Do you eat your exercise cals?

[HellieCopter]

Just wondering! And if you do/don't what's the reason behind it?

MFP encourages you to eat them, adding them onto your allowance. I don't really feel like I should but think it does give me a little leeway if I've gone over cals slightly.

Also wondering if I'm actually eating too few cals now that I'm more frequently exercising? I've got from almost none, with a few long walks (at a reasonable pace pushing the pram!) a week, to walking plus 2 runs and a bootcamp class. Wondering if I need to increase cals to still see fat burn and inch loss?!

Thanks

 

[Caz]

To be honest, you'll find people who are strongly perched on both sides of the fence so the only real answer is, find what works for you. You might still be losing by not eating them but you might lose more if you do, so give it a try. Eat them back for a couple of weeks, see how that goes. Maybe then eat half back and see how that goes. Then you can know what works best for you.

Personally, I don't eat back my exercise calories but I'm toying with the idea of eating back half. Though I don't eat them back, I don't worry if I go over the 1300 a day into my exercise calories sometimes and I always make sure I have plenty of protein to protect my muscle mass.

So have a try and see what works best for you, you'll need to do things for more than a week though because sometimes you'll have a particularly bad or good loss for no reason.

 

[Bostik]

Yeah, I agree with caroline

I don't tend to eat them back, purely cos I am never hungry for them. If I am hungry then I will do, but that's rare.

 

[wirralmum]

Yes, as stated above, everyone's different.

I almost always eat mine. Maybe if I didn't I would lose more, but I'm happy with my losses so far.

 

[HellieCopter]

Cool - interesting to hear, thanks guys I think I'll just experiment and see how it goes....You know when you just don't want to over or under eat and muck things up!?! lol!

 

[Caz]

Oh I know, I get it totally! I keep saying I'm going to try and eat back half of my exercise calories but then I'm always scared to try!

 

[Squeezyweezy]

Great advice. I don't eat mine back generally, but if I go over when a bit when I've done some exercise it doesn't bother me. Listen to what your body tells you. If you're hungry then eat.
Hope you work it out xx

 

[candyflee]

I usually eat at least the most part of mine back, simply because I'm always starving on days when I exercise. Today is a rest day for me but I still made sure I walk everywhere so I can eat a bit more haha. Because I generally tend to burn 5-600 calories 5 or 6 times a week, I just dont think 1200 cals would be enough. I'd be raiding the roses tin by 9pm!

 

[parfittaroles]

I do, but that's because I'm only on 1200 a day so I like an extra treat saying that, if I've burnt 600 calories I won't eat them all back just for the sake of it. If I'm hungry I'll use them up but if not I don't worry about it!

 

[HellieCopter]

I'm on about 1200 too. If I go into them by 100-200 I'm not going to panic too much!

 

[LovelyLisa2012]

U lose weight by burning more calories than you eat, if im hungry il pinch some x

 

[sarah-louise x]

I significantly increased my exercise over the last 3 weeks and coincidence or not im not sure but iv stayed the same weight for those 3 weeks i currently do not eat mine back so i am wondering if i should increase what i eat a little to see if my weightloss moves on...well off . i have between 1200 - 1500 cals at moment but i do have alot to lose and im very active in work and life plus all my exercise so i dont think its that im eating too many cals. at the gym alone i work off 600 cals a day......writing this, i think im not eating enough?? but i dont feel hungry...ah this is so confusing!! x

 

[mcv]

Sarah Louise, just wondering if you have stayed the same over those 3 weeks have you felt a difference in yr body shape/ measurements?