to eat or not to eat....
Replies
-
I am looking to lose 10 kg (which I think is about 25 pounds or so) and I am 5.5...Not really in a rush but I am struggling to meet my calorie goals even if I am not dieting on most days. And then there are days I eat super unhealthy (well was still 2 weeks ago).0
-
What do you have your rate of loss set at?0
-
I agree with @AnnPT77 's point. You can't really micro-engineer the project at the beginning, though people do try. There's a certain amount, a lot actually, of necessary "see how things go" and fine tuning. There's broad agreement that you need 6 weeks of data to draw any conclusions. That is, 6 weeks of getting on the scale, counting your calories, and getting a feel for things.
In the meantime, eating back half your exercise is a good idea. After 6 weeks you'll be able to see whether that resulted in the correct amount of weight loss. Calorie estimates for exercise are all over the place and often way too high, and all you can do is put a temporary stake in the ground as far as what % to eat back, and see how it goes for six-ish weeks, and then fine tune.
The main thing to fully grok is that MFP's NEAT-based system is going to give you less calories than a TDEE-based calorie tool IF you work out regularly, waaaay less, because it expects you to add your exercise cals to your food intake.. Translated into English:
A tool like TDEEcalculator.net says, based on your gender, age, any workouts you do, etc., "Your break-even calorie level is 2200", and you on your own decide you want to lose a pound a week, which requires a 500 calorie deficit, so you eat 1700.
MFP doesn't work like that. It assumes the 500 cals of cardio you're doing will be counted separately and eaten back, and therefore tells you to eat 1200, meaning "1200 PLUS your 500 exercise calories".
Either way, if your break even is 2200, you have to have 1700 net calories per day (food minus exercise) to lose a pound a week.
In this little example, if you use MFP's system and don't eat back the cardio, you will end up eating 1200, which is way too little food for a 1 lb/week goal. So that's why you eat the exercise cals back when using MFP. It's the same amount of food in the end, 1700 calories, it's just added up differently. The mathematics don't really matter and a lot of people use TDEE not MFP's system. But the point is, if you got a calorie target from MFP, it assumes you will eat back your exercise calories, and if you don't, you could easily fall into an unsafely huge calorie deficit. Try to avoid that; it isn't sustainable and isn't good for you.4 -
Just for clarification on this...
If the calorie goal is set to 1800 calories per day, and one exercises and burns 750 calories, lets say you aren't entering exercise calories into MFP...then one would actually only be eating only 1,050 calories, even if they ate their calculated 1800 calorie daily limit? And this is because you still have the calorie deficit that MFP calculated which is why you should eat your exercise calories?
If the BMR is 1500 calories and the TDEE is 2300 calories, the daily calorie limit is 1900, and one does't add in the 750 exercise calories into MFP, then this person is only eating 1,150 calories?
Huh...maybe I should be eating my exercise calories because I'm losing inches and not scale weight and its been 5 weeks and I'm getting bummed.
What about intermittent fasting in conjunction?
See I'm not losing weight at 1800-2000 calories a day and I don't eat my exercise calories back. I'm losing inches but I sit all day for work, then I exercise 30-120 minutes 6 days a week in the form or resistance training, walking, hiking, running, spinning, or body weight exercises. In 5 weeks, I've lost two pounds and about 6 inches off my body overall. I'm wondering if I should be eating those exercise calories back based on what my fitbit says I burned. I thought I have been overeating this whole time.0 -
Just for clarification on this...
If the calorie goal is set to 1800 calories per day, and one exercises and burns 750 calories, lets say you aren't entering exercise calories into MFP...then one would actually only be eating only 1,050 calories, even if they ate their calculated 1800 calorie daily limit? And this is because you still have the calorie deficit that MFP calculated which is why you should eat your exercise calories?
If the BMR is 1500 calories and the TDEE is 2300 calories, the daily calorie limit is 1900, and one does't add in the 750 exercise calories into MFP, then this person is only eating 1,150 calories?
Huh...maybe I should be eating my exercise calories because I'm losing inches and not scale weight and its been 5 weeks and I'm getting bummed.
What about intermittent fasting in conjunction?
Don't worry about BMR. It's a hypothetical number of how many calories you'd burn if you were in a coma. Since you're not in a coma, it's meaningless and shouldn't play any role in deciding how much to eat.
Yes, if you eat 1800 calories and do 750 worth of exercise, you are getting an effective 1050 calorie intake, which is too low. No question. Now, that 750 worth of exercise might actually be more like 400 since calorie estimates for exercise are often very high. So it may well be that your net calories, i.e. food minus exercise, is really round 1400 in this case. The problem being that it's supposed to be 1800. So that is why you eat some of the exercise calories back.
Intermittent fasting will not impact this.
1 -
... don't know why this double post is here ...
0 -
Just for clarification on this...
If the calorie goal is set to 1800 calories per day, and one exercises and burns 750 calories, lets say you aren't entering exercise calories into MFP...then one would actually only be eating only 1,050 calories, even if they ate their calculated 1800 calorie daily limit? And this is because you still have the calorie deficit that MFP calculated which is why you should eat your exercise calories?
If the BMR is 1500 calories and the TDEE is 2300 calories, the daily calorie limit is 1900, and one does't add in the 750 exercise calories into MFP, then this person is only eating 1,150 calories?
Huh...maybe I should be eating my exercise calories because I'm losing inches and not scale weight and its been 5 weeks and I'm getting bummed.
What about intermittent fasting in conjunction?
Don't worry about BMR. It's a hypothetical number of how many calories you'd burn if you were in a coma. Since you're not in a coma, it's meaningless and shouldn't play any role in deciding how much to eat.
Yes, if you eat 1800 calories and do 750 worth of exercise, you are getting an effective 1050 calorie intake, which is too low. No question. Now, that 750 worth of exercise might actually be more like 400 since calorie estimates for exercise are often very high. So it may well be that your net calories, i.e. food minus exercise, is really round 1400 in this case. The problem being that it's supposed to be 1800. So that is why you eat some of the exercise calories back.
Intermittent fasting will not impact this.
Thanks for the response. I did make an edit to my post with additional information if that may help. I use a fitbit to estimate my calorie burn, which in all cases is a smaller number than what MFP gives for the same exercise. I officially have no idea how much I'm supposed to be eating now. On average, based on my fitbit, I burn 2500-2600 calories per day with exercise. I'm guessing I should be eating about 2000-2100 calories per day if I were to set my own goal number and not add in exercise calories. Would that potentially work?0 -
Just for clarification on this...
See I'm not losing weight at 1800-2000 calories a day and I don't eat my exercise calories back. I'm losing inches but I sit all day for work, then I exercise 30-120 minutes 6 days a week in the form or resistance training, walking, hiking, running, spinning, or body weight exercises. In 5 weeks, I've lost two pounds and about 6 inches off my body overall. I'm wondering if I should be eating those exercise calories back based on what my fitbit says I burned. I thought I have been overeating this whole time.
Um, you're not losing weight but you're losing inches and you lost two pounds and 6 inches? That didn't make sense.
Nothing's wrong here other than you should eat some of those exercise calories back.
1 -
Just for clarification on this...
If the calorie goal is set to 1800 calories per day, and one exercises and burns 750 calories, lets say you aren't entering exercise calories into MFP...then one would actually only be eating only 1,050 calories, even if they ate their calculated 1800 calorie daily limit? And this is because you still have the calorie deficit that MFP calculated which is why you should eat your exercise calories?
If the BMR is 1500 calories and the TDEE is 2300 calories, the daily calorie limit is 1900, and one does't add in the 750 exercise calories into MFP, then this person is only eating 1,150 calories?
Huh...maybe I should be eating my exercise calories because I'm losing inches and not scale weight and its been 5 weeks and I'm getting bummed.
What about intermittent fasting in conjunction?
Don't worry about BMR. It's a hypothetical number of how many calories you'd burn if you were in a coma. Since you're not in a coma, it's meaningless and shouldn't play any role in deciding how much to eat.
Yes, if you eat 1800 calories and do 750 worth of exercise, you are getting an effective 1050 calorie intake, which is too low. No question. Now, that 750 worth of exercise might actually be more like 400 since calorie estimates for exercise are often very high. So it may well be that your net calories, i.e. food minus exercise, is really round 1400 in this case. The problem being that it's supposed to be 1800. So that is why you eat some of the exercise calories back.
Intermittent fasting will not impact this.
Thanks for the response. I did make an edit to my post with additional information if that may help. I use a fitbit to estimate my calorie burn, which in all cases is a smaller number than what MFP gives for the same exercise. I officially have no idea how much I'm supposed to be eating now. On average, based on my fitbit, I burn 2500-2600 calories per day with exercise. I'm guessing I should be eating about 2000-2100 calories per day if I were to set my own goal number and not add in exercise calories. Would that potentially work?
Yes. That is the TDEE method, versus the MFP NEAT method, and either is fine. You are saying that your all-inclusive break-even is 2500-2600, including any exercise you're doing, and if that is true, then eating 2000-2100 should give you a pound a week of weight loss. So everything is solid with that plan, except that you may find the 2500-2600 isn't quite accurate. After 5-6 weeks, if your weight loss isn't 1 lb a week, you can (and should) adjust your caloric intake up or down as needed.
Depending on your age/sex/weight/height/blahblah, the 2500 may well be pretty close, though perhaps a bit high. As a 247 lb 5'10.5" male, my NEAT is 2350 and with exercise my TDEE for the day is usually 2750-2800. So I don't find a 2500 TDEE to be something that's wildly out there, and in 5-6 weeks you'd know for sure whether that was the right number. Just be sure to count calories accurately and diligently during those 5-6 weeks and not take cheat meals, so that you can get an accurate picture of things.2 -
Brandon1992 wrote: »If you are trying to maintain your weight and not lose than sure you can eat them back . But if your goal is to lose weight I don’t see why you would want to eat back your hard work. Don’t forget , your calorie deficit should be made with food not exercise
That's literally self-contradictory.
If you don't eat back exercise calories, you are not fueling the exercise activity, which is making your deficit (or part of it) with exercise. It's increasing your deficit beyond the deficit you may be creating by eating less food.
If you use an outside TDEE calculator (not MFP) correctly to estimate calories, and set your calorie goal manually based on that data (i.e., don't let MFP calculate your goal), then you're eating back your exercise (except for whatever deficit you've figured in), it's just that the calculator averaged your planned exercise over the course of the week, and included it in your calorie needs. (<= There's a risk in there, if the planned exercise doesn't happen.) It's all estimates, of course.
If you use MFP correctly (as many have said), you set activity level based on your life not including intentional exercise, let it set your calorie goal to include your requested weight loss rate, then you log exercise and eat it back, which keeps the deficit the same. It's still all estimates, of course, just doing the accounting for those estimates a little differently.
Either method, correctly used, accounts for exercise calories. On MFP, using MFP's method, setting an aggressive weight loss rate goal, then not eating back a reasonable proportion of exercise calories is a recipe for increasing health risks and risks of unsustainability (i.e., failure to reach goal because it becomes too hard to stick with the calorie level).
The whole "eat back exercise calories" idea makes people confused. In one sense, exercise calories are no different from any other calorie expenditure. I eat back my tooth-brushing calories, I eat back my getting-the-mail calories, I eat back my doing-stuff-at-work calories (different for a bricklayer than a call-center phone worker), and I eat back my exercise calories. If I'm trying to lose weight, I take a reasonable number or percentage off the top of what I burn each day, that's my calorie deficit, and it's how I lose weight. MFP's NEAT method, and the TDEE method, just juggle the numbers in a different way.
It doesn't really matter where the deficit calories come from: Technically, it's not possible to say. The calories "come from" exercise (or don't) only in the sense that our calorie needs increase when we exercise. They also increase when I go from my call-center job to being a bricklayer, but we (using the MFP method, which some of us prefer), excercise can be more variable than most daily-life things, which tend to average out to similar numbers over the course of a normal week/month.
No matter where we think of the calorie deficit coming from, eating too few calories (trying to lose weight too fast), creates higher levels of risk, to health, and to eventual success. Actual weight loss rate, after many weeks of experience, is the best way to see how big our deficit is, in a practical sense. Everything else is just estimates, and a starting point for our personal experiment.6 -
Just for clarification on this...
See I'm not losing weight at 1800-2000 calories a day and I don't eat my exercise calories back. I'm losing inches but I sit all day for work, then I exercise 30-120 minutes 6 days a week in the form or resistance training, walking, hiking, running, spinning, or body weight exercises. In 5 weeks, I've lost two pounds and about 6 inches off my body overall. I'm wondering if I should be eating those exercise calories back based on what my fitbit says I burned. I thought I have been overeating this whole time.
Um, you're not losing weight but you're losing inches and you lost two pounds and 6 inches? That didn't make sense. Nothing's wrong here other than you should eat some of those exercise calories back.
Like I said, I have only lost two pounds in 5 weeks on the scale (I'm not losing weight "on the scale") but I have lost 6 inches across my body (I am assuming this is fat shrinkage which should = weight loss). I want the scale to show it..I'm female, 41, and 210.6 lbs at 5'5" and trying to get to 170 at least. My measurements are proof I'm doing something right, but I don't know why the scale isn't moving downwards. Point being, shouldn't it be going down after 5 weeks if I'm eating the correct calorie need?0 -
Just for clarification on this...
See I'm not losing weight at 1800-2000 calories a day and I don't eat my exercise calories back. I'm losing inches but I sit all day for work, then I exercise 30-120 minutes 6 days a week in the form or resistance training, walking, hiking, running, spinning, or body weight exercises. In 5 weeks, I've lost two pounds and about 6 inches off my body overall. I'm wondering if I should be eating those exercise calories back based on what my fitbit says I burned. I thought I have been overeating this whole time.
Um, you're not losing weight but you're losing inches and you lost two pounds and 6 inches? That didn't make sense. Nothing's wrong here other than you should eat some of those exercise calories back.
Like I said, I have only lost two pounds in 5 weeks on the scale (I'm not losing weight "on the scale") but I have lost 6 inches across my body (I am assuming this is fat shrinkage which should = weight loss). I want the scale to show it..I'm female, 41, and 210.6 lbs at 5'5" and trying to get to 170 at least. My measurements are proof I'm doing something right, but I don't know why the scale isn't moving downwards. Point being, shouldn't it be going down after 5 weeks if I'm eating the correct calorie need?
Possible/probable answer: Water retention changes.
If you haven't read this, I'd suggest it:
https://physiqonomics.com/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-weight-and-fluctuations
If it's that, you may be setting up for what people call a "whoosh", where the scale sees a sudden drop.
There are other possibilities, too, but if you'd like to explore that, I'd suggest you start your own thread, with all your details and questions, since this thread started on a different topic and people may not notice that your question is somewhat different.3 -
Thanks yall. I appreciate the feedback. I hope the original poster gets something out of it too.3
-
10k steps of walking either needs to be logged separately and eaten back (MFP way, eat back for moderate walking would be about 64% of the value you see for the exercise to make it a net value since MFP has already assigned BMR*1.25 Cal to the time slot)
Or you can go against the MFP method if the steps are EVERY day and lump them into activity, which would make you ACTIVE.3
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 393K Introduce Yourself
- 43.7K Getting Started
- 260.1K Health and Weight Loss
- 175.8K Food and Nutrition
- 47.4K Recipes
- 232.5K Fitness and Exercise
- 416 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.5K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.5K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 152.9K Motivation and Support
- 8K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.3K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.6K MyFitnessPal Information
- 23 News and Announcements
- 1.1K Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.5K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions