I was not eating them back, I would be lucky to lose 1 pound a week. The weight loss really dwindled off. But when I stopped starving my body, BOOM! The weight started coming off faster. Just be careful you are calculating your burns correctly. I had to get a HRM and now I am confident in eating my calories back. MFP was wildly exaggerating my calorie burns by over 200 cals! I love my HRM. If you can you should get one. It really helped me get to the next level.

    gratz on ur loss, yeah I lost 5.5 lbs since Feb 3rd til the 9th not eating mine back, everyones body is diff =)
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