Eating back calories

mari5466

I was curious, I have seen on different boards on here that most people eat back excerrcise calories. I was curious if most people eat back their calories or not? I don't really, only on very rare occasions.

queenliz99

I eat mine back, I fuel my workouts. The database in MFP is pretty accurate for me.

Aaron_K123

Yes I eat mine back, my diary is open. My goal is 1500 calories a day (assuming sedentary), but most days I eat closer to 2400 because of eaten back exercise calories.

cwolfman13

mari5466 wrote: »

I was curious, I have seen on different boards on here that most people eat back excerrcise calories. I was curious if most people eat back their calories or not? I don't really, only on very rare occasions.

When I followed MFP's methodology, yes...

Your calorie target is your deficit without exercise. If I tell MFP I want to lose 1 Lb per week and get a target of 2000 calories, that means MFP is estimating my non-exercise maintenance calories to be 2,500...thus I have a 500 calorie per day deficit.

If I go train and burn 600 calories I would eat those back because that training is unaccounted for activity in my activity level...I'd still lose at my desired rate eating 2,600 calories vs 2,000 calories because my maintenance number would have also gone up with that activity to 3,100...3,100 - 2,600 = 500 calorie deficit still.

That said, many people vastly overestimate their calorie burns...they take numbers from this and other databases as gospel...it can be difficult to estimate calorie burns and there's no way to be 100% accurate so most people who follow this methodology successfully have some kind of allowance for error. For myself, I used a HRM for steady state cardio and arbitrarily deducted 20%...so basically ate back 80% of what my HRM told me...from there, I just watched my trends and made adjustments to that as necessary.

When you start to think about exercise and training in terms of your fitness rather than for weight loss, it starts to make sense that you should fuel it...lean, healthy, and fit people eat and train...they fuel their fitness...it's important to performance and recovery. Crashing your diet and then doing a bunch of exercise on top of that will ultimately stress the body out and raise cortisol hormones which will actually make fat loss more difficult and slower.

Chef_Barbell

When I was following MFP, I was eating most of my exercise calories back.

Aaron_K123

MFP uses the NEAT methodology, not TDEE...so yes, if you are using MFP you are supposed to log your exercise and eat those calories back. If that approach doesn't appeal to you, then use the TDEE method and don't use MFP or estimate your TDEE by setting your activity level higher.

tomteboda

I would go completely insane without getting fuel to account for my activity/exercise.

There is just no way I'd be able to stick to 1400 Cal/day and do much of anything.

RoxieDawn

The answer is yes.. The MFP exercise calories added to your daily calorie goal.

Trend your weight loss against calories consumed and calories burned through exercise (eating back) after a period of time.. this will tell you if you should eat them all back or a portion there of. Some will say eat back a % of what you burn.. this should be determined how those exercise calories are estimated..in almost all circumstances, not matter the device used to calculate they will be elevated so trending over a period of time will help you determine how many are right for you.

Chef_Barbell

tomteboda wrote: »

I would go completely insane without getting fuel to account for my activity/exercise.

There is just no way I'd be able to stick to 1400 Cal/day and do much of anything.

Me neither. I would punch a cow for steak or something.

sweetpea813

If I'm hungry, I eat them. If I'm not hungry, I don't eat them. Usually I eat some back because I burn at least 600-700 in my workouts.

mari5466

If you do eat them back how else do you calculate them or what percentage do you trust on MFP?

mari5466

sweetpea813 wrote: »

If I'm hungry, I eat them. If I'm not hungry, I don't eat them. Usually I eat some back because I burn at least 600-700 in my workouts.

I don't eat them back cause my typical work out is 250 calories. I work out before work so I have a limited time to work out and sometimes on the weekend I'll do 300-350.

cwolfman13

mari5466 wrote: »

If you do eat them back how else do you calculate them or what percentage do you trust on MFP?

That's the tricky part and usually requires some trial and error...

mari5466 wrote: »

sweetpea813 wrote: »

If I'm hungry, I eat them. If I'm not hungry, I don't eat them. Usually I eat some back because I burn at least 600-700 in my workouts.

I don't eat them back cause my typical work out is 250 calories. I work out before work so I have a limited time to work out and sometimes on the weekend I'll do 300-350.

You also have to consider what you're doing...the more intense the training protocol is, the more important it will be to fuel it...when I started, I didn't do much more than walking and didn't bother eating those calories back...it wasn't an intense enough or long enough to really warrant it and recovery really isn't an issue there.

Fast forward a bit and I'm an avid cyclist and spend a couple hours per week in the weight room...on average I spend about 10-12 hours per week training. On the weekend I can easily be out and riding 50+ miles either in a single day or a combination of both Sat and Sun and I'm going to torch a couple thousand calories...during the week I do things like hill repeats, threshold intervals, sprints, etc...failure to fuel all of that would likely result in recovery issues and my performance would suffer...I'm always trying to get a little faster, go a little further, get a little stronger, etc...you need to fuel for those things to happen.

Aaron_K123

mari5466 wrote: »

If you do eat them back how else do you calculate them or what percentage do you trust on MFP?

Personally I have an activity tracker. Is it accurate? Seems to be accurate enough for me. No matter how you track though the way you find out is to count all your calories in, count all your calories out...calculate what your deficit should be and wait 2 months to see if you lose the amount of weight you were expecting to lose. If you lose more then you should eat more or you might be underestimating your calorie burn from exercise, if you lose less then you should either eat less or exercise more or you might be overestimating your burn from exercise.

Its about consistent tracking and learning your own body.