Do I eat back calories?
kpressnell2017
Posts: 26 Member
I'm set at 1950. Burned around 950-1000 during gym time this am with my HR monitor. Should I eat those back?
5ft9
241
26yr
Losing weight
5ft9
241
26yr
Losing weight
0
Replies
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I've heard that you should only eat back half of the calories that you burn just in case any of your numbers are off a tad bit.4
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If your calorie goal comes from MFP, it's designed for you to eat back exercise calories. Some people eat back just a portion to account for any potential over-estimation of calorie burn.1
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No, your calories burned are already figured in.0
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queenbea77 wrote: »No, your calories burned are already figured in.
If her goal is from MFP, it doesn't include calories burnt through exercise.1 -
queenbea77 wrote: »No, your calories burned are already figured in.
Not if using MFP as designed. MFP uses NEAT, which is a goal before purposeful exercise.3 -
I eat all of my calories burned as tracked by my HRM. But it's never bad to exercise with eating (no pun intended!) when starting or if not using a food scale. Monitor losses for 6-8 weeks and adjust as needed.1
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If you're using MFP to set your calorie goal, then you should be eating back (at least a portion of) exercise calories, as purposeful exercise is not included in the calorie goal that MFP gives you.
Personally I don't like the inherent inaccuracy involved in logging exercise calories so choose to use a TDEE method.
Figure out your total daily energy expenditure, knock some off, use that as your goal. It takes a while but with accurate logging of intake and weight you will get a good grasp of your calorie needs in various different situations.0 -
VintageFeline wrote: »I eat all of my calories burned as tracked by my HRM. But it's never bad to exercise with eating (no pun intended!) when starting or if not using a food scale. Monitor losses for 6-8 weeks and adjust as needed.
So my hrm said 1032. Should I just eat back half?0 -
akilia112010 wrote: »I've heard that you should only eat back half of the calories that you burn just in case any of your numbers are off a tad bit.
The calorie number from my bike rides are always off a tad bit. They're always 13 % too low. It's like there's a programming flaw in my computer. Anyway if I cut the number it gave me in half, that would be even more off.
If you keep good logs and weigh yourself daily, you can get a pretty good sense for how accurate your exercise calories are.1 -
kpressnell2017 wrote: »VintageFeline wrote: »I eat all of my calories burned as tracked by my HRM. But it's never bad to exercise with eating (no pun intended!) when starting or if not using a food scale. Monitor losses for 6-8 weeks and adjust as needed.
So my hrm said 1032. Should I just eat back half?
The "eat back half" rule is somewhat arbitrary and based on the idea that burn estimates aren't necessarily accurate but people realize they should eat at least some of their exercise calories back but don't want to eat to much so they hedge and eat half back. Its not really based on anything.
If your HRM was 100% accurate you should eat 1032 calories back. Chances are its not 100% accurate but it might be 80% accurate who knows. The only way to figure this out is to choose an amount of calories to eat back based on your HRM and then do that consistantly for months along with tracking your caloric intake as best you can then evaluate your progress and see if its where you expected to be.
If after 2 months your progress is not where you expected it to be you can adjust how much you eat back.
Personally I eat back all my exercise calories based on my fitbit and so far thats worked out pretty well. I make an exception for very high activity days where I think it does overestimate though.
My goal if I was totally sedentary would be 1500 calories a day, what I actually eat each day is more like 2400 calories.3 -
kpressnell2017 wrote: »VintageFeline wrote: »I eat all of my calories burned as tracked by my HRM. But it's never bad to exercise with eating (no pun intended!) when starting or if not using a food scale. Monitor losses for 6-8 weeks and adjust as needed.
So my hrm said 1032. Should I just eat back half?
I would go with half to begin with, or maybe even a bit more if it was steady state cardio you were doing and you have your HRM set up correctly (height, weight, age etc).1 -
Am I correct if you set your diary as active, then you shouldn't eat back any cals from exercise because it is already included???0
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Am I correct if you set your diary as active, then you shouldn't eat back any cals from exercise because it is already included???
The activity setting is designed to set your goal based on normal day to day activity. So if you get 10000 steps a day then you'd be active on MFP.
If using MFP as designed, purposeful exercise should always be logged separately.
If you'd rather a steady goal, the TDEE method may be more appropriate. You wouldn't log any exercise this way.0 -
Am I correct if you set your diary as active, then you should not t eat back any cals from exercise because it is already included???
My confusion is this.
Example
TDEE is 2800
Set diary to -25%
2100 to consume
You burn 1000 calories
Eat 2100
Still at 1100 consumed...
Wouldn't you want it to be at 2100 no matter what?
This is what confuses me0 -
kpressnell2017 wrote: »Am I correct if you set your diary as active, then you should not t eat back any cals from exercise because it is already included???
My confusion is this.
Example
TDEE is 2800
Set diary to -25%
2100 to consume
You burn 1000 calories
Eat 2100
Still at 1100 consumed...
Wouldn't you want it to be at 2100 no matter what?
This is what confuses me
You're confusing two different methods.
MFP uses the NEAT method. Which is BMR + daily activity as your base then exercise is extra on a day by day basis.
TDEE is a steady daily goal that takes into account BMR, daily activity and exercise. You wouldn't log exercise in addition.0 -
VintageFeline wrote: »kpressnell2017 wrote: »Am I correct if you set your diary as active, then you should not t eat back any cals from exercise because it is already included???
My confusion is this.
Example
TDEE is 2800
Set diary to -25%
2100 to consume
You burn 1000 calories
Eat 2100
Still at 1100 consumed...
Wouldn't you want it to be at 2100 no matter what?
This is what confuses me
You're confusing two different methods.
MFP uses the NEAT method. Which is BMR + daily activity as your base then exercise is extra on a day by day basis.
TDEE is a steady daily goal that takes into account BMR, daily activity and exercise. You wouldn't log exercise in addition.
Well *kitten* -.-1 -
So what fitbit gives you at the end of the day is TDEE? Eating 500 less than that a day would result in 1 lbs loss a week?
(Of course assuming that your tracking is accurate
Confusing cause MFP gives a # and fitbit another...0 -
kpressnell2017 wrote: »Am I correct if you set your diary as active, then you should not t eat back any cals from exercise because it is already included???
My confusion is this.
Example
TDEE is 2800
Set diary to -25%
2100 to consume
You burn 1000 calories
Eat 2100
Still at 1100 consumed...
Wouldn't you want it to be at 2100 no matter what?
This is what confuses me
The tdee method already includes the exercise calories so you don't add them if you are using tdee. If you got your goal from mfp it uses neat and does not include the exercise calories so you manually add them and eat at least some of them back.0 -
9-9-1 0 -
So what fitbit gives you at the end of the day is TDEE? Eating 500 less than that a day would result in 1 lbs loss a week?
(Of course assuming that your tracking is accurate
Confusing cause MFP gives a # and fitbit another...
If you have the devices synced then the easiest thing is to set you activity to sedentary and eat the adjustment given (being mindful to use real world results to determine Fitbit accuracy and adjust as necessary, some find it spot on, others not so much).0 -
kpressnell2017 wrote: » 9-9-1
No biggie. Pick a method and stick to it. Job done.0 -
VintageFeline wrote: »So what fitbit gives you at the end of the day is TDEE? Eating 500 less than that a day would result in 1 lbs loss a week?
(Of course assuming that your tracking is accurate
Confusing cause MFP gives a # and fitbit another...
If you have the devices synced then the easiest thing is to set you activity to sedentary and eat the adjustment given (being mindful to use real world results to determine Fitbit accuracy and adjust as necessary, some find it spot on, others not so much).
Thank you!!!0 -
Am I correct if you set your diary as active, then you shouldn't eat back any cals from exercise because it is already included???
No because in MFP no matter what your activity level is, it excludes exercise. You might set yourself as active if you're a construction worker or something, where you're active outside of deliberate exercise like going for an evening run. Then you would still treat that run as exercise above and beyond your activity level.0 -
NorthCascades wrote: »Am I correct if you set your diary as active, then you shouldn't eat back any cals from exercise because it is already included???
No because in MFP no matter what your activity level is, it excludes exercise. You might set yourself as active if you're a construction worker or something, where you're active outside of deliberate exercise like going for an evening run. Then you would still treat that run as exercise above and beyond your activity level.
So I set my MFP at somewhat active being a SAHM. My exercise needs to be entered or synced?
1650 GOAL
1760 consumed + 1032 exercise = 728 remaining
I consume part of that remaining or leave it ?
Sorry just making sure I'm understanding...0 -
kpressnell2017 wrote: »I'm set at 1950. Burned around 950-1000 during gym time this am with my HR monitor. Should I eat those back?
5ft9
241
26yr
Losing weight
MFP + exercise, choose a percentage to eat back, trend rate of loss over 4-6 weeks.. This will be where you assess your exercise calories along side with your calories you consume and trend your weight.. If you lose to fast, eat more, if you lose to slow, eat less, etc..
Are you sure on the calorie burn? Seems high.. anyway read the link, hopefully it will help some.
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/818082/exercise-calories-again-wtf/p10 -
I recently switched to the MFP NEAT method, but I don't have any device or app synced to it. I take my exercise calories that Runkeeper or my exercise machine tells me I did, and manually enter half of that number (sometimes a little more) into MFP. You can either make up your own exercise to add, or pull up the ones in the MFP database and just enter in your own number of calories. This might be cumbersome for some, but it works for me.
ETA: If you do as above, then yes, the calories leftover are ones you still have to consume.0 -
kpressnell2017 wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »Am I correct if you set your diary as active, then you shouldn't eat back any cals from exercise because it is already included???
No because in MFP no matter what your activity level is, it excludes exercise. You might set yourself as active if you're a construction worker or something, where you're active outside of deliberate exercise like going for an evening run. Then you would still treat that run as exercise above and beyond your activity level.
So I set my MFP at somewhat active being a SAHM. My exercise needs to be entered or synced?
1650 GOAL
1760 consumed + 1032 exercise = 728 remaining
I consume part of that remaining or leave it ?
Sorry just making sure I'm understanding...
Does you activity level include exercise? If not, you would "eat back" those calories...that's how you account for that activity. If your somewhat active activity level includes exercise, you would not...because it's already accounted for in your targets.
Also, how are you coming up with that calorie burn? That's well over being somewhat active...and pretty tough to do unless you're spending a good chunk of time training...like basically I'd have to go for a 30-35 mile ride.0 -
All of this confusion is why I set my activity level at sedimentary. I do have a desk job but even if I didn't I'd still set it at sedimentary and let MFP add calories back for steps taken (which it does with my phone as a step counter). Then I add in exercise through my apps which also use a HR monitor. I then eat back 80% of those calories and leave 20% at the end of the day just for good measure. Worked great for me. I can even eat back up to 90% with no weight gain but I try to never eat back 100% unless I start to notice weight drops (I am now in maintenance) then I will eat back 100% for a month or two and see where I am after that. It's all about making slow adjustments. Never make an adjustment based on a single week's or day's gain/loss. Always base adjustments on several week's average losses/gains.
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kpressnell2017 wrote: »I'm set at 1950. Burned around 950-1000 during gym time this am with my HR monitor. Should I eat those back?
5ft9
241
26yr
Losing weight
According to IIFYM.com using their TDEE calculator, setting it on sedimentary with no entered exercise at all, your TDEE is 2376. So that means before you did any exercise you could eat 2376 calories and maintain your weight. If you wanted to be at a 25% deficit, you would eat 1782 per day, which is a almost a 600 calorie a day deficit.
Since 3500 calories is generally recognized as a pound of fat, if you want to lose 1 lb per week you need a 500 calorie a day deficit for that week, so you would eat 2376 - 500 = 1876. Then, lets say you did 1200 calories of exercise but only trusted that 80% of that was accurate. 1200 * .80 = 960 calories. So you could add back in 960 calories leaving 240 of the 1200 at the end of the day (or not, completely up to you). So all in all you'd have 1876 + 960 = 2836 you could eat that day.
It's the activity levels that muck things up, otherwise it's pretty simple math. Play around with the calculators at iifym.com and you'll see what I mean. Try them with and without adding exercise. Compare that to other calculators and MFP and see what you get, then adjust MFP to what you feel is best. Keep it that way for at least a month, then adjust as needed. Worked great for me over the years.0 -
kpressnell2017 wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »Am I correct if you set your diary as active, then you shouldn't eat back any cals from exercise because it is already included???
No because in MFP no matter what your activity level is, it excludes exercise. You might set yourself as active if you're a construction worker or something, where you're active outside of deliberate exercise like going for an evening run. Then you would still treat that run as exercise above and beyond your activity level.
So I set my MFP at somewhat active being a SAHM. My exercise needs to be entered or synced?
1650 GOAL
1760 consumed + 1032 exercise = 728 remaining
I consume part of that remaining or leave it ?
Sorry just making sure I'm understanding...
I missed the part about do you enter exercise or sync it? I presume you have a separate device like a fitbit or app you are using for your exercise tracker? If yes, you will want to sync that to MFP..
I need to go back to your other thread and see the details on which method you decided to do, since you asked about exercise I assumed that you used MFP + exercise and not TDEE?
I see from the numbers you posted, using MFP NEAT + exercise.. What activity level did you set MFP to? From the other thread you know your approx TDEE, so to be within the 20% off that number you should consider NETTING close to 2200, so I would eat half. You will want to trend the amount of exercise you do and eat back over 4-6 weeks, and if you are losing slower, eat less back and if losing faster, eat more back..
how are you calculating calories burns for exercise? Just want to make sure they are not super inflated and make a wrong choice in eating back to many off the bat as you get used this..0
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