Confused! Do you eat back the calories burned by exercise?? (2024)

Everyone here is always so helpful so I thought I would see if you all could give me some advice. I have read.....and read.....and read and am still confused about if you are suppose to eat back the calories you burn with exercise. If I eat 1750 cals and burn off 500 with a work out am I suppose to eat those back??? I have started using the daily plate to track my calories and there is a place to log your workouts. It adds back what you work off but if I want to lose weight I guess it makes sense to me to not add those back in. HELP!

Alicia

Great question. They do the same thing at My Fitness Pal. I don't get how the equation works. To me it is like I can eat more if I workout but will it help me to loose or just maintain. And how do I know if I burned exactly that amount of calories. My HRM tends to give a higher reading and when I plug it in to other sites the burn is lower. It is all very confusing.

Jenn

It depends how many calories you burn without exercise. Like others have already said, if you're trying to lose weight, you'll need a calorie deficit. But for example, if you burn 2000 calories a day just going about your daily business (e.g. not counting exercise) and you eat 1750 calories a day, you've already got a 250 calorie a day deficit going on even without exercise. You could eat all the calories you burn with exercise and still maintain a slow but steady loss (250 cal. deficit per day is losing about 1/2 lb. per week, not very fast, but slow and steady wins the race!) Or, in this example you could eat some of the calories you burn but not all of them, to make your deficit bigger. For example, a 500 cal. deficit per day equals about 1 lb. weight loss per week.

I try to listen to my body, there are days when I'm STARVING and I eat more, and other days when I feel fine with a big 1,000 calorie deficit. Hope this helps!

Calorie burn

If you are trying to lose weight then you want to create a caloric deficit. That deficit can come from eating less or exercising more or a combination of both. Let us say that you need 2000 calories a day to maintain your weight you could eat 2000 calories and then do exercises that burn 500 calories, or you could eat 1500 calories and do no exercise, or lastly you could eat 1750 calories and combine that with exercise that burns a total of 250 calories.

To lose weight you only need to follow these three rules:

- Workout 3 times a week with weights.
- Eat 1g protein / lb lean body mass.
- Reduce calories to lose 1-2 lbs / week.

The simple tool I use is the bmr calculator. First, in the morning I weigh myself in the nude. Then I plug that number into the calculator online. That gives me my base level of calories. Then, I use my hrm to figure how many I burned on my workout. I add this to the bmr number to give my total burned. Then, to get my deficit (If its a deficit day.) I subtract 500 calories. But, I never go below 1200. Its not wise. You feel awful. Just sluggish, don't do it.

So todays (this is embarressing but what the h)
bmr: 1587
burn: 475 (Step Moves on 6 inch)
total: 2062
deficit: -500
desired calorie intake: 1562

For me watching the quality of food (whole foods, not from a box), getting plenty of healthy fats and vegetables made the most difference. That said I do have about 50 pounds left to go, so if you learn a trick that works let us kno

thank you

Thank so much for all the replies! I think I understand the calorie deficit thing, guess that is what I am trying to accomplish. Just want to make sure I have it right and am doing it safely. I used an on line calculator to figure what I would need to maintain and it is 2140. 1700 calories would give me a 440 deficit and then working out burning an average of 500 (at times more) I guess would put me at 1200 calories a day?? Am I figuring this right? I am doing all Cathe's workouts, mostly focusing on lower body but making sure to include upper also. I'm an endomorph so from what I have read cardio is real important so am sticking to circuits as far as weights go. This is the first time I have ever really paid attention to my carlorie intake. Have always tried to lose weight just by working out hard. Needless to say have not gotten the results I want. I am going to be 37 in July and it has finally hit me upside the head that the two go hand in hand! So again thank you so much for all the advice and I welcome anymore input anyone has! And RapidBreath, please do not feel embarressed about your numbers. I have 55 pounds to lose and like Cathe says....we are in this together!

Alicia

sugarbear said:

I used an on line calculator to figure what I would need to maintain and it is 2140. 1700 calories would give me a 440 deficit and then working out burning an average of 500 (at times more) I guess would put me at 1200 calories a day?? Am I figuring this right?

Alicia

Click to expand...

1200 would be much to low for you based on what you just said. If your daily caloric needs are 2140 and you workout and burn 500 calories, then you have to add the 500 to the 2140 which would equal 2640 and that's what you would need to eat to maintain your weight. Now if you want to lose, then cut that by 500 so that you lose 1lbs a week, which would put you back down to 2140 on days you do exercise....on days you do not do that 500 calorie burning exercise, then you must not eat that much. You would instead eat 500 below the 2140, putting you at 1640. You must eat for your activity, more on days you workout or are more active, and less on the days you are not.

You will gain weight if you eat the same calories on the days you do not workout, so adjust accordlingly. The body really responds well to zigzagging your calories too. That way it doesn't get used to one set intake of calories and is always resetting your metabolism to burn fat!

If you want to lose more than 1lbs per week, you can cut even more by maybe another 250 calories thereby perhaps losing 1.5lbs per week, but I wouldn't cut more than that, because keep in mind you'll have to do that on the days you don't workout too.

Just to add even more options (confusion?) to the mix, sometimes on my rest days I don't shoot for a calorie deficit, I shoot for a "break even" calorie day. That way I don't have to eat less, or very much less, than my exercise days. I hate to feel deprived, it's the surest way for me to overeat, and I noticed feeling like I was being punished on my rest days (1 or 2 days per week) by eating less/feeling hungry. Especially because on my rest days I felt like my body was busy building muscle and recovering, and was crying out for food!

Anyway, this solution works for me, but I'm not in any big hurry to lose weight, I only have 5 to 10 pounds to go to my goal weight, and if it comes off at a snail's pace I'm OK with that. I remember when I had more to lose, though, I was like, "Burn away, already!"