Exercise calories-do you eat yours?

[FlatteredRhubardFool]

Not that I'm getting many exercise calories in at the moment but do you eat yours? I seem to recall reading that exercise calories are usually overestimated so I don't usually eat them but if I've gone a bit over my usual goal then I might eat them or some of them.

Nope. I don't have any smart body device so all I could find or log was guesstimate and honestly obviously overestimated.
They are a nice bonus.

No. However, if I’m feeling overly hungry I won’t feel guilty about a snack that takes me over my normal
Cals but keeps me under the exercise cals

No. It will really hinder any weight loss effort if you eat your exercise calories.

God yes! I am genuinely 🤯 when I hear people say they eat 1000-1500 calories on a diet as I just couldn't do it. I aim to burn at least 2300 cal a day and eat 1800-2000.

I might be able to last about 2 days on 1300 cal but then I'd give up because it's too restrictive.

I think it depends on what you eat. I can easily have breakfast, lunch, dinner and 2 snacks on 1200. And all nice and filling things.

If you exercise 300kcal off (and correctly calculate that), it doesn't mean that you can eat 300kcal extra that day. It just doesn't work like that.

For a start, exercise changes your metabolism, so 300kcal will mean something different to your body depending on when you ask it.

Also, if you eat sugar, you use about 10% of it making it into fuel. If you eat protein, you use about 30% of it making it into fuel.

Counting them in and out is pointless. You're not an abacus.

Mind me I am on 1200 just 1 day a week

@SchrodingersImmigrant tbf I'm quite a fussy eater. I've got quite a few diet cookbooks and am 🤢 at about 70% of the meals. When I'm on a diet my choices are pretty limited so I do struggle to find low calorie meals that really do fill me up.

Also I'm late 20's, I suspect I will have to get stricter when I'm on a diet as I get older.

I was on 1250 a day for ages. Sometimes I ate some of the exercise calories (around 100-200 of them if I'd been very active like walked 12 miles) but generally not. I do 16:8 albeit loosely. Prior to lockdown I was walking at least 5 miles a day up and down big hills Monday to Friday. Now I'm making sure to hit 10k steps a day as a minimum and I'm on 1500 a day to ease myself back down to 1250. I have 3kg to lose but ideally 5.
I was just wondering what other people did.

@Shelovesamystery I am lucky that there is only few things I am fussy about. Devil's poop, aka mushrooms, black olives, green mostly too. Few other little things.
You will find some good combos eventually

SchrodingersImmigrant can you give me an example of what you eat in a day please, incl. the 2 snacks?

Thanks

@Dontsayyouloveme

B-Slice of bread with an egg and 10g of ketchup and different herbs and spices each day
L- various salads around 250cal usually mixed greens, salad veg, prawns/cheese/tuna with no oil dressing (soy and honey, ginger or yogurt with sriracha etc)
S - yogurt and fruit
D - sometimes I cook something which is mainly veg and met/fish, sometimes have curry or chilli from freezer about or a broth soup with veg, rice noodles and chicken.
S2- ryvita rye with some salami and sauerkraut/ quark and eggwhite with herbs or piece of cheese and sliced apple/gherking .

I bought very good non stick pans so I basically don't use oil. It saves incredible amount kf calories. Oh and it's full fat yogurt. I think. I make it from full fat milk. It's super lush from yersey milk, but really calorific then😂

It genuinely doesn't feel like a diet if you make sure you use lots of strong flavours😁 At least to me