Do you eat back all your exercise calories? Advice please!
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JaydedMiss wrote: »If i exercise alot- say walk 10 miles instead of 5- Ill bump my daily calories from 1200-1300 to 1400-1500 if i feel a little extra hungry or crave an extra treat. Bout it
I don't see why youd do cardio to then just eat it back, Besides the fitness aspect, but most people are here for weight loss XD Especially every time, Like why not happily accept a little extra weight loss
I guess part of the reason I do a lot of cardio is so I can eat more...I won't lie and say that I always love to exercise just for the fun of it think I'd be miserable eating just 1200-1500 every day cos that wouldn't leave enough for treats that help keep me sane 
Thanks for the new responses!
Nothing to blush about. The cool thing about working out to eat more is that over time...you fall in love with working out for its own sake. I've even found the joy in running, although I don't do it too often aside from an ARC trainer at the gym or playing tag with the kids. I joke with my husband that nowadays i get fangry instead of hangry, if something gets in the way of my planned workout.
I agree that 1200 calories a day is a miserable way to live. When I started, I was constantly freaking out on the inside and snappish about food. Once I figured out that MFP was designed for you to eat back your exercise calories, I have eaten back just about every calorie (some days fewer, some days more). If my HR Charge gave me one count and a machine gave me a higher count, I would eat the machine count, even though I know they are for the most part inflated. A normal daily burn for me is 2500 or so, but I have my activity set to sedentary and a 1200 "foundation" because this is just what works for me. I don't recommend this for everyone, but I've lost 25 lbs and have gone from a size 12 to a size 6 (caveat: in many brands, not all) doing it this way, because it has allowed me to be disciplined over the long term.
I still have about 5 "vanity" lbs to lose (all right on my mummy tummy, of course) but overall I've been very pleased with the results I've gotten between MFP and my assorted weight-based and cardio workouts, and renewed focus on an active lifestyle. Hint: a progressive heavy lifting program has been the magical secret ingredient to making weight loss really "pop." I wish I had know this years ago.1 -
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If i at back ALL of the exercise calories fitbit sends over to mfp I'd end up looking like a beached whale in no time! I eat back roughly 40-60%.4
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JaydedMiss wrote: »If i exercise alot- say walk 10 miles instead of 5- Ill bump my daily calories from 1200-1300 to 1400-1500 if i feel a little extra hungry or crave an extra treat. Bout it I don't see why youd do cardio to then just eat it back, Besides the fitness aspect, but most people are here for weight loss XD Especially every time, Like why not happily accept a little extra weight loss
I guess part of the reason I do a lot of cardio is so I can eat more...I won't lie and say that I always love to exercise just for the fun of it think I'd be miserable eating just 1200-1500 every day cos that wouldn't leave enough for treats that help keep me sane
Thanks for the new responses!
yeah im guilty. Second i realized walking alot each day added up to the ability to have treats i was so in. XD Alot of the time ill walk a few miles to the grocery store for a treat if im craving it. I don't keep it around my house because i know how lazy i can be XD0 -
trigden1991 wrote: »Muscleflex79 wrote: »trigden1991 wrote: »Contrary to most above, I do not. I use my "cardio" calories to increase my deficit and have a good grasp on my TDEE.
sometimes I feel like I'm the only one that does this since almost all posters talk about eating them back...I also don't eat them and use it as a buffer for any logging errors or underestimations on any foods.
I can fully appreciate the philosophy of eat as much as you can to lose the weight at a steady pace but it does not fit with my mentality.
I think it depends a lot on your base calorie allotment and on how many exercise calories you're burning. I'm slowly learning to trust my FitBit numbers because I lose faster than is advisable if I don't eat the extra calories back. (If I never ate any back, I'd be losing about 4 pounds/week. As it is, I'm trying to slow from 2 to 1.)0 -
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k9education wrote: »Christine_72 wrote: »If i at back ALL of the exercise calories fitbit sends over to mfp I'd end up looking like a beached whale in no time! I eat back roughly 40-60%.
Indeed. I had a Fitbit for several weeks and the amount of calories it claimed I was burning was ridiculous. I would go for a 3-hour hike and burn maybe 500 calories in reality, but Fitbit would credit me for 1,200+. ]The more I exercised the greater the the discrepancy between Fitbit and reality seemed to be.
Yes, I've noticed the same! So far today I'm at 20,670 steps, and I've earned an extra 957 calories
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k9education wrote: »Christine_72 wrote: »If i at back ALL of the exercise calories fitbit sends over to mfp I'd end up looking like a beached whale in no time! I eat back roughly 40-60%.
Indeed. I had a Fitbit for several weeks and the amount of calories it claimed I was burning was ridiculous. I would go for a 3-hour hike and burn maybe 500 calories in reality, but Fitbit would credit me for 1,200+. The more I exercised the greater the the discrepancy between Fitbit and reality seemed to be.
Try playing with the date of birth setting for larger modifications, and stride length for smaller modifications. Using this technique I was able to fine-tune my fitbit burns to be about 95% accurate to my real weight loss, so I can confidently eat back 100% of the calories without having to worry about overeating or undereating in relation to my TDEE.3 -
At first I ate them all back because I had similar thoughts...that I would feel deprived. Then as my lifestyle became a habit, I don't focus on the extra calories. Some days, I eat some of them back, some days I don't. It finally clicked with me that this is how it will be. Also, I bank a lot of calories now and I'm able to reach for whatever if I get a craving.0
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i have the polar h7, and although its meant to be deems very accurate, i still only eat half cals ( once i deducted net vs gross those cals you would burn anyway sitting on the sofa)0
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I eat them back, but then I'm in training, and really struggle if I don't eat enough!0
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Christine_72 wrote: »k9education wrote: »Christine_72 wrote: »If i at back ALL of the exercise calories fitbit sends over to mfp I'd end up looking like a beached whale in no time! I eat back roughly 40-60%.
Indeed. I had a Fitbit for several weeks and the amount of calories it claimed I was burning was ridiculous. I would go for a 3-hour hike and burn maybe 500 calories in reality, but Fitbit would credit me for 1,200+. ]The more I exercised the greater the the discrepancy between Fitbit and reality seemed to be.
Yes, I've noticed the same! So far today I'm at 20,670 steps, and I've earned an extra 957 calories
That's up from "sedentary" though? That sounds like the sort of adjustment I get (+400-600 over "active" for an average of 20K steps), and I'm still losing weight eating them back. I wonder what the difference is.0 -
Muscleflex79 wrote: »trigden1991 wrote: »Contrary to most above, I do not. I use my "cardio" calories to increase my deficit and have a good grasp on my TDEE.
sometimes I feel like I'm the only one that does this since almost all posters talk about eating them back...I also don't eat them and use it as a buffer for any logging errors or underestimations on any foods.
It also really depends on what you're doing...I'm heading out for a 50 mile ride Saturday...that's a lot different than jumping on an elliptical or whatever to get a little cardio in. If I didn't feed that, I'd probably pass the eff out...0 -
SusanMFindlay wrote: »Christine_72 wrote: »k9education wrote: »Christine_72 wrote: »If i at back ALL of the exercise calories fitbit sends over to mfp I'd end up looking like a beached whale in no time! I eat back roughly 40-60%.
Indeed. I had a Fitbit for several weeks and the amount of calories it claimed I was burning was ridiculous. I would go for a 3-hour hike and burn maybe 500 calories in reality, but Fitbit would credit me for 1,200+. ]The more I exercised the greater the the discrepancy between Fitbit and reality seemed to be.
Yes, I've noticed the same! So far today I'm at 20,670 steps, and I've earned an extra 957 calories
That's up from "sedentary" though? That sounds like the sort of adjustment I get (+400-600 over "active" for an average of 20K steps), and I'm still losing weight eating them back. I wonder what the difference is.
Yep, sedentary. I don't know why the discrepancy. My logging is pretty spot on, especially over the last month or so. I went through a stage over our winter where i didn't log the handful of chips i had every now and then or a few crackers here and there, but these were few and far between, maybe 300 unaccounted for calories a week.
I guess our bodies don't all burn the exact same calories with the same exercise.
I lost weight so much easier when i wasn't exercising at all..
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Also fitbit says my TDEE is 2,450. I can count on one hand the day's I've totaled over 2,000 calories this year.1
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I loose a bunch after long runs, but usually eat them back a day later.0
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Maybe that explains it. I don't have a fitbit and I don't excersize much at all.0
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Christine_72 wrote: »Also fitbit says my TDEE is 2,450. I can count on one hand the day's I've totaled over 2,000 calories this year.
Interesting. It tells me I burn about 2800 cals/day on average (averaging about 20K steps). When I was eating 1800 cals/day, I lost 2 pounds/week - so it seems to be right. I upped to 2000 cals/day. Still lost almost 2 pounds/week. Recently upped to 2300 cals/day. Still losing.
Could it be because a lot of my steps are on a hilly university campus? And many others are carrying children?
(I think I'm heavier than you too - but that only account for the difference in TDEEs not the accuracy of the FitBit.)0 -
I don't have a HR monitor device. All my steps are on flat even ground, no hills.
I'm 5"8 and 147lbs.
ETA: I reduced my height and stride length months ago by 2cm which still didn't make a noticeable difference. Might have to tweak things further...0 -
Christine_72 wrote: »I don't have a HR monitor device. All my steps are on flat even ground, no hills.
I'm 5"8 and 147lbs.
ETA: I reduced my height and stride length months ago by 2cm which still didn't make a noticeable difference. Might have to tweak things further...
Try 25 cm or even 30. It should push your current fitbit maintenance down closer to 2000 or so calories which is what you suspect your current maintenance to be? 2 cm would not make a noticeable difference. As a general rule, every cm takes away about 10-15 calories. You may be a "thrifty" walker (unconsciously move in a way that saves energy), you may have a slightly lower metabolism, or you may have a lot of logging errors. Whatever the case, you can personalize it. Personally, I didn't need to tweak beyond age and step length to reduce my average TDEE by about 140 calories, which was the average error for me.3 -
Thanks @amusedmonkey . Ironically i changed to "set automatically" instead of "set your own" stride length, and it shaved off 22 cms, so obviously my stride length was way out, i must have incorrectly added the wrong numbers when i first got a fitbit a couple years ago. I have also now added 5 years to my age, so I'm 50 instead of 45 . I can already tell the numbers aren't moving up quite as quickly so far today.
I'm excited to see what happens in the next 4 weeks, at which time i'll reassess or leave it as it is if all is going to plan.1 -
My margins are small, so I use a good bit of my exercise to create my deficit. I only eat back about 1/4 of my exercise calories. The rest are a deficit. I'm using Fitbit and the scale in conjunction with each other to arrive at a TDEE. I have MFP set to sedentary just as a base to work from. I've fiddled with Fitbit to get everything to work out correctly.1
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