Eating Exercise Calories???

I never eat back my calories I earn by working out. I try to eat around 1200cals a day. My workouts usually yield around 400cals, so my total net calorie is around 800cals. This gives me the best results. I feel healthy and happy. If I eat back those 400cals then my intake is around 1600cals a day…way too many for my body type. I’ve heard from many doctors and many healthcare specialists and the always say that your total calorie intake (your net calories after food and workout) should be lower than your initial food calorie allowance for the day. As long as I get all my proper food groups and nutrients in my 1200cals it would be counterproductive for me to eat pointless calories just to make my journal balance. I tried both ways (eating my calories back and not eating them back) and I had the best results with not eating back my workout calories. I just stay focused on getting my 1200cals and within that, all the nutrients that I need in order to feel healthy and strong before and during my work outs. I see the calories I burn in a work as extra bonuses towards my weight loss goal!

Have fun starving yourself.

I always maintained that you shouldn't eat them back! I was eating a steady 1,200cals per day and exercising 3/4 times a week. I lost some weight which was great, but then I started to pleatau. It wasn't until my sister came home after spending last summer in France. We are both on here together and we're once similar weights! Before she left, she weighed about 159lbs and I weighed 163lbs. I worked my *kitten* off for those 3 months, watching what I ate and ensuring I exercised regularity. She on the otherhand are pasta and bread on most days and walked a lot. She was eating back her exercise calories almost always and I almost ever ate mine back. When she returned home I weighed 160lbs, a measly 3lbs loss in 3months, she on the otherhand weighed 148lbs. A whopping 11lbs loss! Slightly jealous!

Say you maintenance calories are 2,000, eating 1,500 calls will hopefull allow a 1lb loss per week. Them calories will cause you to lose weight, but healthily. If you exercise ontop of that, you need to add those calories back on in order to keep your body functioning and energised in order to exercise. Your calorie deficit is already built in, therefore those extra calories you burn, you must eat......you still have that deficit!

You could on the otherhand eat your maintenance calories and have no calorie deficit. You can make the deficit by exercise alone. Here you don't eat back your exercise calories because you had no calorie deficit to begin with before exercise.

Hopefully this helps!

If you are following MFP's recommended caloric intake then you should be eating them as MFP is set up this way for a reason. If you inputted your own caloric intake that took into consideration your exercise then don't eat them back.

As an example say MFP gives you 1450 calories to lose 1 lb/week, and you plan on exercising 5x/week for an average of 400 cals per workout. well MFP will tell you to eat 1450 on the days you don't workout and 1850 on the days you do whereas a "professional" may tell you to eat 1750 everyday regardless if you workout.

So for the week MFP will have you eat 12,150 (1450*2+1850*5) whereas doing it the other way will have you eat 12,250 (1750*7) almost the same number of cals for the week. The issue in not following MFP is if you don't workout the full 5 days or burn more or less than planned. If that is the case you may lose more or less than your goal, whereas MFP will have you lose your goal amount regardless how much you actually workout.

What many MFPers do is take the low 1450 and not eat back exercise calories which is wrong, if you are not eating them back then your daily activity level should reflect the higher burn with would be covered in the 1750/day above.

^^ THIS:)

You will lose more quickly if you DON'T eat your exercise calories back. You'll probably lose "weight" at 1.5x the pace.

Then in two months, you'll stop losing weight. You won't know what to do, so you'll try to increase your cals to break a plateau. But then your body stores as much as possible (which is a lot, since it now works extra efficient from the little cals you gave it).

Eat your exercise cals PLEASE. You will be so much better off in the long run. You will look better, and be happier, and have more energy, and have more muscle mass (which leads to a higher metabolism, so you can EAT MORE)

I am week 6 and gained 1.2 I do no eat all my exercise cals just some, and not every day. SHould I be eating all..?? every day??

You will lose more quickly if you DON'T eat your exercise calories back. You'll probably lose "weight" at 1.5x the pace.

Then in two months, you'll stop losing weight. You won't know what to do, so you'll try to increase your cals to break a plateau. But then your body stores as much as possible (which is a lot, since it now works extra efficient from the little cals you gave it).

Eat your exercise cals PLEASE. You will be so much better off in the long run. You will look better, and be happier, and have more energy, and have more muscle mass (which leads to a higher metabolism, so you can EAT MORE)

Yep...in a nut shell!

There is no 1 right answer as it depends on a lot of things. But here is the cliff notes version... should give you enough of an understanding to decided whether or not you should be eating back your cals.

To lose weight you need to be in a healthy caloric deficit. There are 2 ways to accomplish that:

1) Set your daily caloric intake at a deficit
This is what most people do, and is how MFP is designed to work. You figure out your daily caloric need (TDEE, or total daily energy expenditure), then set your calorie goal lower than that. For example.. if your TDEE is 1800, you might set your daily calorie goal to 1400. That puts you in a caloric deficit and you will start to lose weight*. When you exercise you burn additional calories. These burned calories are not accounted for in your TDEE or the calorie goal you set based on your TDEE. So exercising increases that caloric deficit. The thing to watch here is how big that deficit gets. Every body responds differently, but the larger the deficit the worse it is for your body (the assumption is that the larger the deficit gets the harder it is to properly fuel your body). And this is why people recommend eating back exercise calories.

2) Use exercise to create the deficit
With this method you set your daily caloric intake to equal your TDEE. Then you exercise and burn calories. Those burned calories are not accounted for when you set your daily goal equal to your TDEE, and thus you end up in a deficit. The size of that deficit is dependent on your workouts. You burn 75cals walking the dog and your deficit is 75 cals. You burn 500 cals running and the deficit is 500.



*This is VERY simiplified and makes A LOT of assumptions, but is good enough for this conversation.



As with everything, there is some variance here. Every body resonds differently to diet, exercise, nutrition, etc. so there is some trial and error required to find your body's "sweet spot". Pick one of the above methods, do it for a couple of months and see what happens. Then you can make a couple of subtle changes here and there, do that for a month or two and see if you body responds better or worse. But always start with one of the above methods, then go from there.

One of the biggest problems I see in threads like this is people mixing elements/strategies from different programs. They want to use MFP's calorie calculations with weight watcher's zero point foods combined with what they heard from their coworker's brother's personal trainer. It doesn't work that way. Unless you really understand the ins and outs of nutrition and exercise (and if you did we wouldn't be having this conversation), you need to pick ONE method and do it. Don't mix them up, don't do a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Pick one, commit to one.

www.shouldieatmyexercisecalories.com


http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/495178-eat-back-your-calories

This is what I posted on a recent thread with a similar subject line:

This is where people are not understanding the point of eating back exercise cals. You're not burning calories ONLY during your workouts. You're burning calories ALL day long, 24/7...even while sleeping. The average amount of calories you burn while completely sedentary is called your Base Metabolic Rate. Your BMR is how many calories you'd burn if you did nothing but lay around 24/7. That's the MINIMUM amount of calories you should be taking in without exercising. On an average day, even without a workout, you're burning more than your BMR just by your regular daily activity. When you add to that your workout calories, and the fact that workouts boost metabolism so you're burning at a higher rate for the next several hours, your calorie deficit is enormous if you don't eat back your workout calories. You need calories for energy. If you don't have enough, your body won't function efficiently and your metabolism will slow way down, thus, decreasing the amount of calories you are burning. That being said, however, the standard BMR calculations do not take into account medical conditions like insulin resistance and hypothyroidism. People with such conditions burn calories at a much slower rate, so they need fewer calories to begin with. I don't know of any way to accurately account for these conditions. Personally, I have both IR and HT, so I set my base calories about 200 under what MFP says it should be, then I only eat back about 2/3's of my exercise calories rather than the full amount. I've been doing this for about six months now, and it seems to be working pretty well so far. I'm not an expert by any means, I'm just going by personal experience and what the health/fitness professionals at my gym have taught me.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/10589-for-those-confused-or-questioning-eating-your-exercise-calo

BUMP! Thanks for sharing. Couldn't bump the original as the thread is locked

I lowball my exercise calories and then eat them back. I don't really have an accurate way to check them (can't wear hrm during martial arts class), so I guess and try to guess low, based on perceived exertion. So far, so good.