Logging exercise/Eating exercise

toe1226

I don't log my exercise - and I figure that is ok because I don't eat my exercise calories back.

However, tonight for example- I am going out with friends and think I might be a LITTLE bit over (I hate to see that red..)so I was thinking about logging my exercise calories so I could stay in the green....silly eh?

However, I have been noticing (and I've really just decided to set an intention to get back on track and lose a few lbs, for the last few months I've just been using the app for general awareness, not weight loss) that I have been exercising quite a bit, and feeling hungry. Should I perhaps eat back my exercise calories or a portion of them? Get a monitor that would be better at tracking expenditures?

My steps per day range between 15,000 and 30,000 (I walk a lot!) and usually there is some climbing or weightlifting in their as well. advice welcome.

joelo_83

I wouldn't worry about it, and you're doing the right thing not eating back exercise. I do understand the psychological impact of "going red" lol .. One night out with friends isn't going to kill you. Enjoy your off night every once in a blue moon

janejellyroll

joelo_83 wrote: »

I wouldn't worry about it, and you're doing the right thing not eating back exercise. I do understand the psychological impact of "going red" lol .. One night out with friends isn't going to kill you. Enjoy your off night every once in a blue moon

Without knowing how many calories OP is eating and how many s/he is burning through exercise, how can you be sure it is the right thing?

Some people will do fine without eating back the exercise calories. Others, especially those with lower calorie goals, find that it either helps them or is actually needed for their health and energy.

lemurcat12

It depends on how you set your calorie goal and how aggressive it is. MFP is set up so that it assumes no exercise and you are expected to log and eat exercise back -- that's the intended or correct way of doing it.

However, you do need to be careful, because exercise calories are often overstated, and if you use a custom goal (like from a TDEE calculator) or have a less aggressive goal it may not be necessary to eat them back or you might not want to.

For example, if you had a lot to lose (which you do not, according to your profile), you could aim for a 2 lb loss (pretty aggressive for the average-sized woman) by telling MFP that was your plan. If you do that (and put yourself down as sedentary) and if your maintenance is, say 2250, then it will give you a calorie goal of 1250. If you then do a bunch of exercise on top of that and don't add any additional calories, that's a more aggressive deficit than is considered healthy, and could lead to excessive loss of muscle mass or just an unsustainable plan over time.

In the alternative, if you decide to cut calories by 500 (1 lb) and then try to exercise off some additional calories, you might put your goal down as 1 lb and then not eat exercise back (and end up losing 1.5 or 2 lbs).

You also could use one of the TDEE calculators like scooby and get a number for losing based on your stats and exercise and if you used that, of course, you wouldn't eat exercise back.

Another way of doing it would be to include exercise in your activity level when MFP asks instead of just daily life and job. So someone with a desk job might say "active" because she walks a great deal every day or runs regularly or has a regular bike commute that burns significant calories every day. If you do that, again, you wouldn't eat back exercise.

But if you are someone who isn't that big and asked for the maximum loss rate and as a result are at around 1200, then, yes, the way MFP is intended to work you are expected to eat some calories back. That's much healthier and will probably lead to fewer unintended negative results (again, such as loss of more muscle mass than necessary).

toe1226

Thanks guys! It seems like there is no quite right answer. I'm 5-9 or 5-10 so I am already in my healthy weight range, I have never really figured out my maintenance cals which I think might be helpful for me to do- because I think right now I might be going more aggressive than what is healthy.

janejellyroll

toe1226 wrote: »

Thanks guys! It seems like there is no quite right answer. I'm 5-9 or 5-10 so I am already in my healthy weight range, I have never really figured out my maintenance cals which I think might be helpful for me to do- because I think right now I might be going more aggressive than what is healthy.

If you are close to goal, I think you especially want to make sure that you aren't shooting for too much of a deficit (which will happen if you burn a lot of calories in addition to the deficit MFP gives you). Are you losing weight right now? The amount of weight you are losing per week, along with your hunger/energy level, is a good starting point to determine if you should consider eating back some of your exercise calories.

ReeseG4350

Actually, lemurcat12 is pretty much dead on target. MFP gives you a calorie goal which has already calculated a calorie deficit. That means, if you increase the deficit, you should be losing more than whatever your stated weekly weight loss goal might be.

If you targeted a 2# a week weight loss but you exercise, burning an additional 1000 calories a day, which you do not 'eat back', that extra 1000 calories of exercise a day translates to another pound and a half to two pounds a week.