Who eats back exercise calories and who doesn't?

lmr0528

My calories are set at my BMR. If I'm still hungry at night after exercise, then I eat. I don't make it a point to eat or not eat my exercise calories.

joolsmd

sijomial wrote: »

joolsmd wrote: »

By the way "70mins of HIIT" would say to me that is 70mins of interval training not HIIT.

I am aware that no-one would be able to do 70 mins of HIIT, I was using it as an example that some exercise burns mopre cals/min than others, and that I doubt that not eating back MY exercise calories would make any difference to my weightloss at the moment.

shadow2soul

I definitely eat them. I wouldn't be able to do my workouts if I didn't.

My MFP goal is 1340 before exercise. I generally eat a total of 1600-2000 calories (sometimes more sometimes less) and I lose over 1lb per week doing so.




I'm pretty sure, for me at least, just eating 1340 would probably not be healthy at all.

edit: I should add that I don't use MFP estimates for calories burned.

spicy618

When I was actually losing weight, I was set at 1400 and ate every calorie earned with exercise . However, I started slacking and begain eating my exercise calories and more, therefore, I gained. If you're acurate with your calories in/out, eating your exercise calories makes losing wieght more enjoyable. In my opinion. Do what keeps you consistent.

kissa714

Eating back the calories you burn working out is NOT the equivalent to not having worked out. You are still consuming more calories for the day if you eat those calories back. If you don't eat them back then you might not be getting enough calories for the day and that isn't good.

lemurcat12

Serah87 wrote: »

I do the TDEE method, which includes exercise, so yes I do, I like to keep my muscles.

I like the way you put this.

The deal with eating back exercise is that the deficit you choose should not be too high (aim at 2 lbs or less or about 1% of body weight as a max). MFP gives you a deficit based on the assumption that you don't exercise (and that you will add it if you do). So if you take the max deficit from MFP for someone not exercising and then exercise on top of that, without eating back some reasonable estimate of the calories, that's a higher deficit than MFP (or the usual advice) says is appropriate, safe, or reasonable. Under a doctor's advice it would be different, but in general it isn't a good idea.

I think it matters more if you are exercising hard than if we are talking quite light exercise that doesn't add up to many calories, and of course it isn't such an issue if you think you might be underestimating calories anyway (results will give some insight into that).

With something like the TDEE method or, instead, choosing a lower deficit on MFP to start, you aren't at the max deficit PLUS exercise, but making up your deficit through a combination of increasing activity and cutting calories more moderately.

The TDEE approach makes sense to me, since I don't want to mess with trying to estimate exercise calories and I like eating the same most days, but of course my calorie goal isn't anywhere near as low as what it would be if I asked MFP to let me lose 2 lbs (or even 1.5) without exercise.

This is important to me (I'm actually thinking of kicking up my calorie goal more now that I'm closer to maintenance), since I'm concerned about losing muscle mass. No sense losing more if a good bit of it is muscle.

iwantabs1

I'm so eating them but I'm new to this lol - next week I will not eat them

Sinistrous

I eat half+ of them.

ashleycde

I have a low BMR and my lifestyle lately (in the winter, plus additional personal factors) is very sedentary, but when I work out I do so aggressively, so the discrepancy in calories burned on days I workout and days I don't are so different that it makes more sense for me to have a low daily calorie allowance and eat back calories on the days I work out so that I net low, but can still consume up to 2000 calories on some days. I am also much more hungry on the days I workout than the days I don't, and if I didn't eat more on the days I did work out, I imagine I wouldn't have the energy to make it through the day because my net would be much, much too low. Additionally, working out, for me, is part of being healthy and having energy, and it's not really about losing weight. What I eat, though also of course about being healthy, for me, is about losing weight, hence why I count calories and eat at a deficit.

ajnb88

I stopped trying to calculate in vs. out as the figures were never precise enough to make it accurate. If I worked out, I ate slightly more than usual, that was about it. I found actively trying to eat back 'earned' calories just made me binge, thinking it was justified.

ashleycde

It helps if you reward yourself for calories burned, as opposed to binging just to eat the calories. I'll work my *kitten* off for a healthy serving of linguine bolognese, some French bread and a little wine.

avskk

I don't eat back my exercise calories unless I've worked out an insane amount (so... never, pretty much). I mostly walk, so if I do a 5- or 10-mile walk on top of a normal day, then sure, I'll eat back about half. Most days I walk a total of 1-4 miles, though, and it's just not worth messing with my margins.

I am trying to get better about logging my exercise, just so I have a more accurate picture of how it affects my loss. Most of my walking is by necessity since I don't have a car, and I tend to forget that it's exercise as well as transportation.

SwankyTomato

sijomial wrote: »

If your exercise is sporadic why would you choose the TDEE method? Calculating TDEE will involve estimating the frequency/duration of your exercise so if it's sporadic your estmate is going to be flawed.

I have no idea how to do this right, still trying to figure this out.

I did go back into MFP controls and changed my stuff so I "built in" my weekly exercise to two days & changed from sedentary to light. It upped my calories for the day and I am going to see if I lose doing it that way.

I plan to exercise at least twice a week at the moment and then build on that. I have to take it slow.

ck3sisson

I eat back the calories that I know I burned, so I'm somewhere in the middle. What I mean by calories I know I burned is those that are reported such cardio. Those that I know I burned from lift, but don't have an exact number, I don't worry about. I typically do this during cutting. If bulking, I may throw my own number of 100 calories for lifting.

You should create your own calorie deficite by subtracting 300-500 calories from your calculated maintenance calories. This ensures that you stay at a deficite that is in a fat burning range. The calories you burn on top of your deficite should be made up with good clean nutrition. I like to say "it's out with the old (fat burned for workout energy) and in with the new (good clean nutrition)", from make up calories. By doing this you prevent yourself from going into a catabolic state of using muscle issue as energy during workout.

MKEgal

Both my dietician and doctor (endocrinologist, head of the weight loss clinic at the hospital) say not to eat back exercise calories.
Looking at my diary, probably 2/3 of the time I don't.
I'd like to improve on that, maybe to 80%.
And they'd never heard of the concept of net calories. Just eat at or slightly below your calorie goal.

The main reason not to eat exercise calories is because most people underestimate what they eat,
and most machines (including MFP) overestimate what you burn.
If you don't eat the exercise calories, those errors pretty much cancel out for most people.
Think of exercise as a bonus to weight loss. (And of course, it has benefits to health beyond losing weight.)

"Most weight loss occurs because of decreased caloric intake.
However, evidence shows the only way to maintain weight loss is to be engaged in regular physical activity."
http://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/physical_activity/index.html

mommyof2boys562

Your actually suppose to eat the exercise calories. In case of over estimating my exercise calories I will eat back between 50-75% of the calories. Some days I may not be overly hungry and other days I can't eat enough so week to week it all balances out. Losing 2 lbs a week and while eating my calories....not to bad I think.