Eating back exercise calories- will the exercise burn still count?
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cwolfman13 wrote: »Aaron_K123 wrote: »I think the reason some people phrase it as "exercise isn't about weight loss" its because there is this expectation that if you exercise that somehow the deficit comes easily. Fact is if you exercise you are going to require more food and you are therefore going to get hungrier unless you eat more. To satisfy that hunger you eat more and you end up basically at the same deficit had you not exercised at all.
Now you can exercise a lot to create a larger deficit and try to will yourself through that hunger but....ick.
I do undertand by the way that if you are much smaller that it is harder to create large deficits...but if you are smaller you probably shouldn't be creating a large deficit. I think sites like MFP would benefit by having the goal to be to lose a certain percentage of your weight each month rather than just "1 pound" or "2 pounds". It suggests that somehow a 5'2 woman with little muscle is supposed to expect to lose at the same rate as a more muscular overweight 6'2 man which is silly. If you weight 140 and the guy weighs 280 then his 2 pound a week loss is equivalent to a 1 pound a week loss for you.
Yeah...the hardest time I've ever had with my weight management was when I was training for my first century ride...I was near the end of my weight loss and just figured I'd pretty easily drop those last 10 Lbs or so with all of those miles...I ended up maintaining due to being hungry as all hell from training and also wanting to perform well and recover from those training bouts...I actually do a lot better with weight loss when I'm doing light to moderate amounts of regular exercise vs actually training.
I just did my first marathon and my experience is a lot like yours. I actually gained about five pounds because I was so hungry (and I wanted to make sure I was fueling all my training and recovering well). It's much easier for me to lose weight when I'm running a normal amount -- when I'm running a lot, hunger becomes a challenge. If I hadn't been logging calories when training, I think I could have easily gained 10-15 pounds.0 -
Pointless eating back calories if you're trying to lose weight0
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Aaron_K123 wrote: »Also when you are a guy and burn thousands of cals just for being you is NOT the same as being a girl and burning around 2,000 a day, so is NOT that easy to create and maintain a deficit needed to lose just 1 lb
The amount that guys burn versus women is greatly exaggerated to the point of being laughable. Guys burn more because we tend to have more lean muscle and lean muscle has a metabolic cost to upkeep basically. Also guys tend to be larger (taller, heavier) which also has a caloric requirement. If you compared a man and a woman who where the same height and weight the guy would probably only have a TDEE maybe 100 calories more from the extra lean mass he'd probably have. Its really not that big of a difference. If you were comparing everything equal (height, weight, lean mass) between a woman and man they'd be the same. Having a penis doesn't make you burn more calories somehow.
My TDEE is high because I am active and I'm 6 foot tall, not because I am a man. Guys don't just get some sort of free pass, still have to work for it.
Ok, ok I might have exaggerated a little about you guys burning thousands of cals but still I don't think that you need to eat 1,200 cals a day only to lose 1 lb a week and I wonder if you had to do that, would you consider eating your burned exercise cals? Or that still just for fitness...Ha got you!0 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »Also when you are a guy and burn thousands of cals just for being you is NOT the same as being a girl and burning around 2,000 a day, so is NOT that easy to create and maintain a deficit needed to lose just 1 lb
The amount that guys burn versus women is greatly exaggerated to the point of being laughable. Guys burn more because we tend to have more lean muscle and lean muscle has a metabolic cost to upkeep basically. Also guys tend to be larger (taller, heavier) which also has a caloric requirement. If you compared a man and a woman who where the same height and weight the guy would probably only have a TDEE maybe 100 calories more from the extra lean mass he'd probably have. Its really not that big of a difference. If you were comparing everything equal (height, weight, lean mass) between a woman and man they'd be the same. Having a penis doesn't make you burn more calories somehow.
My TDEE is high because I am active and I'm 6 foot tall, not because I am a man. Guys don't just get some sort of free pass, still have to work for it.
Ok, ok I might have exaggerated a little about you guys burning thousands of cals but still I don't think that you need to eat 1,200 cals a day only to lose 1 lb a week and I wonder if you had to
I don't think there are many people who are regularly exercising -- male or female -- that would need a calorie goal of 1,200 to lose weight. Most active people would be able to eat more than 1,200 and still be in a deficit.1 -
Then why not just up calories and use exercise to create a deficit rather than all this eat back your calories nonsensejanejellyroll wrote: »
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Then why not just up calories and use exercise to create a deficit rather than all this eat back your calories nonsensejanejellyroll wrote: »
Because they're two different ways to get to the same place and some people prefer one and some the other?
Either way you're upping calories in response to exercise. Some people prefer to pre-plan it, others do it as the activity happens. Neither one is "pointless," it's just a matter of preference.
If you think upping your calories in response to your activity level is a good idea (as you recommend), I'm not sure why you consider just a different way of doing it "nonsense."3 -
Depends on what activity level you put into MFP and where they set your calories based on that and what you want to use. If you meet your activity level and calories set by them then you should lose. If you exceed your activity level, you should lose more. MFP is generous with activity calories though. Fitbit is less generous bases on what you burn in total..what you take in, etc. I don't always eat back but it's a little buffer if I go over a bit.0
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Then why not just up calories and use exercise to create a deficit rather than all this eat back your calories nonsensejanejellyroll wrote: »
If you want to do that then use a TDEE calculator to get your calorie goal. Then don't log exercise or eat those calories back. But if you are using MFP's goal then you should eat back exercise calories. That is how the tool is designed.3 -
I eat back the exercise calories I need to feel satisfied and meet my macros. You should be able to eat them and still loose weight because the exercise is extra. I also wonder if there is continued burn after your physical activity as I have read in some articles , if there is such a calorie burn then you will loose more weight because you are burning calories you don't even know about after your workout! That said you will have to monitor the calories burned vs. your weight to determine if the calorie allocation is accurate for you.0
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If you set your MFP calories for "two pound loss" and your "bottom line/ end of day" calories are at that level (with or without exercise), you'll be at a deficit and lose weight.0
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Aaron_K123 wrote: »Exercise is for fitness and requires fuel, calorie deficits are for weightloss and require eating less than you expend. Exercise isn't for weightloss and if you make it for weightloss then you are marrying two things that are trying to go in opposite directions (increased fuel for increased activity and decreased fuel for inspiring your body to tap into its reserves). You can exercise while you are losing weight, but you should plan your deficit for the weight loss and then do your exercise on top of that while eating back the exercise calories so as to not affect your deficit.
It is for this exact reason I set my calories at "maintenance" and don't enter exercise in MFP. I lost 100 pounds with diet only. I can't imagine eating at a deficit and working out too.
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mysteps2beauty wrote: »maybe a little off topic...It seems to me that adding a resistance program will benefit you more than cardio, you get to eat more cause the muscles are using more calories, and you look more fit and toned.....
Probably not a completely accurate statement. A combination of both is probably the best. If you do resistance based training, you can build muscle mass which should increase your metabolic rate vs the same amount of fat. That said, it would be difficult, if not impossible to obtain the same calorie burn from resistance based workouts that you can from cardio in the same amount of time, and it would be unlikely you could sustain the same length of time.
For instance, on a bike I can burn 10-12 calories a minute, and sustain that rate for two or three hours if I wanted (I do cycle regularly). Also the expenditure during that time is constant. I couldn't get a burn rate that high working out, the duty cycle isn't 100%, and I certainly could not do it for two or three hours, especially not a few days a week. That would be some serious HIIT work.
I guess you could theoretically do math to figure out that increased muscle mass from resistance based training is "doing work for you" all the time, so you're getting that smaller increase over 24 hrs a day, vs cardio being a large increase only over the time you're doing it, but I still think it would be atypical for most people to see a higher calorie burn overall.
I'd say a combination of both is probably the best idea for most people, as it is likely to either increase muscle mass and/or prevent/slow muscle loss while creating a bigger calorie deficit and improving both anaerobic and aerobic fitness.1 -
I don't think there are many people who are regularly exercising -- male or female -- that would need a calorie goal of 1,200 to lose weight. Most active people would be able to eat more than 1,200 and still be in a deficit.[/quote]
Exactly you get to eat more because you are ACTIVE keyword
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Aaron_K123 wrote: »Aaron_K123 wrote: »Exercise is for fitness and requires fuel, calorie deficits are for weightloss and require eating less than you expend. Exercise isn't for weightloss and if you make it for weightloss then you are marrying two things that are trying to go in opposite directions (increased fuel for increased activity and decreased fuel for inspiring your body to tap into its reserves). You can exercise while you are losing weight, but you should plan your deficit for the weight loss and then do your exercise on top of that while eating back the exercise calories so as to not affect your deficit.
Thank you for the insight. This helps me understand the concepts better
The trick is that quite often estimates for how much you burn while exercising are inflated. IE that eliptical might claim you burned 600 calories when in fact you burned more like 300. As a result a lot of people try to hedge their bets and just eat like 50-60% of the calories they think they burned from exercise back. That might make sense. Really only time will tell...if you eat all your exercise calories back and cease to lose any weight after that then you might want to eat fewer of them back.
What you want to avoid though is just not eating any of them back. The reason is that it will disuade you from exercising more or harder to actually progress your fitness. The harder you exercise the more food you'll need and if you don't eat that back the more and more tired you will feel and the harder it will be to exercise and therefore you won't push as hard and you won't improve your fitness. Fuel the exercise, monitor your deficit.
Real "Aha" moment right here, right now. Thanks.1 -
janejellyroll wrote: »cwolfman13 wrote: »Aaron_K123 wrote: »I think the reason some people phrase it as "exercise isn't about weight loss" its because there is this expectation that if you exercise that somehow the deficit comes easily. Fact is if you exercise you are going to require more food and you are therefore going to get hungrier unless you eat more. To satisfy that hunger you eat more and you end up basically at the same deficit had you not exercised at all.
Now you can exercise a lot to create a larger deficit and try to will yourself through that hunger but....ick.
I do undertand by the way that if you are much smaller that it is harder to create large deficits...but if you are smaller you probably shouldn't be creating a large deficit. I think sites like MFP would benefit by having the goal to be to lose a certain percentage of your weight each month rather than just "1 pound" or "2 pounds". It suggests that somehow a 5'2 woman with little muscle is supposed to expect to lose at the same rate as a more muscular overweight 6'2 man which is silly. If you weight 140 and the guy weighs 280 then his 2 pound a week loss is equivalent to a 1 pound a week loss for you.
Yeah...the hardest time I've ever had with my weight management was when I was training for my first century ride...I was near the end of my weight loss and just figured I'd pretty easily drop those last 10 Lbs or so with all of those miles...I ended up maintaining due to being hungry as all hell from training and also wanting to perform well and recover from those training bouts...I actually do a lot better with weight loss when I'm doing light to moderate amounts of regular exercise vs actually training.
I just did my first marathon and my experience is a lot like yours. I actually gained about five pounds because I was so hungry (and I wanted to make sure I was fueling all my training and recovering well). It's much easier for me to lose weight when I'm running a normal amount -- when I'm running a lot, hunger becomes a challenge. If I hadn't been logging calories when training, I think I could have easily gained 10-15 pounds.
Yep, same thing for me. Exercise is really helpful up to a certain point (especially for maintenance) after which a deficit gets really hard.
I actually think the most helpful exercise for weight loss (although you still have to make sure calories are under control) is that from less obvious or strenuous exercise -- increasing overall walking or adding it into a commute. It doesn't surprise me at all that people lose after adding in a biking commute and is consistent with my experience (for example), if that is indeed correct.
I went to a running camp not long ago, and the lecture on nutrition and calories for fueling/weight loss recognized this and recommended decreasing the deficit if trying to lose weight while training for something.2 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »Also when you are a guy and burn thousands of cals just for being you is NOT the same as being a girl and burning around 2,000 a day, so is NOT that easy to create and maintain a deficit needed to lose just 1 lb
The amount that guys burn versus women is greatly exaggerated to the point of being laughable. Guys burn more because we tend to have more lean muscle and lean muscle has a metabolic cost to upkeep basically. Also guys tend to be larger (taller, heavier) which also has a caloric requirement. If you compared a man and a woman who where the same height and weight the guy would probably only have a TDEE maybe 100 calories more from the extra lean mass he'd probably have. Its really not that big of a difference. If you were comparing everything equal (height, weight, lean mass) between a woman and man they'd be the same. Having a penis doesn't make you burn more calories somehow.
My TDEE is high because I am active and I'm 6 foot tall, not because I am a man. Guys don't just get some sort of free pass, still have to work for it.
Ok, ok I might have exaggerated a little about you guys burning thousands of cals but still I don't think that you need to eat 1,200 cals a day only to lose 1 lb a week and I wonder if you had to do that, would you consider eating your burned exercise cals? Or that still just for fitness...Ha got you!
Including her exercise calories, my wife was losing about 1 Lb per week eating about 1800 calories per day...she's 5'2" and "oldish"...she maintains on around 2300...she runs 5-6 days per week and lifts once per week.
Ha...got you!0 -
I don't think there are many people who are regularly exercising -- male or female -- that would need a calorie goal of 1,200 to lose weight. Most active people would be able to eat more than 1,200 and still be in a deficit.
Exactly you get to eat more because you are ACTIVE keyword
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I guess I'm not understanding you...that's what pretty much most of us have been saying...so not quite sure who you are arguing with. Most of us are saying that with MFP you would eat back calories...that's how you account for that activity. It's still for fitness..understanding that fueling your fitness is important doesn't make it any less about your fitness.
Burning calories is a bi-product, not a purpose...in that regard, it can make weight management easier because you can eat more...but I don't go ride so that I can burn XXX calories or whatever...I'm out there training to be a better cyclist...I lift to be a better cyclist...I'm not particularly worried about burning whatever calories...I'm just training and following my programming.1 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »I think the reason some people phrase it as "exercise isn't about weight loss" its because there is this expectation that if you exercise that somehow the deficit comes easily. Fact is if you exercise you are going to require more food and you are therefore going to get hungrier unless you eat more. To satisfy that hunger you eat more and you end up basically at the same deficit had you not exercised at all.
The truth is it's a lot more complicated than what you've just laid out. Different types and intensities of exercise produce different amounts of hunger, and different macro-nutrients have different effects on your satiety level.
So a person who runs sprint intervals and then eats no protein will have entirely different results from somebody who lifts heavy and drinks a lot of milk.
But what's not complicated and what doesn't need to be figured out over time and what doesn't depend on the individual, is that exercise burns calories.2
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