exercise calories

tschaff04
tschaff04 Posts: 296 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Do you eat back your calories when you work out? If so how many? I've always eaten back all of my exercise calories but now I see people talk about not doing that and I think I want to try half or even less and see how I progress..what do you do?

Replies

  • queenliz99
    queenliz99 Posts: 15,317 Member
    edited November 2016
    Are you trying to lose weight? How much weight? Your weight now?

    Have you lost weight?
  • leahcollett1
    leahcollett1 Posts: 807 Member
    as your on 1200 from the other post youll need to eat back all your calories. i dont find i need them as im already eating 1600 a day
  • VintageFeline
    VintageFeline Posts: 6,771 Member
    I eat mine. Always have. Always lost as expected. You need to tweak with real world results but you should eat at least some.
  • tschaff04
    tschaff04 Posts: 296 Member
    queenliz99 wrote: »
    Are you trying to lose weight? How much weight? Your weight now?

    Have you lost weight?

    Yes, I'm trying to finish losing my last 40 pounds. I weigh 168 pounds. I have already lost 100 pounds but gained some back with my 4th pregnancy so I'm working at it again.
  • tschaff04
    tschaff04 Posts: 296 Member
    leahcollett1 wrote: »
    as your on 1200 from the other post youll need to eat back all your calories. i dont find i need them as im already eating 1600 a day

    I changed that. I followed advice and changed it to 1 pound per week so I'm eating roughly 1500 calories a day now.
  • queenliz99
    queenliz99 Posts: 15,317 Member
    So you are still losing, then continue to eat them back.
  • tschaff04
    tschaff04 Posts: 296 Member
    So if I stick to the 1500 a day should I still eat them all back? I run a lot, so I burn a lot of calories and some days I honestly can't eat them all back unless I force myself and I don't feel like I should do that. Yesterday for instance I ran 7 miles and burned around 700 calories. I didn't come close to eating them all back. I wasn't hungry enough to.
  • tschaff04
    tschaff04 Posts: 296 Member
    queenliz99 wrote: »
    So you are still losing, then continue to eat them back.

    I've actually stalled a bit. I wasn't being super strict with counting calories for awhile and focused more on whole plant based foods and now I'm back to counting and back to running a lot too. I'm only in week three of running so maybe the weight will start to melt off again, but as of now it's very very slow going and not moving at all some days. I just wasn't sure if eating them all back was counterproductive.
  • queenliz99
    queenliz99 Posts: 15,317 Member
    How are you calculating your burns?
  • tschaff04
    tschaff04 Posts: 296 Member
    queenliz99 wrote: »
    How are you calculating your burns?

    heart rate monitor/watch.
  • queenliz99
    queenliz99 Posts: 15,317 Member
    How much of a stall? Weight loss is not linear, it is a bumpy downward trend.
  • VintageFeline
    VintageFeline Posts: 6,771 Member
    You don't need to eat them all on the same day, use a weekly average. Or have a Snickers ;)
  • VintageFeline
    VintageFeline Posts: 6,771 Member
    And yes, with the volume of running you do, you will want to fuel those runs.
  • rightoncommander
    rightoncommander Posts: 114 Member
    tschaff04 wrote: »
    So if I stick to the 1500 a day should I still eat them all back? I run a lot, so I burn a lot of calories and some days I honestly can't eat them all back unless I force myself and I don't feel like I should do that. Yesterday for instance I ran 7 miles and burned around 700 calories. I didn't come close to eating them all back. I wasn't hungry enough to.

    A few things to consider here:
    1. As a new runner, your muscles are changing, and recovering, and they retain water to aid recovery. I wouldn't worry about a little stall while increasing your physical activity.
    2. If you're like me, I never eat all the calories back on the day of a long run, but I do go over calories the next day because I'm ravenous. I don't worry about it, I just make sure that the balance is even, or a little negative.
    3. Make sure you eat something after each run, but regarding total calories to consume, just log everything including your run, and you'll be fine.
    4. Having said that, make sure that your base activity level excludes your exercise. For example, I have a desk job, so I have my activity level set to sedentary, but I log every workout.
    5. If you're assuming 100 calories/mile, you're probably underestimating a little, so you should definitely eat the calories back, and still lose weigh a tiny bit quicker.
  • leahcollett1
    leahcollett1 Posts: 807 Member
    its all trial and error hun, if youve eaten your 1500 on days you've exercised and you feel more hungry then go ahead and eat some of them.
    do you calculate your net gross exercise burned? these are the calories you would burn regardless of exercising or just lying down? i calculate my net on shapesense.com. i too have a polar h7, accurate as hell. very good.
  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,342 Member
    its trial and error but I always ate back at least 50% of mine.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    tschaff04 wrote: »
    Do you eat back your calories when you work out? If so how many? I've always eaten back all of my exercise calories but now I see people talk about not doing that and I think I want to try half or even less and see how I progress..what do you do?

    This is the way MFP is designed as exercise activity isn't included in your activity level...suffice it to say, exercise activity should be accounted for somewhere...with MFP you account for it by logging it after the fact and "earning" additional calories.

    When I did MFP, I used a HRM for steady state cardio work...I ate back those calories less an estimate of the calories I would have otherwise burned anyways just sitting around and that worked fine for me. Really, it comes down to how accurate your logging is and how accurate your measurement of calories out is...I'm pretty anal...so everything was about as accurate as one could possibly be.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    tschaff04 wrote: »
    So if I stick to the 1500 a day should I still eat them all back? I run a lot, so I burn a lot of calories and some days I honestly can't eat them all back unless I force myself and I don't feel like I should do that. Yesterday for instance I ran 7 miles and burned around 700 calories. I didn't come close to eating them all back. I wasn't hungry enough to.

    I run and eat them all back for shorter runs, not all for longer runs since the calorie estimates don't usually include what you would have burned in that time anyway.

    (Well, that's what I did when I varied what I ate based on exercise. Now I know what I do on average per week and average what I burn over the week.)
  • vnb_208
    vnb_208 Posts: 1,359 Member
    Never eat them all back but on some days i may eat half depending how hungry i am, 1500 calories per day
  • lemonychild
    lemonychild Posts: 654 Member
    How are you calculating your excercise cals? Do you have a hrm? Or just plugging it in on mfp... if u have an hrm I would eat a portion of those cals back back 60-70% since you are already creating a cal deficit with mfp.
  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
    If you can eat back 100% and still lose then i would definitely do that! I eat back 40-60% of my exercise calories, my fitbit overestimates :(
  • SusanMFindlay
    SusanMFindlay Posts: 1,804 Member
    I eat back almost all of the calories that FitBit sends over, and I'm still losing weight steadily.

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