Is it all about the net? Can I walk so that I can eat?

neandermagnon

Apologies if my last post came out a bit harsh............. I didn't mean to imply that anyone is bad at maths or measuring things or projecting their bad maths on anyone else.

What I mean is, the fact that some people do the maths wrong, doesn't mean that the method itself is wrong. It means those people did it wrong. You can't blame the method if you fail because you did it wrong.

As for mentality... I could rant for hours about food puritanism and the dangers of excessive restriction and how that leads to rebound overeating further down the line.... but I'll spare you... I just want to make the point that if you do the maths right, there is absolutely nothing wrong with doing more exercise to be able to eat more, in fact it's healthier than exercising less and eating less, because that's how our bodies evolved... exercise = food acquisition. We're supposed to be active, not sedentary, and we're supposed to eat to fuel our bodies.

BarackMeLikeAHurricane

Yep! At one point I had mapped out a 4 mile loop around my neighborhood that had a shopping center with a Dairy Queen and McDonald's just so I could run there and back while stopping to get ice cream. The running burned off the ice cream so it's like it never happened lol.

karlahere

Yep! At one point I had mapped out a 4 mile loop around my neighborhood that had a shopping center with a Dairy Queen and McDonald's just so I could run there and back while stopping to get ice cream. The running burned off the ice cream so it's like it never happened lol.

ghostrider1970

Exercise = food aquisition. Exercise = food aquisition in the palaeolithic era, and using exercise = earning more calories to eat more nowadays is really not very different at all. It's how our bodies evolved to work... exercise, and then eat.

Have you ever seen a bagel running away from someone? :laugh:

Funny that, because the most successful long term maintainers I know are the ones that allow themselves to eat what they like in moderation, and exercise in order to be able to eat more, while those with a mentality of deprivation and self punishment get into cycles of yo-yo dieting.

Funny that, because the majority of the new year resolutioners that I see year after year in the gym, fail because they think thay can eat more because they are exercising.
The concept exercise more=eat more is not wrong per se, but the mindset of most people is, and so is their estimation of the calories they're burning. Exercise more=eat more, can work for those who already have the right mindset and won't go overboard with food.

I'm not disputing the necessity to be honest about calorie calculations, i.e. both calories burned and calories eaten.

This is the problem IMO, most people won't be.

But don't project your inability on the rest of the human population.

My inability? Mate, I log on MFP because I'm trying to get to 10% BF before starting a lean bulk. I eat more because I exercise more, not the other way around.

As for mentality... I could rant for hours about food puritanism and the dangers of excessive restriction and how that leads to rebound overeating further down the line....

I'm with you on this, I'm not for excessive restriction and I do love my martini cocktail every now and then :laugh:

Forgive for my english, but it's not my first language

nads1012

IMO, if someone talks about training to eat more, have already the wrong mindset, and it will, in a couple of months, starts a thread asking why is gaining weight instead of losing it... "but I train so hard".
Again, just my 2 cent.

This. OP in my humble opinion you are imagining it to be much easier than it is. If it was like that we'd all be slim. I'm not sure I understand right, are you planning to lose weight or just to stay the same?

Firstly, if you just have a light breakfast, I assume you'll try to eat little during the day, in order to have more naughty foods later. Then you'll attempt to go for a jog.
When I go on a treadmill I run (interval) for 20 minutes, sweat like a pig and lose the same amount of calories as is in a small can of beer (googled it).
I make sure I have a low calorie nutritious breakfast before.
By the sound of your diet plan you won't even have the energy to run for 15 minutes, because of your lack of food in the day. If you 'walk more to eat more', then you'll just maintain your weight.

Secondly, I doubt that in the evening you'll manage to have just a bit of a treat as you are describing, because you'll be so bloody hungry, you'll eat the whole pizza. Also your sugar levels will be so low that you'll probably want a dessert.

neandermagnon

Exercise = food aquisition. Exercise = food aquisition in the palaeolithic era, and using exercise = earning more calories to eat more nowadays is really not very different at all. It's how our bodies evolved to work... exercise, and then eat.

Have you ever seen a bagel running away from someone? :laugh:

That's missing the point. The point is that nowadays people *don't* have to catch their food, which is one reason why there's an obesity epidemic now, whereas there wasn't in the palaeolithic era.

So if someone realises that the only way they can fit a bagel into their calorie goal is if they go on the treadmill and run for a bit, and they do that then eat the bagel, then they're exercising on order to be able to eat more................... which is exactly what everyone had to do in the past. In the palaoelithic era, if you didn't exercise you didn't eat. So adding a little tiny bit of that mentality into modern life is a good thing IMO, so long as the total amount you eat is enough to support your body and the exercise you do so you're strengthening your body, not weakening it.

Funny that, because the most successful long term maintainers I know are the ones that allow themselves to eat what they like in moderation, and exercise in order to be able to eat more, while those with a mentality of deprivation and self punishment get into cycles of yo-yo dieting.

Funny that, because the majority of the new year resolutioners that I see year after year in the gym, fail because they think thay can eat more because they are exercising.

Really, you mean the ones who go to the gym for a week or two and don't come back....? They're failing because they didn't stick with the programme. Maybe because they made it too difficult for themselves. I don't see how that can be related to them thinking they can eat more because they exercise........... and if someone is failing because they're overestimating calorie burns, the helpful thing to do would be to help them to calculate them more accurately.... if someone's underestimate how many calories they're eating and failing to lose weight because they're not measuring their food accurately, the first thing I'll advise them is to start weighing their food and being really careful about measuring it accurately. I won't tell them "there's no point tracking and logging food because people don't measure it carefully and just underestimate their intake and fail to lose weight"

The concept exercise more=eat more is not wrong per se, but the mindset of most people is, and so is their estimation of the calories they're burning. Exercise more=eat more, can work for those who already have the right mindset and won't go overboard with food.

So again, there's nothing wrong with the mindset of exercising more to eat more, it's people doing the maths wrong that's the problem. Bad maths doesn't come from a bad mindset, it comes from bad maths. The only difference between the two groups - those who succeed at this method and those who don't - is bad maths.

As for people who kid themselves that they are burning more than they are or whatever, they're going to kid themselves no matter what plan they're on. They're going to kid themselves that their BMR is higher than it really is so they can eat more if they stay at home and do no exercise at all. They're going to kid themselves that their eyeballed portion of food really is only 200 calories, when it's really more like 400. They're going to kid themselves that they can't exercise because their little finger got broken six years ago or some other excuse.... excuse makers make excuses. That doesn't mean that exercising to eat more is a bad strategy. It means people who kid themselves that they're doing it right when they're not are going to screw up no matter what method they use.

I'm not disputing the necessity to be honest about calorie calculations, i.e. both calories burned and calories eaten.

This is the problem IMO, most people won't be.

You assume that everyone is going to be making excuses or screwing up the maths.... that's really not a helpful basis from which to start advising people. You may as well just say "you're too stupid and lazy for this to work, therefore don't bother" to someone you've never even met.... Also, if they do screw it up because they were not honest and careful about calorie burns... that's their responsibility, not the responsibility of the one advising them, after they've told them to be careful about this.

Lots of people on this thread said in response to the question.... "yes, but you must be careful and accurate with estimating your calorie burns"... so it's not like the message about accuracy and honesty isn't getting out there.

But don't project your inability on the rest of the human population.

My inability? Mate, I log on MFP because I'm trying to get to 10% BF before starting a lean bulk. I eat more because I exercise more, not the other way around.

I meant inability in maths and I already said in the other post that I didn't mean that you were bad at maths. I think what I should have said is don't assume that everyone else is going to screw up the maths or not be honest with themselves.

I'm glad your mentality is working for you, the mentality of exercising to eat more works for many, many people as well. Personally, I exercise to get strong, and eat because I enjoy eating and because eating the right amount of calories and protein is also necessary in order to get strong. That doesn't mean that people who exercise because they want to eat more are wrong, or people who exercise because they want to look good naked or get 6 pack abs are wrong. We all have different reasons for exercising. So long as we're healthy and achieving the goals we want to achieve, it's all good.

As for mentality... I could rant for hours about food puritanism and the dangers of excessive restriction and how that leads to rebound overeating further down the line....

I'm with you on this, I'm not for excessive restriction and I do love my martini cocktail every now and then :laugh:

Forgive for my english, but it's not my first language

yeah I hate food puritanism........ and your English is better than a lot of native speakers, so don't worry about that

bound4beauty

As other posters have said, people tend to under estimate how many calories they consume and over estimate how many calories they burn.

Everyone has to decide what works best for them. If being able to eat more motivates you to get off the couch, then by all means, let that motivate you until it becomes a habit and hopefully something you would enjoy.

There are lots of topics here that will help you determine how many calories you should eat a day but they are all estimates and only trial and error will determine how much you can eat to lose weight.

I have a Fitbit so I know that I burn about 2000 calories a day as part of my normal routine. Walk the dog a mile or two each day, Couch to 5K a couple times a week, weight training 3 x a week, etc... In order for me to lose weight, 1600 calories a day seems to be working. I don't eat back any exercise calories. The 1600 takes that into account. But, occasionally, I'll have a day where I'm more active, burn more calories and can afford to eat a little more without stalling my weight loss. You have to pay careful attention. Taking the casual approach may work in the beginning, especially if you have a lot to lose. But eventually, your body will adapt and you may have to pay a little more attention to see the results you're looking for.

You also should think about strength training. The last thing you want to do is lose a bunch of muscle when your main goal should be to lose fat.

Good luck!

jimshine

I walk 2.5-3 miles a night so I can have some extra calories to play with. I use an app that uses GPS to determine my distance and speed. It also tells me how many calories I burned. The problem with the calculator here is it determines a rough estimate of what you burned based on the average speed you were walking. No two nights I use the app have the exact same calorie burn as my pace varies throughout the walk. That affects the amount of calories burned.

ghostrider1970

That's missing the point. The point is that nowadays people *don't* have to catch their food, which is one reason why there's an obesity epidemic now, whereas there wasn't in the palaeolithic era.

You don't have to go back that long, when I was a kid , fat kids were the exception.

So adding a little tiny bit of that mentality into modern life is a good thing IMO, so long as the total amount you eat is enough to support your body and the exercise you do so you're strengthening your body, not weakening it.

I think that by now, is more than clear that we agree on the exercise more=eat more. I still think that for someone at the beginning of a weight loss (or better, fat loss) journey is not a good idea, before going that route, they should really understand how intense their workout are, how good are they at burning calories and how strict to the plan they can be.

Really, you mean the ones who go to the gym for a week or two and don't come back....? They're failing because they didn't stick with the programme.

They fail because they overestimate their ability to have a decent workout, their oversestimate the calories burned, they underestimate how much they eat... and have some more because they are exercising.
They are not the minority, most people are like them.

and if someone is failing because they're overestimating calorie burns, the helpful thing to do would be to help them to calculate them more accurately.... if someone's underestimate how many calories they're eating and failing to lose weight because they're not measuring their food accurately, the first thing I'll advise them is to start weighing their food and being really careful about measuring it accurately. I won't tell them "there's no point tracking and logging food because people don't measure it carefully and just underestimate their intake and fail to lose weight"

IMO the best thing to do it's to start and see how things works, define how many calories they really need, see how intense they can workout... and after a while, they can start eating back some of those exercise calories.

You assume that everyone is going to be making excuses or screwing up the maths....

Pretty much... yes. What can I say, I'm an optimist, I alway see the best part out of everybody :laugh:

that's really not a helpful basis from which to start advising people. You may as well just say "you're too stupid and lazy for this to work, therefore don't bother" to someone you've never even met....

Nope, my advice is, as I said before, begin with the basis, don't eat back what you think you have burned, see how things work and then add those exercise calories to make your diet more 'enjoyable'

I'm glad your mentality is working for you, the mentality of exercising to eat more works for many, many people as well. Personally, I exercise to get strong, and eat because I enjoy eating and because eating the right amount of calories and protein is also necessary in order to get strong. That doesn't mean that people who exercise because they want to eat more are wrong, or people who exercise because they want to look good naked or get 6 pack abs are wrong. We all have different reasons for exercising. So long as we're healthy and achieving the goals we want to achieve, it's all good.

I don't exercise to eat more, I eat more because I exercise. First of all, I exercise because I like it and because it keeps me healthy... I am not getting any younger and I want to age well
I train for strength, to add lean mass and aesthetic too... I was close to a 3x BW deadlift when I had a bike accident that precluded me to squat or DL heavy, for good.

and your English is better than a lot of native speakers, so don't worry about that

Thank you

blackcows15

IMO, if someone talks about training to eat more, have already the wrong mindset, and it will, in a couple of months, starts a thread asking why is gaining weight instead of losing it... "but I train so hard".
Again, just my 2 cent.

This. OP in my humble opinion you are imagining it to be much easier than it is. If it was like that we'd all be slim. I'm not sure I understand right, are you planning to lose weight or just to stay the same?

Firstly, if you just have a light breakfast, I assume you'll try to eat little during the day, in order to have more naughty foods later. Then you'll attempt to go for a jog.
When I go on a treadmill I run (interval) for 20 minutes, sweat like a pig and lose the same amount of calories as is in a small can of beer (googled it).
I make sure I have a low calorie nutritious breakfast before.
By the sound of your diet plan you won't even have the energy to run for 15 minutes, because of your lack of food in the day. If you 'walk more to eat more', then you'll just maintain your weight.

Secondly, I doubt that in the evening you'll manage to have just a bit of a treat as you are describing, because you'll be so bloody hungry, you'll eat the whole pizza. Also your sugar levels will be so low that you'll probably want a dessert.

I probably wasn't clear enough about what I am trying to accomplish. I weigh 230 pounds and have weighed 230 pounds for as long as I can remember so what ever I was doing previous to this caused me to maintain my weight. According to MFP in order to loose 1.5 to 2 pounds a week I will need to eat 1500 calories. Based on what I was eating before and what I am learning about foods and their calorie counts it would not surprise me if I was taking in 2500 calories a day, probably more on many days. I was drinking 1 or 2 cans of soda a day, lots of snacking, lots of sugar, etc. I have now started using MFP and wondering if I could push the 1500 to 1750 or so with some exercise, still a net decrease in the calories I was eating but in an increase in what I am allowed.

I am eating more fruits and vegatables, drinking a lot more water (went from none to about 10 cups per day), cutting out snacks, not eating after supper, and walking on the treadmill 120 minutes a week. Should that be a good start for a weight loss plan?

bwogilvie

I see that this thread has exploded...let me go back to the original question. My response would be: give it a try.

However, use your food diary, exercise diary, and weight loss to provide feedback. If you aren't losing the weight you expect, then either you're overestimating exercise calories or underestimating food calories. In that case, either record fewer exercise calories or see whether you're missing some food calories. The latter is easy to do, in part because we try to fool ourselves, but also because labels are often inaccurate. One bread I buy lists calories per 43 g slice, but most slices actually weigh 48-50 g.

Your muscles have enough stored energy to walk for several hours, so you should have no problem exercising in the morning, eating lightly during the day, and then having a large meal at night. I have my main meal in the evening, and I routinely wind up having burned more calories exercising than I have eaten during the day (e.g., I eat 700 calories for breakfast and lunch, then go for a 2-hour bike ride that burns 1100 calories). It's worked for me. And I'll admit that on days I don't bike, I'm sometimes motivated to take a walk in order to eat a little more at dinner. I get more exercise, which is good, and I have to eat more (in order not to run too great a calorie deficit), which I enjoy. What's not to like?

Mr_Knight

I am hoping that by using the plan above I can still enjoy potatoes, french fries, the occasional cheese cake, a hamburger loaded with blue cheese, etc and still loose some weight. Does that seem reasonable?

The problem you're going to run into is eating out. Modern portion sizes, especially at chain restaurants, are massive. It is not hard at all to run into an innocent looking slice of cheesecake that would require 60 minutes of hard cycling to burn off. That's an entire week's worth of "walking 30 minutes on a treadmill", and you've used up all your exercise benefits on one dessert, at one meal.

If this is all done religiously and conscientiously, it can work out. But I also agree with those saying "Danger Will Robinson, Danger!"

likitisplit

If people are so bad at estimating, how does MFP work at all?

ghostrider1970

If people are so bad at estimating, how does MFP work at all?

MFP is a tool, one that works... for those that are honest to themselves and log what they eat almost exactly. About the exercise database, the amount of calories burned is just an estimate, very often overestimate.
If you have already set your activity level in the fitness profile, you don't have to eat you exercise calorie back, because those are included in your daily calories.

ghostrider1970

I am hoping that by using the plan above I can still enjoy potatoes, french fries, the occasional cheese cake, a hamburger loaded with blue cheese, etc and still loose some weight. Does that seem reasonable?

A simple cheeseburger (mcdonalds, taking the data from their website) is 305 calories and they are so small that one is not really satisfying.... according to MFP exeercise database, you have to cycle (stationary bike, moderate effort) for 40 minutes, or swim for 25/30 minutes (swimming, not floating around in the pool). 100g of blue cheese is way more than 300 calories.
A fast food meal is probably around 800/1000 calories, easy... that's a load of cycling/running to do.
I'll keep the exercise more=eat more equation, for when you have reached a decent level of fitness and can really bust your *kitten* with whatever activity you enjoy, running, cycling, swimming...

Allterrain_Lady

Bump

honkytonks85

I don't have time nor the desire for a complex diet and I am too cheap to use a diet service such as Weigh Watchers or Nutrisystems. I do like goals, numbers, and technology so MFP seems to be a great fit for me. Is it fair to say that in order to loose weight it's all about net calories...no more or less complicated than that? Is it a crazy thought process to think that I will walk in the morning, eat a low calorie breakfast and lunch so that I have "saved" calories for the evening that I can "spend" on a couple beers and pizza and still be at or below my goal for the day. I was going to start walking on the treadmill 15 minutes a day but using MFP I saw that 30 minutes would allow me several more calories for the day so now I am walking 30 minutes so I can bank more calories...is that ok? In other words does it make sense to walk more to eat more?

YES - YOU CAN! Ain't exercise grand?

Edit: it's important to note as others above have said that calories burned are an estimate (and even calories in can be an estimate, unless you are weighing every last bit of food you eat). To get around this I generally create a bit of a calorie buffer (I might eat some exercise calories back but not all).

lulz14

Yes, it is all calories in, calories out.

But very quickly you learn that cycling for 30mins is not worth a single slice of pizza.

At least I did once I started seeing how many calories in everything.

beattie1

seeing as throughout human evolution, exercise was to acquire food (you can't hunt and gather food without walking, running and killing an animal or two) - I can't see what's remotely wrong with the idea of exercising so you can eat more. It's what our ancestors have done for millions of years. Also, exercising more and eating more to support doing more exercise is the way to build a strong, healthy body, probably because that's what enabled our ancestors to survive. I think that being able to eat more is an excellent way for people to be motivated to do more exercise and get all the health benefits of exercise.

You're kidding me right? Tell me how the hell can you compare someone who has to run to catch his dinner, who would probably put up a fight to avoid becoming dinner, to the average joe who lazily walk on a treadmill, to cheat himself into beleiving that the double glazed, triple chocolate cream filled donut he's going to eat afterward is already burned... come on!

Middle and upper palaeolithic humans were top predators that were not in danger of becoming some other animal's lunch, unless they did something stupid like wandering off into deep, dark woods all by themselves like snow white, which they would have had enough sense not to do.

Lower palaeolithic humans were no more likely to end up as someone else's lunch as chimpanzees are... in fact a lot less likely as Homo sapiens hadn't evolved yet to poach them using firearms the way chimps are poached by humans nowadays.

Exercise = food aquisition. Exercise = food aquisition in the palaeolithic era, and using exercise = earning more calories to eat more nowadays is really not very different at all. It's how our bodies evolved to work... exercise, and then eat.

And saying that and using it as motivation to eat more is not the same as "kidding yourself that you already burned off some triple chocolate donut etc etc etc" nonsense.... I've already stated that you have to be honest and accurate when calculating calories, of course you have to calculate them accurately. There is absolutely nothing wrong with thinking of exercise as a means to acquire more food to eat.... it's very successful for many people, as this thread is showing...

And our palaeolithic ancestors were good enough at aquiring food that they had plenty of leisure time. Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis were capable of catching huge animals like bison and mammoths. You really think they had to catch animals like that every single day?

IMO, if someone talks about training to eat more, have already the wrong mindset, and it will, in a couple of months, starts a thread asking why is gaining weight instead of losing it... "but I train so hard".
Again, just my 2 cent.

Funny that, because the most successful long term maintainers I know are the ones that allow themselves to eat what they like in moderation, and exercise in order to be able to eat more, while those with a mentality of deprivation and self punishment get into cycles of yo-yo dieting.

I'm not disputing the necessity to be honest about calorie calculations, i.e. both calories burned and calories eaten. Of course it's not going to work if you do the maths wrong. However that doesn't mean that people who do the maths right can't make it work, or that it's a "bad mentality" or that it equates to "kidding yourself".... seriously. If you're that bad at maths and measuring things to the point that this method would never work for you, then don't do it. But don't project your inability on the rest of the human population.

This is SOOO right!

Looking at this and other similar threads, the people who post "Yes, eat your exercise calories" have normally lost significant amounts of weight and those posting "No, don't eat your exercise calories" haven't.

'Nuff said!

RoyBeck

It's that simple yes. I'm lucky in that I live a 5/6 minute walk from my leisure centre. Recently I really fancied a chocolate slice. I had the calories remaining but the slice contained 130 calories. So to make myself feel better (No other reason) I went on the treadmill and burned 200 calories. Simple