How exactly do you eat your exercise calories back?
oat_bran
Posts: 370 Member
Not asking for you to explain the concept to me (I understand it), nor to give advice. I am just curious about how different people actually incorporate the extra calories in their intake.
Do you aim for a daily or weekly or monthly goal with your intake?
Do you exercise about the same amount every day and eat about the same amount every day? or does your activity level varies from day to day? If so do you eat back the extra calories on the day you burned them or do you redistribute them evenly throughout the week? Or bank them for weekends/special occasions?
If you eat them on the day you have burned them how do you incorporate them into your intake? Do you have an extra snack/meal before and/or after your workout? Or do you add the extra calories to your regular meals? Do you account for these calories in advance or do you add them to your plan only after the workout?
If your activity level varies every day do you think it's easier to eat according to your activity level on any given day or do you think it's easier to redistribute the calories evenly to eat about the same amount daily?
Do you aim for a daily or weekly or monthly goal with your intake?
Do you exercise about the same amount every day and eat about the same amount every day? or does your activity level varies from day to day? If so do you eat back the extra calories on the day you burned them or do you redistribute them evenly throughout the week? Or bank them for weekends/special occasions?
If you eat them on the day you have burned them how do you incorporate them into your intake? Do you have an extra snack/meal before and/or after your workout? Or do you add the extra calories to your regular meals? Do you account for these calories in advance or do you add them to your plan only after the workout?
If your activity level varies every day do you think it's easier to eat according to your activity level on any given day or do you think it's easier to redistribute the calories evenly to eat about the same amount daily?
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Replies
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If it I eat them back, its usually the same day. Many times I don't eat them back but I do notice I am hungrier the day after my workout.5
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I don't eat them back. I try to exercise 700 per day and get a bonus lb loss weekly. If my calorie consumption estimates are a bit off or I overeat one day, they provide a big weekly buffer to staying under goal.
If I burn a lot extra doing unusually hard work around the home, I eat more. Something to learn that will help you is learning to discern the difference between hunger and appetite. If you yearn for the taste and texture of something, it is appetite and take one spoonful and eat it slowly. If you're feeling weak, head spinning or hurting, and thinking about the nearest fastest consumable, you're hungry and eat a measured portion of something nutritious. Keep the pantry loaded with nutritious options, but out of sight. Fast forward through food commercials and don't watch cooking TV
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I eat them back the same day. Although, in the next month or so, I will be eating out at a place that will be difficult for me to track the calories of the meal, so in that week, I plan to save up the week's worth of exercise just to make up for any discrepancies in my tracking, so I feel more relaxed when I go out and then I'm assuming I'll enjoy myself more.2
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I do TDEE. My exercise is predictable, but I am a meal planner and I found it incredibly triggering to have a "red" number until the exercise ported over from runkeeper. So I figured out my daily calorie TDEE, and calculated a deficit, and do that instead.2
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I usually know when I'm going to be taking up extra activities (like playing football) so I'll put something extra into my meal plan for that day to make up the anticipated calories burned.1
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I got into a routine when I was losing. I have probably twenty regular meals in rotation, and I know how many calories they each are. I exercise 3-5 days per week and use the same number of calories (for tracking purposes) every time. I've always eaten 300-500 calories per hour of exercise. I'm actually less hungry on exercise days.
With all that said, my calories are kind of flexible. I am often way over. I'm rarely under, and I still eat all the exercise calories. I've been in maintenance for many years, so I kind of do a mix of knowing how many calories and listening to my hunger. I do still log food, I still use a food scale, and weigh myself weekly - so I'll know if something changes that something is very wrong. I think it all comes with time logging and time being at maintenance.
I was a lot more obsessive when I was losing - and it was a lot harder then. Now I know that it will all work out, and if I stay somewhere close to calories most of the time, it's all good.5 -
I exercise (walk) about the same every day and have the same calorie goal every day. My calorie goal is for a slight deficit. When my weight trend drifts low or I have a special occasion/life event, I have a high-calorie meal.
Basically, I bank some exercise calories and use them later.1 -
My workouts vary. I can easily burn 1500+ cals on a long bike ride or race, or I might only burn 100 cals lifting.
I track them and eat them back on a daily basis... usually just a bigger dinner or extra snacks/ice cream in the evening. I don't typically care what macros make up those cals, unless it's a particular big effort and I feel like I need extra carbs (like a big race, for example). Its easier *for me* to watch calories on a daily basis through MFP, but I have a spreadsheet that calculates rolling 7day averages and trendlines for me, and I use that as a gauge for how I'm doing and if/when I need to make adjustments.
Does that help?0 -
Not asking for you to explain the concept to me (I understand it), nor to give advice. I am just curious about how different people actually incorporate the extra calories in their intake.
Do you aim for a daily or weekly or monthly goal with your intake?
Do you exercise about the same amount every day and eat about the same amount every day? or does your activity level varies from day to day? If so do you eat back the extra calories on the day you burned them or do you redistribute them evenly throughout the week? Or bank them for weekends/special occasions?
If you eat them on the day you have burned them how do you incorporate them into your intake? Do you have an extra snack/meal before and/or after your workout? Or do you add the extra calories to your regular meals? Do you account for these calories in advance or do you add them to your plan only after the workout?
If your activity level varies every day do you think it's easier to eat according to your activity level on any given day or do you think it's easier to redistribute the calories evenly to eat about the same amount daily?
personally i save most of them for the weekend so i can eat more friday/saturday.
some people like to have the same number of cals each day, but i'm a runner, so i like the extra cals from long run day on long run day.
the extra cals would be either supper or just a slightly bigger meal, or dessert and booze if i'm out.1 -
cycling--> I seem to need ~100 calories every 20 miles or so or else I'll bonk. And of course, I'll be ravenously hungry afterward and eat a good portion back. And if a wonderfully smart person picked the route, there will be an ice cream stop... so all of that accounts for most of them.
dancing --> liquor + post-dancing snack
running-->+80 calories before if dinner was >1hr ago; + post-run 'supper'
weight training--> usually an extra 1/2 of a food bar afterward (usually ravenously hungry, and the original half + yogurt isn't enough).
I've done TDEE in the winter before (my exercise calories stay a bit more consistent day-to-day), but the summer is a haphazard schedule of randomly extra intense days/weeks that require way more calories to function.0 -
My dietician told me not to eat them.
(I guess she knows what a cheater I am.) 14 -
I use exercise calories to allow me to eat a bit more every day. To lose weight without exercise, because I'm small to begin with, I'd be in the 1200 calories a day club, but I aim for about 1350-1400 instead every day. And I workout 5-6 days a week, burning 350-650 calories each session by running, Orange Theory and other workouts I do at the gym. I don't actually eat even half of what I "burn" because I'm pretty sure those numbers are very inflated. Because I've been working out for most of my adult life, I think I'm very adapted to almost any type of exercise and assume I'm only burning half of what my Garmin or MFP is reporting. I know that previously, when I tried to eat back all that I "burned," I actually did gain weight.4
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I just stick to daily, I don't want to have to keep mathing.0
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I eat mine in a combo of the day of and banking for a bigger weekend day.
I am a runner and I’m currently training for a marathon. I have a couple of long runs a week-one that burns about 1100 calories, one that burns about twice that (and other run days too-but the other runs aren’t as long and I don’t need anything special for them). On those days, I end up using a fair number of those exercise calories eaten prior to, during or just after the run. I also get very hungry on the long-long run days and that’s when I eat all my otherwise banked exercise calories.
My base calorie goal is (correctly) 1200. I simply can’t eat that little and sustain any kind of activity. Even on rest days or days when I just lift (which burns very few calories), I use some of my banked exercise calories to allow a reasonable intake level.
Overall-regardless or when I’m eating what calories and what day the exercise happened-I’m managing my calories by the week. I hit my weekly goal - although my actual intake varies from 1300-6000 on any given day. I NET 1200 on average for the week (and lose as expected).
On most days, I just eat a little more of whatever I “normally” eat. Usually a larger portion of meat at dinner or a higher calorie meat than “normal”. On my long-long Run days, I eat everything. My calorie goal is (correctly) quite low. I don’t have a lot of room to fit in treats and fun foods without sacrificing foods that meet my nutrition needs and that I find filling. For example, I can either eat a 300 calorie breakfast with a bunch of protein and fiber that will be filled with vitamins, minerals and keep me full until lunch. Or I can have a donut and get no vitamins and be hungry 20 minutes later. I don’t often choose the donut. So I tend to use my extra calories on my long long run days to enjoy those foods along with the ones that meet my nutrition needs (meaning I eat the “healthy” breakfast AND I have a donut-or 3). The long-long Run makes me hungry enough that I will want all that food and then some.
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I have my Garmin connected to MFP. It adjusts my calories throughout the day based on my activity. I eat what it tells me to. I lose/maintain weight as expected. It's something I don't care to particularly overthink.5
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ladyhusker39 wrote: »I have my Garmin connected to MFP. It adjusts my calories throughout the day based on my activity. I eat what it tells me to. I lose/maintain weight as expected. It's something I don't care to particularly overthink.
same1 -
Do you aim for a daily or weekly or monthly goal with your intake? - Daily
Do you exercise about the same amount every day and eat about the same amount every day? or does your activity level varies from day to day? If so do you eat back the extra calories on the day you burned them or do you redistribute them evenly throughout the week? Or bank them for weekends/special occasions? - I lift heavy 5 days a week (competitive powerlifter). I actually eat TDEE - % calories. Trying to eat back daily exercise calories the MFP way made my daily calorie target too difficult to hit.
If you eat them on the day you have burned them how do you incorporate them into your intake? Do you have an extra snack/meal before and/or after your workout? Or do you add the extra calories to your regular meals? Do you account for these calories in advance or do you add them to your plan only after the workout? - N/A
If your activity level varies every day do you think it's easier to eat according to your activity level on any given day or do you think it's easier to redistribute the calories evenly to eat about the same amount daily? - Easier to redistibute, hence the TDEE - % choice mentioned above.
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I eat more carbs on run days - usually an orange before running and French fries or pasta with lunch after running - and extra protein on lifting days. My experience with losing weight tells me that the number of calories MFP gives me for running is overestimated by about three times and the number they give me for lifting is underestimated by about half. I also bank calories for special occasions.0
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lakeside2018NC wrote: »My dietician told me not to eat them. (I guess she knows what a cheater I am.)
Pass this along to your dietitian:
If you use MFP to set your calorie goal and don't add in any exercise calories, you are not using MFP the way it was designed.
MFP uses the NEAT method (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis), and as such this system is designed for exercise calories to be eaten back. However, many consider the burns given by MFP to be inflated and only eat a percentage, such as 50%, back. Others, however, are able to lose weight while eating 100% of their exercise calories.
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/818082/exercise-calories-again-wtf/p1
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I eat the majority of mine back the day I earn them plus I bank some for higher calorie days i.e Saturday when I am inclined to have takeaway and cake
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I eat my exercise calories back on the day I burned them, because I can’t be faffing about with trying to track a separate ‘bank’. I’ll often plan my day’s food up to my calorie limit, and then exercise gives me dessert or extra snacks.1
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ladyhusker39 wrote: »I have my Garmin connected to MFP. It adjusts my calories throughout the day based on my activity. I eat what it tells me to. I lose/maintain weight as expected. It's something I don't care to particularly overthink.
How did you manage to sync the two so that it shows you the correct amount to eat? What kind of activity level did you enter on mfp? Did you allow for negative adjustments?
I can't seem to sync the two correctly. I put my activity level as sedentary so that all of my activity would be counted by my fitbit but it seems to be still overestimating the amount if calories I can eat. My target daily deficit is 250-300cal and I have no choice but to calculate it myself by substracted intake according to mfp from the TDEE estimate given by my fitbit. This way I gain or lose as expected. If I'd eaten according to what mpf adjustment tells me I wouldn't lose anything.
I guess part of it is due to the fact that "sedentary" doesn't mean zero activity, it's still higher than BMR. But isn't mfp supposed to take that into account and adjust accordingly. Since there isn't a lower activity setting than sedentary.
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ladyhusker39 wrote: »I have my Garmin connected to MFP. It adjusts my calories throughout the day based on my activity. I eat what it tells me to. I lose/maintain weight as expected. It's something I don't care to particularly overthink.
How did you manage to sync the two so that it shows you the correct amount to eat? What kind of activity level did you enter on mfp? Did you allow for negative adjustments?
I can't seem to sync the two correctly. I put my activity level as sedentary so that all of my activity would be counted by my fitbit but it seems to be still overestimating the amount if calories I can eat. My target daily deficit is 250-300cal and I have no choice but to calculate it myself by substracted intake according to mfp from the TDEE estimate given by my fitbit. This way I gain or lose as expected. If I'd eaten according to what mpf adjustment tells me I wouldn't lose anything.
I guess part of it is due to the fact that "sedentary" doesn't mean zero activity, it's still higher than BMR. But isn't mfp supposed to take that into account and adjust accordingly. Since there isn't a lower activity setting than sedentary.
When your Fitbit is linked to MFP, your calorie adjustment is the difference between what Fitbit says you burned that day (your TDEE) - what MFP says you burned that day (your NEAT since all your exercise would be accounted for by Fitbit and you shouldn’t have any exercise logged in MFP).
The only time this doesn’t “work” is if your calorie goal on MFP is 1200 and your Fitbit TDEE is lower than mfp’s estimate (since MFP won’t do a negative adjustment if it will end up with a goal less than 1200).
Keep in mind, sedentary is in the neighborhood of about 4K steps/day. So you’ll see larger adjustments if you’re more active than that.
I’ve had both a Fitbit and Garmin linked (at different times) and they both work the same way (although Garmin does log your workouts on MFP so the calculation is a bit different). I’m set as sedentary and I eat whatever MFP tells me I have as “calories remaining”
My deficit is already built into my Mfp goal. So the Fitbit/Garmin is just accounting for my activity and exercise.1 -
Some of my exercise (walking) is consistent and predictable, and those calories just become part of my daily allowance. Without exercise, my maintenance is around 1400 calories, which is not sustainable for me. Running gives me a lot more freedom in what I eat. Short runs just add to the allowance, so I can include cheese, cookies, etc. On days I run longer, I use the extra calories for treats I don't get every day, but enjoy, like ice cream and beer. I also try to do dinner out on days that I run long. I still end up going over on calories, but I don't feel as guilty if I ran 15+ miles.1
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I eat mine each day.0
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One delicious bite at a time
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I know which days I'm going to exercise and I eat slightly larger meals to account for the amount I plan to burn. I might leave a little extra in the evening for a larger post-workout snack if I feel like it. Or I might not and bank them for a big weekend if I know I have something coming up that I want more calories for. It just depends on what's happening in my life at the time.0
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I always try to leave an extra 200-400 unused calories each day. So while I eat back my exercise calories, I don't eat everything allotted. Usually that extra food is a post workout snack before bed. Sometimes it's having an unplanned sweet during the day (birthday cake at work, cookie at Starbucks with my son).
Last night I heated up some milk and had hot cocoa and sipped it slowly on the couch of an empty house (husband and kid visiting the in-laws). It was the absolute best.1 -
I bank about two days of exercise calories for the weekend and eat the rest the same day. I don’t feel well if I try to bank too many days in advance.1
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If the workout is really about to happen in 45-30 min, then I might do a snack to aid in having a really good workout.
Then I might do another little snack after to aid in recovery from a really good workout and help doing another tomorrow.
If it was a recovery type workout, purposely not hard - merely add on the extra to dinner or snack afterwards.0
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