Do you have to eat that much extra if your exercising?

sallyrose83 · July 2012

Hi guys
quick question
it told me i had a daily goal of 1260 calories that i needed to eat. which i did that nearly perfectly with 45 cal left over but then when i added in my exercise i was back to square 1 again??
If i have an active job do i need to put in 4 hours of food prep and cooking. i did 3 hours cleaning cos it was quiet day. and end of shift im hard out cleaning and packing away furniture so i put 1 hour vigorous cleaning. then got home and did 30 min on treadmill.
which put me back to needing to eat 1000 more calories??
Should i be eating more on days i work??
Help i dont understand

MrsSWW · July 2012

Sounds to me like you have an active job, you need to make sure your settings are for that rather than sedentary or lightly active. It will then take that into account and hopefully give you more than 1260 as a daily allowance. Opinions vary on whether you ought to eat back your exercise calories, but MFP is designed that you should and I usually do over the course of a week.

AntWrig · July 2012

Hi guys
quick question
it told me i had a daily goal of 1260 calories that i needed to eat. which i did that nearly perfectly with 45 cal left over but then when i added in my exercise i was back to square 1 again??
If i have an active job do i need to put in 4 hours of food prep and cooking. i did 3 hours cleaning cos it was quiet day. and end of shift im hard out cleaning and packing away furniture so i put 1 hour vigorous cleaning. then got home and did 30 min on treadmill.
which put me back to needing to eat 1000 more calories??
Should i be eating more on days i work??
Help i dont understand

You have to eat to fuel the body. It's like filling a race car up with a quarter of a tank of gas. The difference being unlike that racecar your body won't stop moving. It will just start eating away at your muscle over time and you won't lose any weight.

Eat your calories back.

marycmeadows · July 2012

YES you should definitely be eating more. Think about it.
If you're eating 1260 calories (1215 with 45 cal left over as you said) then you've burned off 1000 calories from exercise/work - you've only fed your body 215 calories to perform it's normal body functions. (women need a MINIMUM of 1200 calories a day - period, men it's a bit more -- just to perform bodily functions). You need to eat more. You should actually find out your bmr (don't eat below that) and even better, find out your tdee and figure out your calories based on that. Your intake will need to be a bit higher since you have a very active job. 1260 might work in the short time, but I'm willing to bet that you'll plateau rather quickly. I did. And I don't have an active job really - but I work out 6-7 days a week. Over the past year and a half I've had to gradually up my calories - Most recently I plateaued in april at 1800 calories, Upped to 2000 and boom - started losing again.

psuLemon · July 2012

As someone said make you account at least lightly active or even active. And if you workout then you should eat more as well. Body nees fuel to burn fuel.

sallyrose83 · July 2012

wow thanks for all the advice guys! only new to this and awesome to get quick responses. will try eating more and see what happens.
thanks again

mcarter99 · July 2012

Hi guys
quick question
it told me i had a daily goal of 1260 calories that i needed to eat. which i did that nearly perfectly with 45 cal left over but then when i added in my exercise i was back to square 1 again??
If i have an active job do i need to put in 4 hours of food prep and cooking. i did 3 hours cleaning cos it was quiet day. and end of shift im hard out cleaning and packing away furniture so i put 1 hour vigorous cleaning. then got home and did 30 min on treadmill.
which put me back to needing to eat 1000 more calories??
Should i be eating more on days i work??
Help i dont understand

MFP put you back at eating 1000 more? Because you logged all that vigorous cleaning as exercise? Or 30 mins. on the treadmill put you at eating 1000 more?

Your body can use stored calories for fuel. That's how you lose weight. The 'eat back' thing is just to limit your deficit to the one you selected. If you want to be sure you don't lose more than the amount you selected per week, that's when you'd 'eat back'.

I'm not sure what "If I have an active job do I have to put in 4 hours of food prep and cooking" means. Oh, should you log your job activity as exercise? My opinion is that your job should be part of the activity you put down, sedentary, lightly active, etc. It sounds like you would be 'active' on the MFP scale.

Aphroditee · July 2012

Yes, if you are very active often I'd eat more. During school I was only eating 1250 because I didn't have the chance to be very active. But now that I'm free and it's only work. I'm going for walks more often, and working out. I upped my calories to 1450. I needed to because the body needs that fuel.

mmapags · July 2012

Hi guys
quick question
it told me i had a daily goal of 1260 calories that i needed to eat. which i did that nearly perfectly with 45 cal left over but then when i added in my exercise i was back to square 1 again??
If i have an active job do i need to put in 4 hours of food prep and cooking. i did 3 hours cleaning cos it was quiet day. and end of shift im hard out cleaning and packing away furniture so i put 1 hour vigorous cleaning. then got home and did 30 min on treadmill.
which put me back to needing to eat 1000 more calories??
Should i be eating more on days i work??
Help i dont understand

You have to eat to fuel the body. It's like filling a race car up with a quarter of a tank of gas. The difference being unlike that racecar your body won't stop moving. It will just start eating away at your muscle over time and you won't lose any weight.

Eat your calories back.

This^^^

Do you have to eat that much extra if your exercising?

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