Argument for not eating/entering exercise cals?
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IMO it depends how accurate you are with your logging and how much you have to lose.
I didn't eat them back at first, but I was estimating my portions, so probably eating more than I thought, I had no idea how much I was actually burning, and I had 80 pounds to lose. In this case, you probably don't have to eat them back.
If you weigh all your food though, you can probably safely eat back 50% of your exercise calories. The bottom line is that there is such thing as a too large deficit, and you might end up burning more muscle if your deficit is too large and you don't have that much to lose (and not getting enough energy and nutrition either).
Personally I just switched to the TDEE -20% method anyway after 4 months because I walk a lot and it was just a pain to have to enter every single walk and workout as exercise, and that's how I lost most of my weight. I also weigh my food.0 -
cupcakesplz wrote: »I don't eat my exercise calories back.
Not because I think I will lose more weight each week, but because I am finding it hard to eat them all.
I am working on eating them by drink full cream milk and cheese.
I am still learning and trying to find my balance.
I use my Fitbit charger HR and I love doing extra work outs during the day
I just can't bring my self to eating 1000 extra a day. Over the past 3 years I have put on 20 kg's and I am scared of eating food!
I have this problem on my pool days (3 times a week). Between walking my 10000 steps plus swimming 1.25 miles and a water aerobics class, I have about 1200 extra calories to eat. That is too much food. I typically eat back about 1/3 of them and the only way I can get up that high is by adding a glass of wine to my dinner.
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I wanted to lose 1-2 lbs per week. The bulk of my exercise is a crossfit program that I guess to be generally consistent in effort from one week to the next. I started tracking my daily calorie consumption and tried to get it to be the same every day. I weighed myself every day to verify my weight was stable. I then reduced my caloric intake and I weighed myself every day and waited two weeks to see where my weight went. It was on track. If it were off, I would have adjusted my caloric intake accordingly. I have absolutely no idea how many calories I actually burn during exercise or my BMR or RMR. There are so many things that affect your calorie output, I don't understand how it can be accurately calculated. I use the only numbers I feel I have control over, my caloric intake and my weight.0
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If I don't lose weight next week I will know if I need to eat more!0
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I don't log specific exercises here as I use the Polar app for this. I use the estimate Fitbit provides considering that is on the lower end of the estimation, but my goal is to maintain a deficit currently.
Considering there is a 20% degree of error in nutritional labeling this helps ensure I'm maintaining a deficit. As for fueling the workouts I eat back most of the protein and some carbs, depending on how I'm feeling.0 -
cupcakesplz wrote: »I don't eat my exercise calories back.
Not because I think I will lose more weight each week, but because I am finding it hard to eat them all.
I am working on eating them by drink full cream milk and cheese.
I am still learning and trying to find my balance.
I use my Fitbit charger HR and I love doing extra work outs during the day
I just can't bring my self to eating 1000 extra a day. Over the past 3 years I have put on 20 kg's and I am scared of eating food!
I have this problem on my pool days (3 times a week). Between walking my 10000 steps plus swimming 1.25 miles and a water aerobics class, I have about 1200 extra calories to eat. That is too much food. I typically eat back about 1/3 of them and the only way I can get up that high is by adding a glass of wine to my dinner.
I so wish I had this problem where I thought this was too much food. I sometimes earn an extra 1k calories, allowing me to eat up to 2400, and I still go over.
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I am a "softcore" calorie counter. I very rarely weigh, I don't create my own foods, I use generics/homemade entries, etc... So, I imagine that I am eating more than I log. And, with that in mind, I use my exercise calories to offset potential inaccuracies rather than to eat more...0
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I rarely eat back my exercise calories, but it isn't intentional. When I play ultimate I typically eat lunch and bring something to snack before playing, probably getting over 1200 calories for the day. When I get home it is close to 7:30 and I never eat dinner that late. So, I'll find something to snack on, but not enough to combine for my last 500 calories for the day plus my exercise.0
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IsaackGMOON wrote: »To be honest @kae612 , eating back 50-75% would be ok for you (I would say 75%).
When people eat at 1200 calories (mainly females), I usually say eat back 100% of your calories because it's such a low amount... they'll still be in a deficit most likely.
Interesting! I'm 5'1 - 130lbs, eating 1300-1500 daily. I try to lift weights 4-5 days/week and cardio 5-6 days/week. I thought not eating those calories back will burn fat faster. So what I'm doing instead is burning muscles, right? No bueno....0 -
IsaackGMOON wrote: »To be honest @kae612 , eating back 50-75% would be ok for you (I would say 75%).
When people eat at 1200 calories (mainly females), I usually say eat back 100% of your calories because it's such a low amount... they'll still be in a deficit most likely.vanessaepc1 wrote: »IsaackGMOON wrote: »To be honest @kae612 , eating back 50-75% would be ok for you (I would say 75%).
When people eat at 1200 calories (mainly females), I usually say eat back 100% of your calories because it's such a low amount... they'll still be in a deficit most likely.
Interesting! I'm 5'1 - 130lbs, eating 1300-1500 daily. I try to lift weights 4-5 days/week and cardio 5-6 days/week. I thought not eating those calories back will burn fat faster. So what I'm doing instead is burning muscles, right? No bueno....
From this thread, I'm guessing the accuracy makes a difference. Like @ohmscheeks said, I too am inaccurate with my calorie counting.ohmscheeks wrote: »I am a "softcore" calorie counter. I very rarely weigh, I don't create my own foods, I use generics/homemade entries, etc... So, I imagine that I am eating more than I log. And, with that in mind, I use my exercise calories to offset potential inaccuracies rather than to eat more...
But I think it's a lot different if you're using an accurate scale system for inputting calories. And also as @CSARdiver said,Considering there is a 20% degree of error in nutritional labeling this helps ensure I'm maintaining a deficit. As for fueling the workouts I eat back most of the protein and some carbs, depending on how I'm feeling.
That's my takeaway from what people have said here. It's probably a good idea for me not to eat back more than ~50% on average, and "saving" or retroactively saving exercise cals is probably no big deal bc I'm over 1200cal/day. Considering I'm not logging with good accuracy as I'm w/o a scale and guess at things like peanut butter. If you're logging really accurately, with a scale and everything, then it might be a different story for you
I'm also super impressed by your exercise level, I'm trying to increase my 3x/week cardio to 4x/week & it's proving to be a challenge, lol. 0 -
I lift weights, and it's too hard to calculate an accurate enough burn to eat the cals back. It would be a low enough number that it wouldn't really matter one way or the other, though.0
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I have suddenly a whole other reason to maybe stop logging them
I worked with my MFP calorie allowance for about 9 months
My HRM i did manual ( no app for a Polar) and worked fine..a part i ate back
Now i have a new misfit...which i connected and suddenly the misfit gives me of course not only my exercise but also the walked steps
There seems no way to separate this.
So now i net around 700 or so or 800 a day
But my activity level is already calculate for my steps/activity...and the misfit is doing this double this way.
So really think..that i have to disconnect my misfit again. And i really like it soooo much. And go back to the "old way" MFP calories plus HRM exercise numbers, because the net numbers scare me out rofl0 -
I have suddenly a whole other reason to maybe stop logging them
I worked with my MFP calorie allowance for about 9 months
My HRM i did manual ( no app for a Polar) and worked fine..a part i ate back
Now i have a new misfit...which i connected and suddenly the misfit gives me of course not only my exercise but also the walked steps
There seems no way to separate this.
So now i net around 700 or so or 800 a day
But my activity level already calculate for my steps/activity...and the misfit is subtracting double this way.
So really think..that i have to disconnect my misfit again. And i really like it soooo much. And go back to the "old way" MFP calories plus HRM exercise numbers, because the net numbers scare me out rofl
I have a misfit and I had to disconnect it because it added my daily calories burned, so an extra 260cal every morning for doing nothing.... I still love it though & I use it for tracking specific exercise. On the misfit app, there is usually a little bubble for individual exercise like "moderate activity 24min [number of calories] burned" & I use that and input it for my activity. But I think the misfit and mfp apps don't communicate correctly, sadly
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no indeed and the numbers it gives me are pretty right..so no problem there. But it would mean i have to set my diary to zero or so.
lol
So you get an TDEE than.0 -
no indeed and the numbers it gives me are pretty right..so no problem there. But it would mean i have to set my diary to zero or so.
lol
So you get an TDEE than.
Yeah, I think that's what it does. I'd rather just focus on the exercise aspect, as the overall calorie burn it estimates on my sedentary days is higher than the mfp's estimation of what I should eat on maintenance (eg today I literally just left it on my desk because my wrist needed a break and it says I burned 1946cal & walked 104 steps). Maybe mine's just defective idk.0 -
IsaackGMOON wrote: »To be honest @kae612 , eating back 50-75% would be ok for you (I would say 75%).
When people eat at 1200 calories (mainly females), I usually say eat back 100% of your calories because it's such a low amount... they'll still be in a deficit most likely.
Bad advice because they won't be in their target deflict and will be complaining about not losing0 -
well i tried it out and wearing both
my HRM 330 and my misfit 327 for an hour swimming. Next day HRM 368 and Misfit 355.
I have some days now the Misfit is a bit lower but seem to be pretty accurate.
But the problem is indeed the steps that it logs to MFP while i have that already in my activity level.
And even that is not far off. But because MFP does it and my misfit...i net a couple of hundred now rofl
double dipping so to say.
I maybe try it a whole month and then decide what to do.
I really am tempted to put MFP totally to zero lol and than eat what the Misfit gives me less 400 calories or so.
I will see
But like i said that could be the reason why i will start to not log my exercise calories ( while i always did log them)0 -
cupcakesplz wrote: »I don't eat my exercise calories back.
Not because I think I will lose more weight each week, but because I am finding it hard to eat them all.
I am working on eating them by drink full cream milk and cheese.
I am still learning and trying to find my balance.
I use my Fitbit charger HR and I love doing extra work outs during the day
I just can't bring my self to eating 1000 extra a day. Over the past 3 years I have put on 20 kg's and I am scared of eating food!
Adjust your MFP activity setting closer to your true activity level (enable negative adjustments) and then you won't be seeing an "extra" 1000 Cal.
While I understand your fear, you have to work on that and realize that you didn't gain the kg's JUST because you ate food.
You gained the kg's because you ate MORE food than you had burned.
You are now MONITORING what you burn with your Fitbit.
For the most part the Fitbit TDEE estimate is correct. I am one of the few people who doesn't say it is 100% correct for me, and it is still well over 90% correct.
If you are not trying to lose faster than your stated goal, and assuming most of these Fitbit calories come from steady state cardio type exercise (walking/running/cycling), you should be eating most of your Fitbit calories back!0 -
barryplumber wrote: »IsaackGMOON wrote: »To be honest @kae612 , eating back 50-75% would be ok for you (I would say 75%).
When people eat at 1200 calories (mainly females), I usually say eat back 100% of your calories because it's such a low amount... they'll still be in a deficit most likely.
Bad advice because they won't be in their target deflict and will be complaining about not losing
Wtf? MFP is set up to exclude exercise so yes, yes they would still be in their target defecit
I eat all my fitbit calories (basic zip I use it to accurately judge my activity level) and around 50-70% of my HRM ones because of the nature of workouts I do that are tracked by HRM..eg some steady-state but also HIIT, weights, calisthenics
Ps this means I log only 50-70% of what my HRM says rather than I mentally calculate the difference
But the important thing is I do a rolling 6-8 week check and adjust based on my actual weight over time0
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