When counting calories for the day-if I exercised do I minus the amount of calories I burned out of my total for the day? Does this question make sense??

For example: this morning I burned 250 calories on the treadmill. Does this come off of my total for the day?

Hope this makes sense!! Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

-Becky

No.

I have a really hard time with this. I know the answer is no - but it's SO tempting to want to eat more after a heavy duty workout. The problem with giving in to the temptation is that you end up eating all the calories you just burned exercising. The exercise is still good for you - but the calories burnt are kinda wasted.

Here's how I think of things when I'm doing my calorie math. 3500 calories is what it takes to lose 1 pound. That number's always in the back of my mind, my goal.

So say, for example, your body burns 2800 cals. during the day and you eat 1800. That's 1000/3500 already. Any exercise bumps up the calories burned and is like a bonus toward that 3500 goal. So, 800 calories of exercise + 2800 daily burn = 3600 calories gone that day. 3600 - 1800 = 1800 calories toward the 3500 goal.

I hope that makes sense, lol. Basically, any exercise I do is a bonus toward each pound being gone and I don't eat any extra food.

For what it's worth, I actually did adjust the amount I ate based on exercise...every one's body operates a little differently, but in general my understanding is that, when eating at a deficit for a long period, our metabolisms will eventually start to slow down to meet the consistent energy available....leading to weight loss stalls and plateaus.

So, on some days I had no exercise, some days did weights and other days cardio, and the amount I ate varied from day to day based on this....and I really think that this constant variation is why I dropped weight week after week with virtually no stalls until the very last 10 lbs.

Basically I just set a daily target of a 500 calorie deficit. So some days the deficit might come in the form of 200 calories burned in exercise and 300 from food, other days all 500 might come from food and on other days maybe 300 from exercise and only 200 from food.

Thanks everyone for your replies. They helped me out! I will probably be back with some more questions soon!

Cym,
This is pretty much what I have been doing. I am glad to hear that it worked for you. I haven't weighed in yet this week but I am hoping that it is working for me! Thanks for your reply!

No they're not wasted.

I don't subtract calorie readouts from treadmills and stuff, because those things are so inaccurate.

No-don't subtract your calories burned via exercise.

Eat your calories per day, and just let your exercise be. The only time you would really want to adjust your food higher for exercise, is if you are doing something SUPER strenuous, like training for a marathon.

I adjust my calories higher when I attend a dance workshop for instance, because on those days I am dancing for about 5 hours....but I don't increase it to equal the entire amount burned through the exercise...only by about 200 calories-just enough to get me through the intense day. Does that make sense?

Besides, you can't really say that you can add 426 calories, because the treadmill/eliptical/whatever said that is how many you burned. They are guestimates, and the only way to know your exact calorie burn would be to have you hooked up to equipment at a clinic measuring that during your workout.


So, unless you are doing some SERIOUS training...don't add.