another exercise calorie question
kindrabbit
Posts: 837 Member
I just wonder what others do with their exercise calories.
I know the general recommendation is to eat back half your exercise calories but I wonder if that applies no matter how many calories you burn?
If I burn 100 calories I'm happy to eat 50 and 'loose' 50
At 200 calorie burn I feel a little sad that I get to eat 100 and loose 100
Today, according to my Polar HRM I burned 496 (MFP calculated 53 minutes of circuits as 487). I logged it as 240 - I always calculate the 50% and edit the number in my diary
I suppose my point is 50% of 100 doesn't seem that much, but 'loosing' 50% of 500 smarts! Do you always recommend eating 50%, no matter what the burn?
I know the general recommendation is to eat back half your exercise calories but I wonder if that applies no matter how many calories you burn?
If I burn 100 calories I'm happy to eat 50 and 'loose' 50
At 200 calorie burn I feel a little sad that I get to eat 100 and loose 100
Today, according to my Polar HRM I burned 496 (MFP calculated 53 minutes of circuits as 487). I logged it as 240 - I always calculate the 50% and edit the number in my diary
I suppose my point is 50% of 100 doesn't seem that much, but 'loosing' 50% of 500 smarts! Do you always recommend eating 50%, no matter what the burn?
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Replies
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Personally, I would eat back more. The "only eat half your exercise calories" tip is really more for people only going by what MFP or a gym machine tells them, not for people using a HRM. Yes, HRMs can be a little off if you're not doing steady state cardio, but they're not 50% off.
For example: if I burn 500 calories during a workout, I log it as anything from 400 to 450 calories, depending on how hard I feel I worked. However, I do not log the calories I burn from my post or pre workout yoga.
Hope this helps!0 -
That does help, thanks. I did boxercise yesterday. In those 53 minutes I had maybe 4 or 5 1 minute water breaks. It's a varied workout. It might be 60 seconds punching - we work in pairs so there's also 60 seconds on the pads but that still feels like a workout! We might do 3 minutes of 10 mountain climbers then 20 hooks while the person in the pads does jumping Jack's. Theres also an abs section.
So it's not exactly steady state cardio but my heart rate is up there for the majority of the hour long class. I count 53 minutes as I only turned the hrm on half way through the warm up (a whole lot of squats, jump squats, lunges, push up, mountain climbers and high knees).
It's interesting that the hrm calculation is so close to the mfp calculation. It's not as wildly inaccurate as I had thought, certainly not double. It is much more inaccurate for running, as has been said before. I think I get around 800 or 900 when my hrm says around 600 for an hours run (I don't do them very often!)0 -
By the way, I didn't eat them, I'm saving them for my pizza on Friday night!0
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I eat all my exercise calories but I also only use my HRM for suitable activities. Some activities (like strength or circuit training) I just guess a number.
Circuits, boxercise classes and intervals are not really suitable activities to get an accurate estimation from your HRM so probably best to cut a percentage off your count.
As an illustration an hour steady state on a power meter equipped cycle trainer sees my HRM (calibrated for my VO2 max and tested max MR) and the power meter give almost identical numbers. An hour doing interval training will see the HRM over-read by about 10%.
Can also see a significant divergence due to overheating or even following blood donation. It's far from an exact science!
Like you I'm not compelled to eat them all on the day and prefer a weekly view.0 -
The only way to be sure is take your intake and calculated burns for a period, divide by 3500 (estimated calories per pound of fat), and compare the theoretical loss to your actual loss.
I do this weekly to double check my calorie burn "assumptions" (I also use a HRM, but do steady state cardio) and food tracking.
Otherwise, I eat as many of them as I feel like when I'm done exercising our the next day. If I'm not hungry, they stay as a bonus.0 -
The food you eat is for energy (carbs and fat) to keep you alive and allow you to do the things you do (including workouts) and to provide material to rebuild your body (protein). When you’re at a deficit, you’ll lose body mass (fat and muscle). If you get to a point where you’re eating at a very large deficit, your body will begin to shut down functions it deems discretionary (like rebuilding muscle). If you keep pushing through hard cardio and have too large of a deficit, eventually, you’ll break down.
However, if you’re talking about 250 calories, meaning you’re now at a 750 calorie deficit, you probably aren’t going to go into starvation mode. Just monitor how your fat loss is going, how you feel and how you sleep. Adjust if these aren’t what you need them to be.0 -
Karen_libert wrote: »I just wonder what others do with their exercise calories.
I know the general recommendation is to eat back half your exercise calories but I wonder if that applies no matter how many calories you burn?
If I burn 100 calories I'm happy to eat 50 and 'loose' 50
At 200 calorie burn I feel a little sad that I get to eat 100 and loose 100
Today, according to my Polar HRM I burned 496 (MFP calculated 53 minutes of circuits as 487). I logged it as 240 - I always calculate the 50% and edit the number in my diary
I suppose my point is 50% of 100 doesn't seem that much, but 'loosing' 50% of 500 smarts! Do you always recommend eating 50%, no matter what the burn?
i use MFP numbers for exercise, and have never had a problem losing weight eating 100% of them back.0 -
thank you all very much. I think from what everyone has said I may start eating more than the 50% I have been eating back.
About a week ago I changed my goals from 1lb a week to half a week as I am close to goal. That obviously gave me more calories. (I think it went from around 1400 to 1620.)
Since then I have maintained or lost 1lb a day. Obviously too fast for my liking. I think I am going to perhaps change it to eating 75% back instead of 50% and try to get closer to allowance rather than leaving some for the weekend. I've also tried to up my protein as I don't want to loose the little muscles I have spent the last 2 years trying to grow!
Interestingly I haven't exercised this week as much as I usually would (silly long working hours over Easter and school holidays) and the weight has fallen off (Maybe I shouldn't speak too soon!) I don't want to ruin the good weight loss but I would like to slow it down a bit.0 -
Karen_libert wrote: »thank you all very much. I think from what everyone has said I may start eating more than the 50% I have been eating back.
About a week ago I changed my goals from 1lb a week to half a week as I am close to goal. That obviously gave me more calories. (I think it went from around 1400 to 1620.)
Since then I have maintained or lost 1lb a day. Obviously too fast for my liking. I think I am going to perhaps change it to eating 75% back instead of 50% and try to get closer to allowance rather than leaving some for the weekend. I've also tried to up my protein as I don't want to loose the little muscles I have spent the last 2 years trying to grow!
Interestingly I haven't exercised this week as much as I usually would (silly long working hours over Easter and school holidays) and the weight has fallen off (Maybe I shouldn't speak too soon!) I don't want to ruin the good weight loss but I would like to slow it down a bit.
i carry about 2lb of water when i am exercising regularly... have a week off and the scales drop... thats normal.0 -
i carry about 2lb of water when i am exercising regularly... have a week off and the scales drop... thats normal. [/quote]
Thanks, that's a good reminder not to get complacent.
After the school holidays I'm starting Stronglifts 5X5 3 days a week in addition to my 2 days of circuits. I'm also training for a 10k race so really ought to go for a run!
I suspect this fast loss isn't going to continue!0 -
People........Enjoy yourselves, use this app as a general rule and let the mirror be your measuring stick......you are sucking the fun out of working out and indeed life going into this level of detail!
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Karen_libert wrote: »I know the general recommendation is to eat back half your exercise calories but I wonder if that applies no matter how many calories you burn?
Well MFP is set up so that you eat back all of your expended exercise calories. People only recommend 50% because that allows for the errors involved in measuring expenditure and their intake.
For me, none of my proper training sessions are less than 500 cals, and extend easily up to 2000-2500. So in that instance it's a question of what confidence I have around the accuracy of my measurement. And given that I tehn struggle to eat back that volume anyway, it's a bit moot.-
- For a steady state session, using my garmin, I've got reasonable confidence that I've got a fairly accurate figure.
- For a hilly trail session then the figure is going to be higher anyway, but the error from the HRM is going to be higher, so the figure is likely to be high
- For an intervals session the figure is going to be high, although the intervals component of that session only accounts for 30% of the figure so the error is mitigated. The error also varies depending on the type of intervals; sprints will have quite a lot of error, lactate threshold repeats will have less error
- For a resistance session I'll generally attribute about 100 cals per 15 minutes. Given the scale of error from my long CV sessions
Up to you how you want to account.0 -
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Thanks. Considering the rate I'm loosing I'm happy to eat back most of them depending on how hungry I am. I think it may all change when I go back to training properly next week.
Its becoming clear that the blanket 'eat 50% of your exercise calories' doesn't apply to everyone. I'll have to stop giving that advice now.
Great advice from everyone, thanks.
I've been at this for almost a month and a half and I think I have just the right mix of taking it seriously and having fun with it. I'm still learning and educating myself.0 -
I personally do not count any exercises as a source of additional cals I can eat. Moreover, I aren't sticking on number of calories I eat. There are only three states of body weight - it is increasing, it is decreasing and it is stable.
If it stable and I need to lower it - I eat 10% less next weeks. If it lower too fast - I add 5%. and so on. One or two months and you will learn what is your proper level of nutrition for this kind of workout.
Nobody can guess what is the real calorie cost of exercises . All people do it with different metabolism, form, acceleration, amount of muscular mass. Experienced gym inhabitants also spend less when lift more just because they are experienced.0 -
Karen_libert wrote: »It is much more inaccurate for running, as has been said before. I think I get around 800 or 900 when my hrm says around 600 for an hours run (I don't do them very often!)
Not sure what pace you're using, but for me MFP and my Garmin are very similar; c100cals per mile.
If you're running a seven minute mile then 900 cals per hour might be realistic.
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MeanderingMammal wrote: »Karen_libert wrote: »It is much more inaccurate for running, as has been said before. I think I get around 800 or 900 when my hrm says around 600 for an hours run (I don't do them very often!)
Not sure what pace you're using, but for me MFP and my Garmin are very similar; c100cals per mile.
If you're running a seven minute mile then 900 cals per hour might be realistic.
I run 10k in 1:10. 10k is about 6 miles isn't it? that'd make 600 about right. I need to get back to the training. I haven't run for a while. I have a 10k charity race booked so I trained to get up to 10k. (I was comfortable at 5k but 10 was a massive challenge for me). Once I'd done it a couple of times I went back to the workouts I like (lifting, circuits etc) but I think maybe I ought to get a bit more comfortable at the distance before I try and do it in a 'race'
I think the general consensus is to eat back as much or as little to keep you loosing (or maintaining or whatever you are trying to go). I am going through a phase of loosing a little faster than I'd like so I'm going to eat them all! that will probably change when I start training again next week. I weigh daily so should see a trend relatively quickly.0 -
For me personally, I don't eat back ANY of my exercise calories, no matter how much I burn, and I use an HRM.
The reason is because I have an extremely sedentary day outside of my workouts and I'm trying to eat a 500 calorie deficit. On a day I don't workout, I'm lucky if I burn 1700 calories, so 1200 is my calorie goal. Then, I need to account for underestimating calories on some things. For the last (almost) 2 years, I have basically ended up maintaining my weight by trying to eat at a 500 calorie deficit, which proves I was really eating at maintenance at the end. I have a Fitbit so I have a good idea of how many calories I burn in a day.
I've figured out the maintenance came from a combination of thing:
Fitbit isn't 100 percent accurate on how many calories I'm burning in a day. It may say 1700, but maybe its only 1600.
You can never be 100 percent accurate in measuring your foods.
The entries in MFP for every single food aren't 100 percent accurate
I sometimes eat a few bites of something here and there and don't log it(shame on me).
I have a "cheat meal" every Friday night and it is hard to log those items accurately because I am just guessing on portions, calories, etc. (I do log them though).
Then throw in holidays, parties, birthdays, vacations, etc and you have a lot more estimating.
For awhile, I was working out and eating back half my exercise calories and that still wasn't working.
The only thing that has now started working for me is not eating back any of my workout calories. My current goal is to workout 3 times per week and burn at least 500 to 600 calories per week working out. This seems to be working well, it helps make up for the underestimating and inaccurate calorie logging and I've been losing weight with this routine.0 -
Karen_libert wrote: »I run 10k in 1:10. 10k is about 6 miles isn't it? that'd make 600 about right. I need to get back to the training. I haven't run for a while. I have a 10k charity race booked so I trained to get up to 10k. (I was comfortable at 5k but 10 was a massive challenge for me).
It was more an observation that you're putting something into MFP that's badly out if it thinks you're burning 800-900 calories in that time running.
10K is 6.1miles, so should burn in the order of 600 cals give or take.0 -
Oh I see. I just went in and logged an hours run and it said 628 so I think I'm getting muddled. Maybe it was map my run, or maybe it's just my middle aged brain making up random memories! Thanks for the advice. Glad to see my hrm and mfp are more reliable than my brain!!0
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For me personally, I don't eat back ANY of my exercise calories, no matter how much I burn, and I use an HRM.
The reason is because I have an extremely sedentary day outside of my workouts and I'm trying to eat a 500 calorie deficit. On a day I don't workout, I'm lucky if I burn 1700 calories, so 1200 is my calorie goal. Then, I need to account for underestimating calories on some things. For the last (almost) 2 years, I have basically ended up maintaining my weight by trying to eat at a 500 calorie deficit, which proves I was really eating at maintenance at the end. I have a Fitbit so I have a good idea of how many calories I burn in a day.
I've figured out the maintenance came from a combination of thing:
Fitbit isn't 100 percent accurate on how many calories I'm burning in a day. It may say 1700, but maybe its only 1600.
You can never be 100 percent accurate in measuring your foods.
The entries in MFP for every single food aren't 100 percent accurate
I sometimes eat a few bites of something here and there and don't log it(shame on me).
I have a "cheat meal" every Friday night and it is hard to log those items accurately because I am just guessing on portions, calories, etc. (I do log them though).
Then throw in holidays, parties, birthdays, vacations, etc and you have a lot more estimating.
For awhile, I was working out and eating back half my exercise calories and that still wasn't working.
The only thing that has now started working for me is not eating back any of my workout calories. My current goal is to workout 3 times per week and burn at least 500 to 600 calories per week working out. This seems to be working well, it helps make up for the underestimating and inaccurate calorie logging and I've been losing weight with this routine.
Great to see such attention to detail in order to get the results you want. I actually stopped my cheat nights for the last 2 weeks and its really boosted the loss, to the point I am keen to slow it down a bit but am wary of going the other way and slowing it too much. It's a fine line isn't it!? Maybe a medium pizza and 3 beers instead of a large pizza and a bottle of wine?0
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