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Exercise calories do you use them for food?

Posts: 11 Member
edited December 2024 in Health and Weight Loss
Hello. Should I be saving calories from exercise to boost weight loss or should I be eating them? Sorry if this has been repeated I've just joined.

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  • Posts: 2,991 Member
    MFP assumes you will eat back your activity calories. That being said MFP also overestimates activity calories. If you are going to eat them back consume 1/4-1/2 of what is calculated.
  • Posts: 11 Member
    I was planning on saving them for a boost so thank you. I thought it was high when I logged I walked for an hour at nearly 400 calories burnt. It was a normal walk.
  • Posts: 340 Member
    Eat them! Or at least a proportion of them.
  • Posts: 1 Member
    I was going to ask the same question thanks everyone for explaining it
  • Posts: 2,024 Member
    edited January 2020
    I was planning on saving them for a boost so thank you. I thought it was high when I logged I walked for an hour at nearly 400 calories burnt. It was a normal walk.

    A normal NON-VIGOROUS (2.5 MPH or so) walk would burn somewhere around 200-250 calories an hour for me and I'm 188 lbs. and to answer the question, yes, I eat all my purposeful exercise calories back.
  • Posts: 29 Member
    I just log about 60% of the exercise I actually do and eat the calories if I am hungry. Rough estimate that mfp overestimates exercise calories.
  • Posts: 28,055 Member
    I was planning on saving them for a boost so thank you. I thought it was high when I logged I walked for an hour at nearly 400 calories burnt. It was a normal walk.

    That does sound rather high, but might not be unrealistic depending on how much you weigh. I'm 5'6" and if I weighed 300 pounds, I would burn 449 calories for an hour of "Walking, 3.0 mph, mod. pace."

    MapMyFitness, which I do not have synced to MFP, gives me higher burns than the MFP database, but I believe their raw figures include the calories I burn just from being alive, and not only exercise calories, so if you are looking at something like MapMyFitness numbers in that app, that's another explanation for high numbers.

    Unlike other sites which use TDEE calculators, 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 for them 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
  • Posts: 10,968 Member
    Yes, of course!
  • Posts: 6,252 Member
    Yup - that's how this process works.

    I note that many won't feel their appetite as strong at first. This is when motivation is at its highest and you are determined to succeed at this new plan. There's a common thought that eating less is going to speed up the process. Mathematically sound, but humans aren't wired for such behavioral changes.

    Eat a portion back, but be cautious at first as caloric counting and estimating caloric burn from exercise is a horribly imprecise business.

    Identify foods you like that are also satiating - for me this is eggs, chicken, and oatmeal. Everyone is a bit different, so find out your high satiating foods early on.
  • Posts: 5,600 Member
    i think the rough rule of thumb for weight burnt by walking - is weight*mins*(.3) - so for my 165*.3*distance - so my 30min walk this am was 1.9 miles - which gives me approx 95cal - possibly on the lower end but works for me
  • Posts: 41,865 Member
    Hello. Should I be saving calories from exercise to boost weight loss or should I be eating them? Sorry if this has been repeated I've just joined.

    Depending on what rate of loss you selected, your calorie target is likely already a significant deficit...making that deficit bigger with exercise isn't always a good idea...it rarely is. Your body needs calories (energy) just to perform basic functions. Dieting is already a big stress on the body...you're just adding to that stress by exercising and not accounting for that...particularly if/when you get to the point of doing more strenuous exercise.

    Having large deficits are a detriment to you health over time. Exercise performance as well as daily performance will ultimately suffer...recovery from exercise will be compromised...and ultimately your body will try to conserve energy by shutting down or slowing down "non essential" functions like involuntary movement, growing hair and nails, menstrual cycle, etc.
  • Posts: 3,795 Member
    Walking and running calories are very easy to calculate, so I eat back all of them. Exercise that relies on effort is harder (i.e. calisthetics or yoga), I'll eat back some of the calories but not all.
  • Posts: 12,294 Member
    I was planning on saving them for a boost so thank you. I thought it was high when I logged I walked for an hour at nearly 400 calories burnt. It was a normal walk.

    It is still good to eat some of them, as faster weight loss is not usually better (more will come from lean body mass as a % of total loss the faster you lose)

    A portion of those 400 would be burned had you know walked (maintenance cals/24 hours) the calculator uses gross cals burned not net. so assume you burn 1.25 cals/min sitting there, in an hour you would have burned 75 of those 400 anyway.
  • Posts: 113 Member
    I don't eat all my calories back, maybe 1/3-1/2, and mainly on days when I have two activities (IE, today I did a weights class in the morning and in an hour I'm taking a Lyra hoop class, so I'll eat back some, but not all). I feel very hungry if I don't eat back some, and I feel like it gives me more energy. But honestly, that's because I have such a freaking long wait between finishing work and my evening workouts, so I have to eat something on the go as a snack or I'm ravenous by the time I get home and more likely to binge than eat dinner.
  • Posts: 9 Member
    I choose not to and the calorie burn for Zumba is pretty much accurate on mfp.
  • Posts: 29 Member
    Sometimes I do - if I feel like having a glass of wine or something.
  • Posts: 240 Member
    cathipa wrote: »
    MFP assumes you will eat back your activity calories. That being said MFP also overestimates activity calories. If you are going to eat them back consume 1/4-1/2 of what is calculated.

    What he/she said...

    Or...figure out accurate estimates of cal burn and eat them all back. Most gym machines, HR monitors and MFP over estimate significantly. So, you want to eat them all back but you need to have an accurate estimate.

    There are highly accurate estimates for running and cycling and others too.
  • Posts: 13,454 Member
    I choose not to and the calorie burn for Zumba is pretty much accurate on mfp.

    So if you feel it’s accurate then why wouldn’t you eat them back? How do you know it’s activate if you aren’t factoring those calories burned into your data points?
  • Posts: 338 Member
    I think it is odd that people who want to lose weight and therefore "move more" then eat more food to compensate for that extra movement.

    Makes no sense to me at all.

    Obviously a different conversation if you are exercising for health reasons but if you are eating a variety of foods to cover your nutritional needs while not moving then what is the point of moving if you then going to just eat back the calories???
  • Posts: 1,048 Member
    I don't usually unless I think I need them (body is sending hunger cues or I had a big workout and I know my body is craving them)
  • Posts: 1,461 Member
    I only eat my excercise calories back if im famished. Otherwise - no. YMMV. 😉
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