Should I eat back exercise calories?
rayraynicole15
Posts: 22 Member
Hi everyone! I’m kind of confused when it comes to eating back my exercise calories. I’m 5’1 and mfp gave me 1280 cals to lose 1 lb a week. I workout five days a week at a circuit gym similar to Orange Theory. Today I burned 370 cals which would put me at 1,650 if I eat back all my exercise calories is that too many calories? I feel like since I’m short that would be too much.
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Replies
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MFP is designed to let you eat back exercise calories. You can go with eating back half and see how you do. It gave you 1280 bc 1 pound a week may be aggressive if you don’t have much to lose. I’m also petite, 5”2. I’ve set mine to 1/2 pound a week and it gave me 1450. If I move it to one pound, it cuts it down to 1,200’s.4
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MFP gives you a lower calorie goal expecting you to log exercise and eat back those calories. As exercise calories can be tough to get right, many of us started eating back at least half oft hem and seeing how it goes over the next 6-8 weeks.
Also, the more aggressive a weekly goal you choose, the more important it is to eat back more of your exercise calories. If you're set to lose 2 lbs per week but don't have at least 50+ lbs to lose, err on the side of caution and eat back more of your calories. If you chose 0.5lbs per week and you don't have much wiggle room, start with half so you don't accidentally negate your small deficit. Hope that makes sense!4 -
1,280 already has the deficit built in, so you if burn more, you need to eat them back. You need to make sure to fuel your workouts. MFP can sometimes overestimate burn, so you could eat back half and then re-evaluate. If you're losing faster than expected, eat back more of your calories. I'm also 5'1'' and I eat back all of them, and continue to lose at the expected rate.3
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Yup, I actually just asked something similar today. And the consensus is that, yes, you should eat back your exercise calories. Your calories already include your deficit for weight loss.3
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I will start back on 3/18/19 and will not eat back my calories this time. Eating my calories back in the past has not helped in my wt loss goals.11
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I will start back on 3/18/19 and will not eat back my calories this time. Eating my calories back in the past has not helped in my wt loss goals.
This is typically due to inaccurate estimates of calories in or calories out. If eating back your calories takes you out of a deficit, you can always try eating back just a portion of them until you determine what the right amount is for you.13 -
janejellyroll wrote: »I will start back on 3/18/19 and will not eat back my calories this time. Eating my calories back in the past has not helped in my wt loss goals.
This is typically due to inaccurate estimates of calories in or calories out. If eating back your calories takes you out of a deficit, you can always try eating back just a portion of them until you determine what the right amount is for you.
I weigh and measure everything. I am not going to eat calories back and see what progress I can make.9 -
janejellyroll wrote: »I will start back on 3/18/19 and will not eat back my calories this time. Eating my calories back in the past has not helped in my wt loss goals.
This is typically due to inaccurate estimates of calories in or calories out. If eating back your calories takes you out of a deficit, you can always try eating back just a portion of them until you determine what the right amount is for you.
I weigh and measure everything. I am not going to eat calories back and see what progress I can make.
"Measure" is a huge red flag, calories are in relation to weight not volume.10 -
janejellyroll wrote: »I will start back on 3/18/19 and will not eat back my calories this time. Eating my calories back in the past has not helped in my wt loss goals.
This is typically due to inaccurate estimates of calories in or calories out. If eating back your calories takes you out of a deficit, you can always try eating back just a portion of them until you determine what the right amount is for you.
I weigh and measure everything. I am not going to eat calories back and see what progress I can make.
If you are using a food scale for all solid foods and avoiding inaccurate database entries, then it's possible that it's the estimation of your calories out that is the issue.7 -
it's really up to you - MFP and exercise machines overestimate, so if you choose to eat them back (because you're hungry) stick with eating no more than 50%. if you're not hungry, just add them to your deficit10
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Every time I attempt to eat back my exercise calories, I gain weight. MFP VASTLY overrates your caloric burn for exercises, so if you do eat back, do so with care!
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I eat all of my exercise calories back and I'm set to lose 1.5 pounds a week. I don't always lose 1.5 pounds a week, but the general trend is going down. Some weeks I lose 2 pounds and others I lose 1.4 pounds or 0.8 pounds as an example. I think once I stop losing weight I'll readjust to only eat part of my exercise calories since I am content with my weight loss rate at this moment.7
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rayraynicole15 wrote: »Hi everyone! I’m kind of confused when it comes to eating back my exercise calories. I’m 5’1 and mfp gave me 1280 cals to lose 1 lb a week. I workout five days a week at a circuit gym similar to Orange Theory. Today I burned 370 cals which would put me at 1,650 if I eat back all my exercise calories is that too many calories? I feel like since I’m short that would be too much.
The short answer is Yes.
The longer answer is: if you are using MFP as intended, yes you should be eating back exercise calories. The caveat to this is that many trackers, equipment, and MFP's database overestimate calories burned so you may or may not eat back all of them, depending on how accurate your estimated burns are. Most people suggest starting out by logging your food meticulously and eating back 50% of your earned calories. After about 4 weeks, see what your weekly average loss is. If you are losing faster than you should be, eat more earned calories back.
Personally, my happy place is eating back 75% of calories earned. I enter some things from the database (swimming, water aerobics) and get some from syncing with my Garmin tracker or Map My Walk.9 -
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poisonesse wrote: »Every time I attempt to eat back my exercise calories, I gain weight. MFP VASTLY overrates your caloric burn for exercises, so if you do eat back, do so with care!
This is why most people are told to eat back HALF of the calories, because most calorie burns are overstated.1 -
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If you really do not want to eat back your exercise calories because you can't wrap your head around the idea, then you should use a TDEE calculator to set your daily calorie goal, since it will account for your exercise level in your daily goal. TDEE has its own issues with estimation in it, but it is certainly better than not eating back your calories at all.8
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_RidgelineWorkouts_ wrote: »musicfan68 wrote: »poisonesse wrote: »Every time I attempt to eat back my exercise calories, I gain weight. MFP VASTLY overrates your caloric burn for exercises, so if you do eat back, do so with care!
This is why most people are told to eat back HALF of the calories, because most calorie burns are overstated.
I'm under the impression there is still no accurate way to measure calories burned from strength training. I've looked and looked online and found nothing. About a year ago I went into a cut and only ate back the calories burned from cardio, because that is more measurable. Lost 9 pounds of muscle in the process
When I started six years ago, I just used MFP’s strength training entry. After six weeks I found it to be pretty accurate for me. I’ve used it since.
At 5’3”and 124 lbs I still get about 150 calories per hour while following either a strength or hypertrophy program.4 -
If you really do not want to eat back your exercise calories because you can't wrap your head around the idea, then you should use a TDEE calculator to set your daily calorie goal, since it will account for your exercise level in your daily goal. TDEE has its own issues with estimation in it, but it is certainly better than not eating back your calories at all.
That's sneaky.1 -
If you really do not want to eat back your exercise calories because you can't wrap your head around the idea, then you should use a TDEE calculator to set your daily calorie goal, since it will account for your exercise level in your daily goal. TDEE has its own issues with estimation in it, but it is certainly better than not eating back your calories at all.
That's sneaky.
It's got its pros and cons. I think for beginners, unless they absolutely refuse to eat back exercise calories, that MFP's NEAT method with eating exercise calories back is the best way to do it. Later on, if it suits their goals, they can switch to TDEE.
I've been doing TDEE for about 4 weeks and have found it to work well for me. But I also train long on my exercise days and am actually less hungry on those days, so it allows me to spread my calories a bit more and eat more on days that I don't workout while keeping my weekly deficit the same. But that's because it fits my specific goals. If you just do moderate exercise, especially on a non consistent schedule, I think MFP is best.2 -
_RidgelineWorkouts_ wrote: »musicfan68 wrote: »poisonesse wrote: »Every time I attempt to eat back my exercise calories, I gain weight. MFP VASTLY overrates your caloric burn for exercises, so if you do eat back, do so with care!
This is why most people are told to eat back HALF of the calories, because most calorie burns are overstated.
I'm under the impression there is still no accurate way to measure calories burned from strength training. I've looked and looked online and found nothing. About a year ago I went into a cut and only ate back the calories burned from cardio, because that is more measurable. Lost 9 pounds of muscle in the process
There are studies that have measured calorie burn in chamber for different types of workouts.
Those are used to determine the METS in that database.
Many sites use that METS database - MFP converts it to weight based first. Fitbit for instance keeps as METS and uses your BMR they calculated and use on tracker.
The entry for Weights is based on those studies - on average it's 1-5 sets and 3-15 reps with 2-4 min pause between doing max effort.
The differences between those extremes and change in calorie burn is about meaningless, since the calorie burn isn't that high.
Circuit training is over 15 reps, rests up to 1 min.
https://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/corrected-mets
But the database entry is a whole lot more accurate than 0.3 -
Most sources suck at estimating calories burned, while MFP wants you to eat back exercise calories, keep in mind that the estimates may be off, and don’t eat back too many exercise calories just keep it to a reasonable amount (I don’t eat them back at all). I see a lot of people lose no weight because their exercise calories are badly overestimated and they eat them all.2
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