Eating workout calories back -- 1200 calorie edition

SuperheroSadie

So it's commonly agreed upon (at least around MFP) that 1200 calories is the minimum you should be eating within a day.

Now the real question comes in when you consider what to do with workout calories.

If you eat 1200, work off 500, you've technically still consumed 1200. Should you then eat 1700 in that day, or leave it be?


Thoughts?

lemurcat12

The MFP method assumes that you add back exercise calories. Cutting them to avoid inflation seems reasonable. If you are at reasonably high calories or have a non aggressive goal (like .5 lb/week) or don't exercise that hard (some walking, perhaps), then I don't think eating them back is a big deal and can be optional. At an aggressive goal that assumes you are sedentary (which 1200 typically is), then yes, you should definitely eat some back.

SuperheroSadie

You know, in my search for an answer to this question I actually found an article that put it in perspective:

You're not 'eating back' calories, you're choosing how you create your deficit. So if you create your deficit one day by not working out and eating less, or if you work out and eat more, you're still creating the same deficit but through different means.

(And yes, I am at an aggressive, yet sedentary, goal. Besides my morning 1.5hr (roughly) workout, I spend all day on my butt. The joys of working in IT . I walked 10k steps before I got to my desk 7 hours ago, and in those 7 hours I've walked less than 2k.)

lemurcat12

SuperheroSadie wrote: »

You're not 'eating back' calories, you're choosing how you create your deficit. So if you create your deficit one day by not working out and eating less, or if you work out and eat more, you're still creating the same deficit but through different means.

Yeah -- I think of it similarly. Once upon a time I read that a good way to lose 2 lb/week was cut 500 calories and work up to exercising 500 calories/day. I was at first shocked at the low calories MFP gave me (I was at a weight where 2 lb/week was appropriate when I started), until I realized MFP was cutting 1000 but letting you choose to do as much as that as you wanted through exercise instead, so I could still do 500/500 (I realize 500 may not be a reasonable exercise goal for many -- it's just an even number).

Now I do TDEE, so include the exercise before the cut, but it still nets to over 1200 (if I were to figure it out). (That's not 2 lb/week now, as I don't have as much to lose.)

dianaagomezz

I don't think you should eat them back because you just burned them off and if you don't exercise after your body will just store it as fat

lemurcat12

dianaagomezz wrote: »

I don't think you should eat them back because you just burned them off and if you don't exercise after your body will just store it as fat

No.

It all comes down to total deficit. A 500 calorie deficit won't have a different effect based on when you eat (and eating back may not happen post exercise anyway -- I eat more if my plan is to exercise, because I am consistent).

Too high a deficit is a bad idea, one element of which is that you are likely to lose more muscle than necessary (so end up with a higher fat percentage than necessary). I'm at a stage where losing weight isn't worth it if too much is fat, and where it's important to me to improve exercise performance, not just calorie burn. Both goals would be undermined if I pretended I was not exercising hard and ate 1200 calories (which is what I'd get as a goal based on an MFP estimate and 1 lb loss).

RGv2

dianaagomezz wrote: »

I don't think you should eat them back because you just burned them off and if you don't exercise after your body will just store it as fat

This is wrong on so many levels..........just.....the last half of the sentence doesn't even make sense.

When you enter your stats into MFP, it spits out a calorie number to meet the goal you entered assuming that you are doing no exercise.

Let's take a hypothetical person who maintains on 2000 cals per day. The entered in a 1lb per week loss, or 500 cal per day deficit.

2000 maint - 500 cals = a daily goal of 1500 cals to lose 1lb per week.

Now lets say that person added in a jog that burns an extra 300 cals per day. Now their new maintenance =

2000 main cals + 300 from exercise = 2300 new maintenance, so:

2300 new maint - 500 cals = a daily goal of 1800 cals to lose 1lb per week.

Do you really think that MFP would give you exercise cals back if it was going to hinder your goal?

Trinique34

I have been looking for the answer to this. I just joined MFP and I'm only allowed 1200 as well. I work out with a personal trainer 2 times a week, pretty intensely, and on my own 2 times cadio/abs and then another hard workout, without my trainer. In total 5 times a week. I don't know how much I burn with my trainer but I do know that I'm quite hungry when I'm done.

I don't think with working out I could sustain 1200 calories so I eat most of them back. I only just started MFP so can't say if it's working yet to lose 1 lb a week which is my goal but I don't feel starved or weak and I have the endurance to withstand my intense workouts.

It's not worth it to me to deplete my body of important nutrients by not consuming enough. I will have to gauge it and see if my scale/inches is moving or not. Only then will I maybe consider not using my exercise calories.

moe0303

Sure eat them back. It all comes down to estimates. mfp estimates your basic calories out if you don't exercise. You use the database to estimate your calories in. Then you use the DB again (or fitbit or whatever) to estimate the calories burned during exercise. So there is some variance on all of those estimations. So some people play it safe and make up for those variances by not recording or eating back the exercise calories. @stevencloser has a good graphic on another post somewhere on these boards which does a good job of explaining it.

RoxieDawn

Either/or. The exercise calorie debate has been going on and on for years and years here on MFP. The over estimatation of calorie burns, HRM calories, eating back too many, you should eat more than 1200 calories, ladi ladi ladi ladi...

The short answer, MFP is NEAT and NOT TDEE. Eat back some of your exercise calorie burn as devices such as fitness bands, HRM's, cardio machines all are estimations and guage your weight loss accordingly.

Really short people like my self fall into that stupid 1200 calories to eat to have a small deficit to loose x pounds a week (in my case ounces a week).. so the 1200 calorie thing does not just apply to the average human being to loose weight.

stevencloser

moe0303 wrote: »

Sure eat them back. It all comes down to estimates. mfp estimates your basic calories out if you don't exercise. You use the database to estimate your calories in. Then you use the DB again (or fitbit or whatever) to estimate the calories burned during exercise. So there is some variance on all of those estimations. So some people play it safe and make up for those variances by not recording or eating back the exercise calories. @stevencloser has a good graphic on another post somewhere on these boards which does a good job of explaining it.

Ask and ye shall receive.

nsa352

Yes you should eat 1700 because you can't build a body while being on too much calories deficit. What I do is when I workout I just listen to my body, if it tells me I need more energy, I would eat more. I would feel miserable if I was on a very low calories diet and work my butt off.
I lost 9 lbs ( which is hard because I am already in the healthy range from 115 lbs to 106 lbs for 5 feet tall) by eating as how I felt like when I worked out ( mostly strength training) and having a calorie deficit of 1350 calories on days I don't workout.
The only issue with calories counting is it's mostly estimations . It's hard to have an exact idea of how many calories you ate and burnt. So better go by how you feel.
Also a remark, cardio tends to make people hungrier. Weight training not that much. So better do more weight training than cardio.

yarwell

1200 calories has a flaw in MFP. For example if your TDEE was 1600 and you wanted a 500 deficit you would be given 1200 calories, which is only a 400 deficit. If you then log 200 of exercise your TDEE goes up to 1800 but you food goal is now 1400, maintaining the original deficit of 400 rather than giving you the opportunity to expand it to 500.

Similarly with a TDEE of 2000 wanting to lose 2 lbs/week your goal would be 1000 but for the 1200 minimum so you only get an 800 deficit, this is then preserved at 800 if you log exercise and eat back calories.

So anyone sitting on a 1200 minimum should think through their goals and the effect of eating back all the calories.

stephenellis79

MFP assumed weight loss is based on the outdated conception that -3500 calories equals one pound of fat loss. However it has been proven that because the human body is so good at adaptation the 3500 = 1 science is flawed. This is why if you want to see continuous results you shouldn't eat back (at least all) your calories. Also this is why you should not start too aggressively with cardio. Start slow, with something challenging(more challenging = more calories burned) and increase time/intensity until you begin to become efficient. Then swap for a new, more challenging exercise to keep the calorie burn high. Also don't forget to lift. Muscle burns fat. The more muscle you have the more calories you can consume without gaining weight.

senecarr

stephenellis79 wrote: »

MFP assumed weight loss is based on the outdated conception that -3500 calories equals one pound of fat loss. However it has been proven that because the human body is so good at adaptation the 3500 = 1 science is flawed. This is why if you want to see continuous results you shouldn't eat back (at least all) your calories. Also this is why you should not start too aggressively with cardio. Start slow, with something challenging(more challenging = more calories burned) and increase time/intensity until you begin to become efficient. Then swap for a new, more challenging exercise to keep the calorie burn high. Also don't forget to lift. Muscle burns fat. The more muscle you have the more calories you can consume without gaining weight.

3500 calories to lose a pound isn't flawed - assuming your TDEE will stay the same while you lose weight is what is flawed for a lot of people. MFP will prompt a person to alter their calorie goals over time as a person puts in their body weight changes.

middlehaitch

I am the little old lady who had stats that made 1200 cals the default calories for a deficit. 5'1, 130 lbs, 54yo when I started.

There is no way I would have been able to sustain a healthy weight loss without eating back the greater portion of my exercise calories back.

I did a mix of cardio with resistance included, aqua fit, Pilates, Zumba and walking. 3x60 a week, as well as Nerdfitness body weight x3 a week.

I worked out my own TDEE based on my intake ( faulty logging was therefore included) and an average of my exercise burn. 1400.

My average burn was 200 cals and I ate back 175 to begin with and 125 when I was close to my goal of 105 lbs.

I was always aware because of my age, height, and weight, some of my deficit would be through calories, some through exercise.

Yes it was a very slow weight loss (1 year=30lbs), but I came out a healthier stronger, fitter person than I would have been if I had just eaten 1200 calories.

Had I not eaten back the exercise calories, I would have lost more LBM than needed, would probably have been too tired to exercise and also enjoy daily life, lowered my BMR, even further, and would have more than likely have quit.

Now, at 62, I have maintained my weight for 6 years at between 1450-1550 cal, and am in better overall shape than I was at 42.

Woohoo started lifting heavy this winter.

I urge just about everyone who is trying to lose on 1200 to eat back at least a portion of their exercise calories. Not to do so is to deny the body of nutrition in exchange for a faster rate of loss.

Cheers, h.

Goldhartbeat

MFP tend to really overestimate the amount of calories you burn during exercise. Try sticking with eating half of those calories back and see if that leaves you hungry or not.

J72FIT

dianaagomezz wrote: »

I don't think you should eat them back because you just burned them off and if you don't exercise after your body will just store it as fat

This is not how the body functions...

Dvdgzz

stephenellis79 wrote: »

The more muscle you have the more calories you can consume without gaining weight.

Not by much. What is it 3-4 calories extra per lb of muscle? So 80 calories per day extra for a heavily muscled individual at the most. Big deal. Fat also takes energy to maintain so the difference between 2 people of the same weight would be negligible no matter the fat percentage.

Christine_72

Dvdgzz wrote: »

stephenellis79 wrote: »

The more muscle you have the more calories you can consume without gaining weight.

Not by much. What is it 3-4 calories extra per lb of muscle? So 80 calories per day extra for a heavily muscled individual at the most. Big deal. Fat also takes energy to maintain so the difference between 2 people of the same weight would be negligible no matter the fat percentage.

Why do those huge body builders eat insane amounts of calories to maintain their physiques. Is it their muscle or body weight?

Dvdgzz

Christine_72 wrote: »

Dvdgzz wrote: »

stephenellis79 wrote: »

The more muscle you have the more calories you can consume without gaining weight.

Not by much. What is it 3-4 calories extra per lb of muscle? So 80 calories per day extra for a heavily muscled individual at the most. Big deal. Fat also takes energy to maintain so the difference between 2 people of the same weight would be negligible no matter the fat percentage.

Why do those huge body builders eat insane amounts of calories to maintain their physiques. Is it their muscle or body weight?

Bodyweight. They weigh 300lbs. HGH and steroids will do that. Just walking around+2 hours of lifting will burn 5k-6k calories for them. If they want to gain mass, they have to intake 6k+.