is it really necessary to eat your workout calories?

Are you hungry? A deficit is good, but depends on how big a deficit and how many calories you are burning through exercise each day. If you eat 1200 but burn 400 through exercise, that's only a net of 800 calories, which isn't very much. There are posts around here that explain it better than I can, but the way I see it, if you're working your body with exercise, you need to give it some fuel! And listen to your body - if you're hungry, you need to eat more. If you're not, then don't worry about it that day.

Some MFP members swear by eating every single exercise calorie every day, others don't eat any of them back. And it seems to vary a bit from person to person, you kind of have to figure out what works best for you. Personally, I eat when I'm hungry. Some days I'm hungrier than others, and on those days I eat more. Occasionally I go a little over my calories, other days I'm way under, but I never go hungry! And the weight is coming off, and my body is changing.

Search the forums for more topics on this, and check MFPs frequently asked questions too - they explain how the system is set up and how it's intended to be used. Hope that helps!

I think the consensus is to eat your workout calories because otherwise your deficit could drop you down into famine mode and your metabolism will stall. My question is does this only include cardio calories (so my 3x a week running), or also strength training calories (my 4-5x a week lifting). If I have to account for strength training calories, does anyone know a good way to estimate calorie burn from strength training? It would seem to be highly variable, and the exercise diary on MFP doesn't calculate it.

My concern with this is that it seems to me that the site overestimates calories burned for activities - so you could actually end up overestimating your burn and overeating your calories....

Best way to avoid this is a Heart Rate monitor, so you can (more) accurately track how much you burned.

Yes eat your calories burned but I would get a heart rate monitor so you know exactly how many calories you really burned. This sight is so off!!! I did step today and mfp said I burned almost 600 calories when my HRM said 400.

With less than 20 lbs to lose, YES, it is absolutely vital you eat them.

Also, set your weight-loss goal at "1/2 pound per week".

Be realistic in your activity level, too. If you are taking care of children, going to school, OR have a job of any type, you are NOT "Sedentary."

If you have 75+ lbs to lose 2 lbs/week is ideal,
If you have 40-75 lbs to lose 1.5 lbs/week is ideal,
If you have 25-40 lbs to lose 1 lbs/week is ideal,
If you have 15 -25 lbs to lose 0.5 to 1.0 lbs/week is ideal, and
If you have less than 15 lbs to lose 0.5 lbs/week is ideal.

Hello everyone,
I've been losing weight, slowly but surely, but this eating the amount of calories you burn thing is hard for me to get on board with. Myfitnesspal tells me I need to eat 1200 calories and I try to always range from 1200-1400 but I also work out a lot. I try to always enter my workouts, but I never eat more to accommodate the calories I burn. I'm just wondering how important that is, and if I was consuming more calories, would I be losing at a fast rate. Right now, I average about a pound lost a week and I work out a ton (2-3 times a day). Any advice would be appreciated!

No. It's not necessary but it might help you not be as hungry and that might help you stay on your diet and that will help you lose more weight.
Your body doesn't know that it's an "exercise calorie" - it's must more food going into the digestive system. We see it as something "magic" but it's meaningless from a physiological perspective.
Similarly, the 1200 calorie figure is meaningless. It's a value from the World Health Organization that they see as the lowest calorie limit that women should eat to be healthy. It applies to "a woman" - is that the 300 pound female lumberjack or is that the 4' 11" payables clerk in a wheelchair? The idea that some number fits all women is laughable.
Further, the number of errors in tracking calories consumed and expended is staggering. This is a topic that's not discussed in polite company, I realize, but what we're doing here on MFP is, at best, a guess so the idea that there's some difference between 1200 calories and 1100 calories is wishful thinking.
Given that we have significant inaccuracy, the best we can do is be consistent. Keep tracking your weight, food, and exercise and you'll see trends (notice that I omit water because, according to medical science, a normally hydrated person has no medical need to drink water).

How does it work? I don't know how it will work for you, but I do know that it worked for me:

http://cbeinfo.net/weight.htm

I didn't want a gradual weight loss. Sorry, being "big" was something that I'd had three years of and that was enough. I went on a diet of 800 to 1k net cals and, while I'm sure other folks have had a better weight loss experience than I did, I'm quite happy with my results.


So, do you have to "eat your workout calories"? Absolutely not.

Will it help? Maybe but…why bother?

Eat less, exercise more, and live life to its fullest!

With less than 15 pounds to lose, you will find your progress very slow. That's ok, our bodies let go of the fat easier when there's a lot to spare. The best way in your situation is to have a small deficit (250-300 calories or so) and focus more on fitness and less on what the scale says.

It depends on how you setup your daily calorie goal. If that number includes exercise, then no you don't. If it doesn't then yes, you should.

*sigh*

I'm back in the forums for 2 seconds and I'm already irritated.

For everyone making blanket recommendations (whether it be yes or no)... STOP IT! There is no one right answer.

Whether or not people should eat their exercise cals back depends on how they set their goal for daily caloric intake. If they included exercise as part of their lifestyle, then those cals are already accounted for and they do not need to eat them back. If they didn't include them, then they should be eating them back.

And actually that is a little over simplified.


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