Eat Exercise calories or not
Replies
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Commander_Keen wrote: »Hello Everyone, for those of you who are successful with weight loss.. do you eat your exercise calories? For example, if you run 30 minutes and burn 300 calories. Do you add them to your daily allowance or ignore them?
It depends on your current calorie deficit.
My current maintenance is at 2,226 to lose weight I should be eating at 1726. If I burned 400 calories, at would put me at 1326. I wouldn't eat the calories back.
Not sure how you are working that out. a 900 calorie deficit is too high for most people except those with a lot of weight to lose.A lot of people say you should eat them back, but what’s the purpose of burning the calories if your going to eat them back?!
Exercise is primarily for fitness and health, not weight loss. It's effect on weight loss is secondary. Most weight loss happens in the kitchen. However from a weight loss perspective, it gives you more calories to eat which makes it easier to hit your goal. My goal with exercise is around 2350 and without exercise would be between 1800-1900. I'd have a hard time personally making my goal if I never exercised. So exercise helps me with weight loss by allowing me to eat more.
But you don't NEED to exercise to achieve weight loss. There are many people here who have lost hundreds of pounds without any exercise. They just have lower calorie targets.sammidelvecchio wrote: »@Northcascades not eating my exercise calories Sunday-Friday actually does give ME the freedom to have a Saturday where I can eat more calories and still make my weekly weight goal. So I'm not sure what you're trying to say.
If you are doing this, then you are eating your exercise calories back. Calorie banking is an option. Say you burn 800 from exercise over the week, and want to eat 800 more on a Saturday, that is a fine use of your exercise calories. But you are still eating more because you exercise.
What a person should never do is not make any sort of accommodation for exercise in their eating habits.7 -
‘Exercise calories’ are just burned calories that we happened to label separately rather than lump together like we do with all the rest of our calorie usage.
We could just as easily meticulously label all our used calories and we’d have categories like ‘calories used to digest food’ and ‘calories used to keep our hearts beating.’
And then the question would be something like, ‘should I eat back my digestion calories today?’
The answer to that should not be any different than to the question about whether we should eat back exercise calories, because there is nothing fundmentally different about them as far as our body is concerned, IMO. They are just calories we burned during the day, you know?
Sure, we voluntarily burned them, but our body doesn’t care. :-)12 -
If your actual weight loss rate is sensibly moderate for your current size, and exercise calories not huge, it's probably fine not to eat back exercise calories, but instead let them increase your deficit.
If your weight loss target or actual loss rate are very aggressive for your current size (say, more than perhaps 0.5% of current weight per week) or your exercise calories (accurately estimated) are very high (say endurance cycling or running), then not eating exercise calories is a quick path to underfueling, reduced energy, increased fatigue, and health risk. At that point, it's clearly counterproductive to both weight loss and health.
In between those extremes, it's all about the specifics, and about individual tolerance for risking one's health and energy level.
I estimated my exercise calories carefully, and ate pretty much all of them back, while losing around 50 pounds in less than a year. And I've done the same in nearly 3 years since of maintaining a healthy weight.6 -
@Theoldguy1 @NorthCascades Yes, which is exactly what I said up above. I don't eat them back daily, I sometimes eat them back on Saturdays. I'm not sure why what I am saying is confusing you or why you feel the need to re-explain what I've already stated. The OP said should I eat them back each day, my answer is you can or you can play around with it and find a flexible approach that works the same way.
And I can call it "eating them back on Saturday" instead of "banking." I explained what I meant pretty clearly. Also, I don't eat all of them back, not even close. I'd say I eat back roughly 25% of them and some weeks I don't eat any back.5 -
sammidelvecchio wrote: »@Theoldguy1 @NorthCascades Yes, which is exactly what I said up above. I don't eat them back daily, I sometimes eat them back on Saturdays. I'm not sure why what I am saying is confusing you or why you feel the need to re-explain what I've already stated. The OP said should I eat them back each day, my answer is you can or you can play around with it and find a flexible approach that works the same way.
And I can call it "eating them back on Saturday" instead of "banking." I explained what I meant pretty clearly. Also, I don't eat all of them back, not even close. I'd say I eat back roughly 25% of them and some weeks I don't eat any back.
You got push back because you started with "I do not eat mine back 95% of the time" rather than "eating them back on Saturday."
Also, between the two posts I'm quoting, you refer to eating 0-100% back so no wonder people are confused. I thought I knew what you meant before I started typing this and have since concluded you are letting your appetite dictate. If that works for you, great, but that is not how MFP was designed to work.sammidelvecchio wrote: »I do not eat mine back 95% of the time. I have the premium MFP, and one of the main features of it is to not have your daily goal increased by your exercise calories.
I will listen to my body though, and there have been occasions where I am very hungry and I will eat them back on those days but it has been rare.
I also was set @ 1200 calories by MFP when I started, and I manually adjusted it to 1399 as that fits better with my macro goals. So in a sense I might be already eating 200 calories over what MFP says and the reason i'm still losing weight at the same rate is because those extra 200 are covered by exercise, i'm not sure
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sammidelvecchio wrote: »@Theoldguy1 @NorthCascades Yes, which is exactly what I said up above. I don't eat them back daily, I sometimes eat them back on Saturdays. I'm not sure why what I am saying is confusing you or why you feel the need to re-explain what I've already stated. The OP said should I eat them back each day, my answer is you can or you can play around with it and find a flexible approach that works the same way.
And I can call it "eating them back on Saturday" instead of "banking." I explained what I meant pretty clearly. Also, I don't eat all of them back, not even close. I'd say I eat back roughly 25% of them and some weeks I don't eat any back.
It's because you said you don't eat yours back 95% of the time, and advocated not eating them. I'm glad to hear you're more sensible than that. 4 -
Thanks for the feedback everyone - I will use what I need and save the rest.4
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‘Exercise calories’ are just burned calories that we happened to label separately rather than lump together like we do with all the rest of our calorie usage.
We could just as easily meticulously label all our used calories and we’d have categories like ‘calories used to digest food’ and ‘calories used to keep our hearts beating.’
And then the question would be something like, ‘should I eat back my digestion calories today?’
The answer to that should not be any different than to the question about whether we should eat back exercise calories, because there is nothing fundmentally different about them as far as our body is concerned, IMO. They are just calories we burned during the day, you know?
Sure, we voluntarily burned them, but our body doesn’t care. :-)
This is a phenomenal explanation.6 -
@kshama2001 the percentages refer to different things in the context of the sentence.
95% of my life since i've started trying to lose weight I have not eaten the calories back. That leaves 5% of the time that I do. That can be split across the days where I am feeling hungrier or more tired than usual, but as I said those days are rare. The other portion of that is some weeks on Saturday I eat a portion of the calories back, which I stated is around 25% of my total exercise calories for the week not just that day. I did not negate the original notion that 95% of the time I am not eating the exercise calories back.4 -
I actually modify the exercise calories that my watch will automatically input to MFP for me. For example, if I run 8 miles my watch might input that as a 780 calorie burn, but I go and edit it to 640 calories. If I play DDR for an hour sometimes that gets input as nearly 400 calories, but I know from prior experience that an hour of moderate cardio like that is closer to 200 so I edit the exercise entry to reflect that. Once I edit the entries to reflect a level of calorie burn I trust, I do allow myself all those calories when I want them. I like to eat and I need to eat well if I want to continue my training anyhow. With a higher calorie allowance I can get adequate nutrition and still have a chocolate bar and/or ice cream pop. 🤷🏼♀️ There are weeks I have been slightly over my goal and others I come under because hunger levels aren't static and I’m not going to stress over a 400 calorie variance.
I really think it makes more sense for me to edit the exercise entries to reflect what I think I actually burned and then eat to my goal rather than watching the exercise portion and subtracting 50% of that number daily.
Some people actually significantly underestimate how much they eat though - those people could benefit from not eating exercise calories and using them as a buffer. They’ll still be eating back the calories, just their own math is incorrect and doesn’t reflect that.1 -
I eat them back most of the time I just choose healthy enough foods that I'm not going over on nutrient intake on things like fat and sugar. If I burn 500 calories i will have an extra snack like hard boiled eggs or a small sandwich to compensate, that way im not losing muscle or bone mass.1
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The point remains though that using MFP generated goals and not eating your exercise calories back are incompatible with one another. It is not how the site is intended to be used. People should only not eat their calories back if they use a goal setting method that already accounts for exercise, which MFP does not.
MFP is totally flexible on this point. You can choose to track individual workouts or not. You can set your activity level to whatever you want or even manually enter whatever calorie goal you want (at least in Premium).1 -
Jthanmyfitnesspal wrote: »The point remains though that using MFP generated goals and not eating your exercise calories back are incompatible with one another. It is not how the site is intended to be used. People should only not eat their calories back if they use a goal setting method that already accounts for exercise, which MFP does not.
MFP is totally flexible on this point. You can choose to track individual workouts or not. You can set your activity level to whatever you want or even manually enter whatever calorie goal you want (at least in Premium).
Well it's flexible in that they can't physically force you to use it correctly, they can't force you to log your exercise or eat your calories. But they are clear that they don't include your exercise in the calorie calculation, so those are extra. I mean, I could tell them I'm 4'10 and sedentary so I get a super low calorie goal, not log exercise, and not close my diary so I can under-eat and lose weight aggressively. That doesn't mean it's not the wrong way to do it.
It's flexible in that it will allow you to use it incorrectly, that doesn't mean either way is correct.8 -
It has been easier to maintain this calorie counting lifestyle this time around and the only real difference has been eating my exercise cals back. The first two weeks I didn't and I was losing weight way too fast. Now, it is at a steady pace but I am happy and full of energy (unless I lack sleep).8
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