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Eating back your gym calories, yes or no?

2

Replies

  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,876 Member
    Penthesilea514 wrote: »
    I have been eating about half back but I am thinking that I need to bump them up- I am starting to feel lagged in my workouts and daily life, so I think I am going to revisit the calculators. It can be trial and error to figure out what works best for each person and their goals. But I (personally) think not eating back exercise calories can be potentially detrimental, especially to lean muscle mass (like @TeaBea said).

    It's also detrimental to fitness progression and recovery...
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    Penthesilea514 wrote: »
    I have been eating about half back but I am thinking that I need to bump them up- I am starting to feel lagged in my workouts and daily life, so I think I am going to revisit the calculators. It can be trial and error to figure out what works best for each person and their goals. But I (personally) think not eating back exercise calories can be potentially detrimental, especially to lean muscle mass (like @TeaBea said).

    I did fantastic eating back half my exercise calories until suddenly . . . I wasn't. It was like I hit a brick wall. I wanted to sleep ten hours a day and even light workouts felt horrible. Fortunately, I was able to get more involved on here and read some posts to help me understand what was going on. As soon as I began eating more back, my energy improved.

    If you feel like you could be eating more, you may be right.
  • hollyshealthylife
    hollyshealthylife Posts: 14 Member
    edited August 2017
    No, and I don't record my exercise in MFP as the estimates are so off-base. 105 cals burned for 20 minutes of walking? Suuuure.... At this point, I'm focused on making sure I get close to my goal protein intake. As my weight loss is fairly consistent/average week to week, and I feel relatively capable/well-rested and with enough energy day to day, this works for me now. If I do find that my vigourous workout schedule has me feeling crushed, I will certainly modify my plan.

    FWIW, I am a morbidly obese late 30s female focusing on building muscle and cardiovascular, not a top athlete. Obviously, as my body composition changes, my needs will change!
  • Penthesilea514
    Penthesilea514 Posts: 1,189 Member
    edited August 2017
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    Penthesilea514 wrote: »
    I have been eating about half back but I am thinking that I need to bump them up- I am starting to feel lagged in my workouts and daily life, so I think I am going to revisit the calculators. It can be trial and error to figure out what works best for each person and their goals. But I (personally) think not eating back exercise calories can be potentially detrimental, especially to lean muscle mass (like @TeaBea said).

    It's also detrimental to fitness progression and recovery...
    Very true.
    janejellyroll wrote: »
    Penthesilea514 wrote: »
    I have been eating about half back but I am thinking that I need to bump them up- I am starting to feel lagged in my workouts and daily life, so I think I am going to revisit the calculators. It can be trial and error to figure out what works best for each person and their goals. But I (personally) think not eating back exercise calories can be potentially detrimental, especially to lean muscle mass (like @TeaBea said).

    I did fantastic eating back half my exercise calories until suddenly . . . I wasn't. It was like I hit a brick wall. I wanted to sleep ten hours a day and even light workouts felt horrible. Fortunately, I was able to get more involved on here and read some posts to help me understand what was going on. As soon as I began eating more back, my energy improved.

    If you feel like you could be eating more, you may be right.

    Now that I think about it and am looking at the numbers, I think I am going to try to be a little more aggressive about protein (I try for 30% but it averages to be more like 22% recently as I tried to eat more veggies and didn't notice I fell that far behind on protein) first before I bump them up as I have been quite successfully with my strategy so far, but I feel exhausted, sleeping 9+ hrs a night, and feel drained in my workouts (like you described). So I will try it and see if that helps, if not I may go to 75% instead of 50%. Thanks!
  • JeromeBarry1
    JeromeBarry1 Posts: 10,182 Member
    edited August 2017
    At this time the vast majority of my exercise is cardio. I've carefully put the numbers to analysis and am convinced that the calories I log for my home elliptical machine, my bicycle riding, even my 'standing at desk', are accurate. I happily eat as much of those calories as I can stand to eat. For those occasions when I log some strength training, the calorie values are low and the exercise is anaerobic. I don't eat whatever credit I get from strength training.

    I do not use any form of activity tracker.


    My weight continues to decline at a slow pace even though the daily fluctuations are quite dramatic.
  • CSARdiver
    CSARdiver Posts: 6,252 Member
    This depends on your activity level and how hard you're exercising. MFP is designed to eat back those activity/exercise calories, but this also assumes that the individual is logging accurately and the exercise calorie estimations are accurate, which these notoriously are not.

    A point to consider is that there is an inherent 20% margin of error in calorie estimation. I don't overthink this, but wary of it if my weight fluctuates.

    I make the biggest attempt ensuring I eat all the protein, then carbs, but not adamant about eating everything back.
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,970 Member
    I'm surprised how many people rely on MFP to guess how many calories they burned. I thought people used this like Excel.
  • sawyergarden13
    sawyergarden13 Posts: 15 Member
    I eat the majority of them back. I have heard too many stories of not eating enough making your metabolism run slower and this scares me into eating enough so my body is burning at maximum capacity. it seems to work fine for me, 14lbs down in less than 3 months.
  • MeanderingMammal
    MeanderingMammal Posts: 7,866 Member
    jesspen91 wrote: »
    hollyshealthylife wrote: »
    No, and I don't record my exercise in MFP as the estimates are so off-base. 105 cals burned for 20 minutes of walking? Suuuure.... At this point, I'm focused on making sure I get close to my goal protein intake. As my weight loss is fairly consistent/average week to week, and I feel relatively capable/well-rested and with enough energy day to day, this works for me now. If I do find that my vigourous workout schedule has me feeling crushed, I will certainly modify my plan.

    FWIW, I am a morbidly obese late 30s female focusing on building muscle and cardiovascular, not a top athlete. Obviously, as my body composition changes, my needs will change!

    That actually sounds quite accurate. The general rule for walking is that a mile burns about 100 calories for an average sized person (with obvious variations for size and elevation) I could easily walk a mile in 20 minutes.

    Well, 0.3*body weight in lbs per mile.

    Personally I'll burn 50 cals per mile walking, 100 per mile running. Asking someone twice my weight, hence obese then a mile in 20 minutes isn't outlandish.

    I guess my material point is, what would suggest that 100 cals isn't reasonable?
  • valitsakouel
    valitsakouel Posts: 2 Member
    I am a very very big lady trying to get smaller. I started recently using MFP for the that exact reason. Every app I've used seem to overexagerate my BMR and my burnt calories (MMW seems to do that to, I mean 285 cals for a lazy groccery 30 mins run? so propably gonna delete it). I kept my gym membership till end of May and was constantly scratching down calories in and out and for some periods even had an after workout protein shake that my trainer swore would make my progress faster but my progress seemed even slower than what it was. I don't trust the treadmill counter, the bike counter, the elliptic counter, practically have not any idea what my outs are, can only make an educated guess. I understand the idea that calories burnt on a 30 min fast pace in the treadmill should be different in me and a 60 or 70 or even 100 kg person, due to the diference in the effort needed for me and that person to do the same excersise, but the numbers seem waayy off. So I've set MFP to not adjust cals on excersise days and starting next week, will see how things will go.
    P.S. It seems I lost more in those 3 months I've been off the gym and not eating them back than on any 3 months period on the gym, maybe eating back really cancels your progress?
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    valitsakouel wrote: »
    maybe eating back really cancels your progress?

    Not at all, if you measure accurately. A lot of people might be hungrier and tend to eat more or think "jeez, I must have burned SO MANY calories as the workout felt tough" and eat back too much." On the other hand, if we are talking short term water weigh can mask losses when you first start working out.

    I ate exercise calories throughout my weight loss and lost at or above the MFP predicted rate.
    I am a very very big lady trying to get smaller. I started recently using MFP for the that exact reason. Every app I've used seem to overexagerate my BMR and my burnt calories (MMW seems to do that to, I mean 285 cals for a lazy groccery 30 mins run? so propably gonna delete it).

    If you are quite heavy, MFP might overestimate your BMR (unless you use the formula that takes body fat into account the calculators do overestimate BMR for people with high fat percentages). If you are at sedentary and aiming for 2 lb/week anyway (which seems to be common), it likely evens out, though. When I started (and had lots to lose, but had already been dieting and lost the initial big water drop) MFP claimed I'd lose 1.8 lb/week at 1200 and I consistently lost more than 2 at 1250 WITH exercise calories eaten back (not saying you should aim for over 2, and that didn't last after I'd lost my first 20 or so).

    If you are talking about an actual 3 mile run, though, 285 does not seem high. A 150 lb person will burn about 300 on a 3 mile run. If you mean a walk, it's lower (but if you are actually quite heavy 285 for that length walk is possible). That said, I personally would not log back calories from daily walking. I do quite a bit more than 3 miles just commuting and on errands and such during my day and don't log it as exercise (a purposeful walk to exercise I might if I did not have a Fitbit). If I regularly hit 10,000 steps or some such without intentional exercise I'd make sure I was in as lightly active vs. sedentary, though.

    That calories don't seem accurate isn't a reason not to eat any of them, you can try eating back 50% to start and then adjust based on results. Being active (as active as reasonably possible given current state of fitness, don't burn yourself out) IS independently good for health.
  • CSARdiver
    CSARdiver Posts: 6,252 Member
    Calorie estimations are based upon long term steady state cardio. Most of the original test data evolved from observing olympic athletes, military, and other elite level athletes. The closer you are to these test subjects, average height, average weight, etc. the more accurate your results will be. The further you are from the average, the greater the change of inaccurate results.

    Don't overthink this. This is a long term process, so don't get hung up over an aberrant short term data point. What matters is the overall trend on your weight (or whatever metric you're tracking). If this is trending in the right direction, you're doing it right.
  • Samm471
    Samm471 Posts: 432 Member
    I eat more calories on training days and less on rest days ... basically I eat more to fuel my body on training days
  • spyro88
    spyro88 Posts: 472 Member
    I don't usually eat back all of them, unless I'm really hungry or having a bad day. Sometimes I'll eat back 100-200 (I usually burn 400-500 in the gym). Everyone's different but I've been losing weight pretty steadily so what I'm doing works for me :)
  • DX2JX2
    DX2JX2 Posts: 1,921 Member
    I'll specifically eat back but only if I burn in large chunks. My normal weekday workouts are only about 30 minutes (250 calories) so I don't usually eat those. My 1-hour weekend run burns something like 750 and I'll gladly scarf that down.

    I should also mention that as a 6'2" male at close to 200 pounds, I have plenty of calories to work with even before considering exercise.

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