Can I exercise extra if I went over my calories?

SparkPoints: (114,558)
Fitness Minutes: (180,925)
Posts: 17,596
1/25/13 12:40 P

KORABELLA,

I agree with Dragon. a person shouldn't use exercise as a means to burn off excess calories they ate. That might work for a while, but what happens when you're injured and can't exercise ? And what happens if you over eat to the tune of 1,000 calories for the day ? Are you willing to exercise for at least 2-3 hours ? If you decide to hit the gym every time you over eat, you're going to be in the gym for the rest of your life working out. We don't exercise to burn off excess food. We exercise to keep our bodies and minds fit.

You can't outrun a bad diet with exercise. In order to take the weight off and keep it off, a person has to eat right. Exercise should be fun. I can assure you that if you exercise every time you eat too much, it won't be fun anymore. that's when you're going to find excuses to stop exercising.

You ate the food. You log the food. You move on. You have to accept the fact that there are going to be days you eat more than others. that doesn't make you a bad person or an unhealthy one.

You definitely don't want to get stuck in a cycle of having to hit the gym every time you over eat. it really will make you miserable.

What to do ? Try to watch your portions, but don't beat yourself up because you ate a little too much. it happens all the time.

SparkPoints: (43,245)
Fitness Minutes: (12,716)
Posts: 8,273
1/25/13 12:14 P

Trying to compensate for overeating with exercise is a sure path to disordered eating patterns that you don't want to start.

What we eat in a given day isn't as important as how much we eat over the course of the week. Instead of trying to "burn off" your mistakes today, focus on evening out the rest of the week's eating to balance the difference. Perhaps eat at the lower end of your range tomorrow or the day after.

Don't try to out-exercise a bad diet. It can't be done!

current weight: 187.4

211 197 183 169

155

SparkPoints: (34,274)
Fitness Minutes: (18,909)
Posts: 1,431
1/25/13 7:11 A

I go over my range twice a week, eat in the middle a few days, I have one 1250 cal day and one 1100 cal day. If anything this helped me to lose weight after being stuck at 120 lbs for a couple of weeks.

From personal experience, when you eat too low for too long your BMR will drop and you'll actually be burning less calories. Your metabolism adjusts to this amount eventually and you plateau. You can't expect to create as large of a deficit as you did when you were heavier, you'll find your body will rebel. Since I started eating an average of 1400 cals I began dropping weight again.

You will not gain weight from eating 1600 cals and likely with your activity level you would not gain weight eating around 2000 cals every day, let alone eating 1600 for one day. If anything being too strict and trying to burn too many calories will harm your weight loss especially since you are already in your healthy BMI.

You will also be switching to maintenance mode soon, no? How do you think your body will handle jumping from an average of 1000-1200 to 2000 cals? You should be considering at this time slowly upping your calories in preparation for maintenance. I'm upping mine by an average of 100-200 cals per day each month now.

Edited by: JENNILACEY at: 1/25/2013 (07:15)

current weight: 7.0  over

10 5 0 -5

-10

SparkPoints: (87,896)
Fitness Minutes: (29,015)
Posts: 17,688
1/25/13 12:32 A

I just had a wee peek at your Nutrition Tracker going back to 17th Jan, and notice that most of the days your intake was below 1200 cal's and some below 1000 cal's, but that your exercise calories burned was 2-400 cal's per most days, I would be inclined to say that you might be focusing a little too hard on burning up the calories, and not eating enough, so in short, in my unqualified opinion I would say "No - don't do the extra exercise!" I didn't go back further, and don't know if that was ALL the food you had eaten, but if it is, I am wondering if you are a little too obsessed? (Don't wish to sound disrespectful!!!)

We need to eat to lose weight under-eating and/or over-exercising has an unhealthy effect on our mind and body. Take care!

Kris

current weight: 151.0

211 196 181 166

151

Posts: 100
1/24/13 11:13 P

I went over my calories just one day, and only by about 200 calories. Does it make sense to burn off 200 calories by exercising or am I just spinning my wheels (so to speak =oD)?

current weight: 120.5

166 152 138 124

110