Sorry if this is a frequent disscusion. I didn't see it in the FAQs.

I just downloaded a calorie counting app on my iPhone. It has me set at 1600 calories a day. I put in my workout (350 calories) and it "gives" me those calories back. So I am at 1950. Should I do that? Or should I still eat the 1600 no matter if I worked out or not? Any input is welcomed!!

Eating back your calories burned in exercise seems like such a waste. I keep those numbers completely separate.

I use sparkpeople, which has an iPhone app. My calories that I eat don't change based on the calories I burn that day. You might want to check them out.

if you dont mind me asking, what is the name of that iphone app? i have an iphone and that sounds really helpful. btw, i do not eat back my calories either. like the people above have said, i think it woiuld be such a waste to work hard only to cancel it out by eating more...

Yup, I keep my calories consumed totally and completely separate from what I burn. For starters, there is no calculator in the world that is anywhere accurate enough to know how much any one given person is burning. Besides, one of the main purposes of exercise is to help us get that all important calorie DEFICIT. Eating those calories back would be counterproductive. Any and every calorie burned through activity & exercise is a bonus in the calorie deficit department and is will help greatly in losing pounds.

It is called "Lose it!" and it is free! I have had it for a week now and so far I love it!

I use an app also called Lose It. I keep calories in/calories out separate, HOWEVER, if I eat back the ones I burned, I just figure it is a day that I wouldn't have lost. Since that has only happened once in like 3 months, I know I am on the right track.

I agree with other posters here....it would be counter productive to have a 0 amount of calories at the end of the day. Just remember you need to either burn or not consume a total of 3500 calories to lose 1 pound!!!

Hope that helps!!!

dh and I are on "Lose it" I've been ignoring the extra calories. Dh was asking me why I even bother to do it in the first place. don't know

FWIW, lose it! adds back exercise calories after it's accounted for whatever deficit you've set up in the goals area. If your goal is -500, that 350 for exercise is added back assuming you want to acheive a 500-cal deficit. so you're not really breaking even - you're just not adding more to your deficit. i have to eat more on the days i burn more calories. i just get too freakin' hungry, and i can burn a LOT of calories when i'm working on a house or stressed out and living on my treadmill. if i don't up what i'm eating, i get too hungry the next day and it's a set-up to binge. but that's just me.

just another quickie FWIW - i have a sensewear monitor, so i have an extremely good idea of how many calories i burn doing various activities. i've compared what sensewear tells me my actual burn is to what lose it! estimates, and by gosh, they're generally pretty darned close. so if i ever give up my monitor (unlikely) i have a fairly high confidence in the lose it! estimates. again, YMMV!

Thanks for posting this question...it totally answered my question

I think it depends on how much exercise you are doing. A regular workout, you probably don't need to eat back. But I work out like an athlete (2+ hours daily), and I DO need to eat back at least some of the calories I work off. It took me a long time to learn that - for too long, I had it in my head that I should keep my exercise & eating totally separate a la Robin (which I know works for her and many others), which resulted in me working out like a maniac, eating a "sensible" 1500-1600 calories per day, and then wondering why I was having binging episodes.

I have lose it! And I LOVE it. I also do not eat back my exercise calories. Seems like a waste of my efforts. It is pretty funny, because I try to eat close to the number I am allotted, but the graph always makes it look like I am nowhere close! A word of warning, though: the program adjusts your calorie budget as you lose and does not seem to have a minimum number, or anyway I haven't hit it. So you may need to start counting exercise as you progress.

ok i just downloaded lose it! and according to it, i should only be eating 1,213 calories per day! every other calorie calculator has said i should have between 1400 and 1700 depending on how much weight i want to lose and how fast... my bmr is about 1,575 and in order to lose 2 lbs per week (if you keep in mind that -3,500 cals is 1 lb lost) i need a 1,000 cal deficit every day. i dont exercise that hard but on a typical day i would say i burn about 300-500 cals. even if i "eat back" my exercise cals, eating 1,200 still gives me like a 2,000 cal deficit right? i am just confused why this app says i should eat so little and as i have read on here, where will my calories go when/if i hit a plateau??