Eating exercise calories too much?

thedreamhazer

So, this is the age old question of MFP, but I'm having concerns about eating my exercise calories.
I have always eaten them, but now that I've started doing marathon training and I've changed my weight loss goal from 2 lbs. per week to 1.5 lbs. per week, I feel like I'm just eating too many calories. It's forcing me to eat when I'm not hungry, including calorie dense food that really upset my stomach today.

So, should I just not eat them? Or should I change my weight loss goal back to 2 lbs. per week?

nikki91950

How many of your exercise calories have you been eating?!?

4lafz

I know what everyone says but I stopped eating ALL of the exercise calories. I do eat a lot - this is more than a diet for me but a change in my lifestyle forever. I am not starving - have all the food groups, etc. but after 1400/1600 cals a day I am stuffed! I usually leave 300-700 on the table. Oh well - it works for me

xxxlimitxxx

I personally never eat exercise calories..to me its like..why burn them off then put them back on..but everyone is different

nikki91950

I don't eat mine either!

Precious_Nissa

I understand how you are feeling and this is probably not the best advice in the world, but if i am not hungry i dont eat....what i have started doing is eating something with maybe 100 more calories etc if i know i'm going to do a nice burn or workout, but i still to this day have not ate all my workout calories

PaleoIsPossible

I try not to eat all of mine...
And honestly, there's just no way you can sometimes. For instance, I road bike a few times a week, and can burn upwards of 1,000 calories. There's no way I can eat an extra 1,000+ calories!

thedreamhazer

Well, today I burned 500 calories, but I more worried about the future as I continue training for the half marathon. I'll be getting a really high burn.

But, thanks everyone-- this made me feel better. I guess I just had been reading a lot about how important it is to eat your exercise calories, but with my appetite being so reduced nowadays I just don't feel up to it. I'll be sure I get my minimum calories at least, but I won't eat anything after that that I don't feel like eating.

CrankyButt

I really don't get this eating exercise calories thing. I mean I can comprehend the worry about starvation mode but I don't think it's correct at all. If you're not actually getting your calorie intake of 1200 or so, that's one thing - then you don't have the available calories you need and your body might then start to conserve. But if you're burning them off, there's no need to put them back on.

Look at the folks on The Biggest Loser. It's well-known that these people subsist on 1200 or so calories and burn thousands. If this theory were right, they would need to stuff themselves in order not to starve. They don't starve and they certainly don't have trouble taking off the weight.

etarre

Just a thought-- I've read that eating protein rich foods before an intense workout can cause nausea. So maybe it's not how much you're eating but what you're eating that made you feel sick the other day? I've read that, for example, trail mix is a better pre-workout snack than eggs or meat products, and apparently the new post-workout sports drink is chocolate milk because it replenishes your protein.

keith0373

I eat part of them. I usually burn 1000-1500 calories a day doing exercise and try to eat 500-750 of them. Doing this I have been losing 3.3 lbs a week with no consistent plateaus. With this I am making sure to eat/drink 100-150 grams of protein each day.

keith0373

Cranky. Remember that the people on Biggest loser are extremely overwight and under constant trainer and doctor supervision. Also, from the few shows that I have seen, prone to injury, which greatly limits your ability to lose weight.

asiples

I don't understand the idea of eating your exercise calories. I mean, isn't eating when you're not hungry how most of us got here anyway? If I only ate when hunger hit, I would have never gotten overweight to begin with. However, I am not a professional at this, so I am probably wrong.:)

SHBoss1673

If you're serious about training for a marathon, you probably shouldn't be trying to lose so much weight, they are 2 opposite ends of the spectrum. This is just my opinion of course, and isn't stated in an attempt to shoot down your efforts, it's just a statement of fact.

Training for an extreme even requires focused technique that does not (and should not be) included in a weight loss regimen. Now if you just have a goal of completing a marathon distance (whether it be in an organized race, or just on your own) then that's different, so I think some clarification is in order.

Someone with the physical ability to run 26.2 miles (without stopping, walking, or resting) is probably not (IMHO) in a position to safely lose 2 lbs a week as you have to be in at least moderately good shape to do so, which means your body most likely won't have the energy stores (fat) to be able to lose 2 lbs a week. If you CAN run 26.2 miles and you ARE losing 2 lbs a week, I contend that a portion (and most likely a rather large portion, say at least 25 to 30% of your weight loss) is muscle and other lean tissue. Which is probably not a good thing.

As a personal trainer, and runner who has trained and competed in many medium to long distance races (I'd guess at somewhere around 50 to 75 races in the last 15 years, although most were in my college days when my knees could handle 2 to 3 races a month and training) at a competitive level (my 10K time is decent, or used to be, my best 10K was 38 minutes and 25 seconds, which put me slightly ahead of the curve of male running times).

this isn't to say you can't run a marathon while still trying to lose weight, but in order to train safely and effectively you need to fuel your body, and that means dialing back the weight loss a bit. Multitasking is great, but competitive running is not closely aligned with weight loss. Your body will, of its own accord, seek a level which makes training easier, which will naturally lead to weight loss, but forcing the issue will hamper training efforts and could lead to injuries and/or weakening of your immune system. I can't tell you how many runners I know that came down with the flu right before a race because they were training super hard and not feeding themselves right.

This is all just to emphasize that there's more to weight loss than just a calorie deficit, to make it stick, my belief is that you must take into account every aspect of your life and work your nutrition into that routine. If you work out hard doing HIIT type routines 4 or 5 days a week, you need to make sure your electrolyte levels and fuel (usually in the form of complex carbs) are high enough to sustain it, if you weight train to failure multiple times a week, specific eating patters and nutrition levels (of things such as protein and carbs) should be monitored closely, if you're a straight cardio person, carb and potassium levels need to be watched...etc.

So should you eat your exercise calories when training for a marathon? Probably IMHO, you at least need to come close in order to maintain proper levels of calorie expenditure, it's a bit of a guessing game at the beginning because everyone is a little different, but trying to do too much is almost never a good thing.

keith0373

Eating your exercise calories is there assuming that you want to only lose 2lbs per week, which is a safe amount if you are not doctor supervised. I go to the doctor monthly and have since I started and she has no problem with me losing 3-4 a week due to how my body works. My blood pressure is normally 100/65 and my heart rate resting is about 62 and recovery of heart rate increases is almost instant when i stop working hard.I can run my heart rate to 180 on the elliptical, get off for 30 seconds and when I get back on it is 145-150.


I just read an article on marathoners and getting hurt/falling out during races and the numbers for people who had not done more than 10 miles in a training run that fell out were incredibly higher than those that had. I will see if I can find the article and post it. I think it was in the wikipedia marathon wiki.

thedreamhazer

If you're serious about training for a marathon, you probably shouldn't be trying to lose so much weight, they are 2 opposite ends of the spectrum. This is just my opinion of course, and isn't stated in an attempt to shoot down your efforts, it's just a statement of fact.

Training for an extreme even requires focused technique that does not (and should not be) included in a weight loss regimen. Now if you just have a goal of completing a marathon distance (whether it be in an organized race, or just on your own) then that's different, so I think some clarification is in order.

Someone with the physical ability to run 26.2 miles (without stopping, walking, or resting) is probably not (IMHO) in a position to safely lose 2 lbs a week as you have to be in at least moderately good shape to do so, which means your body most likely won't have the energy stores (fat) to be able to lose 2 lbs a week. If you CAN run 26.2 miles and you ARE losing 2 lbs a week, I contend that a portion (and most likely a rather large portion, say at least 25 to 30% of your weight loss) is muscle and other lean tissue. Which is probably not a good thing.

As a personal trainer, and runner who has trained and competed in many medium to long distance races (I'd guess at somewhere around 50 to 75 races in the last 15 years, although most were in my college days when my knees could handle 2 to 3 races a month and training) at a competitive level (my 10K time is decent, or used to be, my best 10K was 38 minutes and 25 seconds, which put me slightly ahead of the curve of male running times).

this isn't to say you can't run a marathon while still trying to lose weight, but in order to train safely and effectively you need to fuel your body, and that means dialing back the weight loss a bit. Multitasking is great, but competitive running is not closely aligned with weight loss. Your body will, of its own accord, seek a level which makes training easier, which will naturally lead to weight loss, but forcing the issue will hamper training efforts and could lead to injuries and/or weakening of your immune system. I can't tell you how many runners I know that came down with the flu right before a race because they were training super hard and not feeding themselves right.

This is all just to emphasize that there's more to weight loss than just a calorie deficit, to make it stick, my belief is that you must take into account every aspect of your life and work your nutrition into that routine. If you work out hard doing HIIT type routines 4 or 5 days a week, you need to make sure your electrolyte levels and fuel (usually in the form of complex carbs) are high enough to sustain it, if you weight train to failure multiple times a week, specific eating patters and nutrition levels (of things such as protein and carbs) should be monitored closely, if you're a straight cardio person, carb and potassium levels need to be watched...etc.

So should you eat your exercise calories when training for a marathon? Probably IMHO, you at least need to come close in order to maintain proper levels of calorie expenditure, it's a bit of a guessing game at the beginning because everyone is a little different, but trying to do too much is almost never a good thing.

SHBoss- I'm actually working on being able to run a half marathon, it was a typo in my original post. Still big for me, but much different than 26 miles. I ran cross country in high school and middle school, so I do have the ability to do distance running already, I've just never attempted more than 5 miles at a time. I'll take it under advisement about separating weight loss and training from each other but, really, I'm working on getting into half marathon shape so that I can become a better distance runner because I enjoy running so much. I'm not actually signed up to run a half marathon, I just want this kind of running to become a part of my lifestyle.

SHBoss1673

SHBoss- I'm actually working on being able to run a half marathon, it was a typo in my original post. Still big for me, but much different than 26 miles. I ran cross country in high school and middle school, so I do have the ability to do distance running already, I've just never attempted more than 5 miles at a time. I'll take it under advisement about separating weight loss and training from each other but, really, I'm working on getting into half marathon shape so that I can become a better distance runner because I enjoy running so much. I'm not actually signed up to run a half marathon, I just want this kind of running to become a part of my lifestyle.

OK so 2 things here, very important changes. 1) 1/2 marathon is (as you mentioned) far different from a full marathon, and probably could be fit into most weight loss routines (although 2 lbs a week is relatively extreme for most people and as such should be monitored very closely) and 2) if you're not really "training" in the classic sense, for a time, then that's completely different. I have no problem with people running 12 miles 2 times a week while trying to lose weight, especially if they are well below their max threshold. So if all you're doing is trying to get back to somewhat running form, then I don't see an issue, I still think with that much exercise though, you should be very wary of a low calorie balance. This will sneak up on you quickly. You'll feel fine for weeks and/or months and then BAM! the large calorie deficit hits you like a ton of weeks, and can take weeks to recover from. It's happened to me before, in my early days of trying to come back to athletic form, and it's a real eye opener.

keith0373

I am by no means an athlete, but I went 10 miles pretty much every day last week between the elliptical, running, and walking (60,10, 30%)> Elliptical and running speeds are between 7.5 minute and 8 minute miles. 71 miles total last week. 64 the week before and ovver 50 miles a week for 2 straight months, I have had no problems at all other than a calf muscle that is a bit balky sometimes. Walking at 3.5- 4 mph, nearly always on an incline. . My wife, who was never very athletic ,does about 10% less than me every week at an 8.5 minute mile pace and has not had any problems either, unless you count losing 31 lbs as a problem. We both eat about half of our workout calories (me more than her). Keep hydrated and do what you body tells you it can do.

emersoam

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one not "eating my exercise calories." I joined myfitnesspal, because I have a hunch that I might need to eat more based on my activity level. According to the numbers/calculations...I am down 1,500 cals today, so I could potentially eat a pretty nice desert! (just kidding, i know unhealthy food isn't helpful).

Since this is only my first day "tracking," I'm going to give it some time and see how it goes.