Eating before exercise

lexirelissofia

I always eat something light before my weight training at the gym around 180 calories. After my weights I do 20 minutes of cardio where I’m burning around 200 calories. I always log the food I have before training into MFP, but since I am burning it with weights and cardio, do O really have to log it ? Any suggestions ?

janejellyroll

You aren't burning THAT EXACT FOOD with your exercise, as your body is still processing it.

Question: are you logging your exercise or accounting for the exercise calorie burn in your overall goal? The important thing is that you don't double-count it. If you're rather not log your exercise and then not log the food you're eating to account for that calorie burn, I suppose that's one way to do it. I personally prefer to have a record of my exercise calorie burn AND the food I'm eating. It's easier for me to make adjustments when I have all the data. That said, my way isn't the only way to be successful.

nanastaci2020

I go with the theory that if we log some of what we eat, we should log all of it.

I see it as a slippery slope. If I tell myself its ok to not log X, its just a matter of time before I also tell myself its ok to not log Y and the end result: wasted effort. If the log is not accurate, it serves no purpose.

Do give yourself permission to eat some of the exercised calories. If you're using MFP as its designed, then your calorie goal assumes no exercise. Exercise is good for fitness, endurance, heart, lungs, etc. Fuel yourself appropriately so you can make the most of your day.

If you manually set your calorie goal based on your TDEE (which considers exercise) then eat your calorie goal. Personally I know I'm burning 1900-2000 daily *including* my exercise so my goal is to eat a minimum of 1400 (range 1400-1700) daily, minimum 100g protein. I actually have my profile set to 'maintain' so the 'calories left' is my approximate deficit.

lexirelissofia

janejellyroll wrote: »

You aren't burning THAT EXACT FOOD with your exercise, as your body is still processing it.

Question: are you logging your exercise or accounting for the exercise calorie burn in your overall goal? The important thing is that you don't double-count it. If you're rather not log your exercise and then not log the food you're eating to account for that calorie burn, I suppose that's one way to do it. I personally prefer to have a record of my exercise calorie burn AND the food I'm eating. It's easier for me to make adjustments when I have all the data. That said, my way isn't the only way to be successful.

I don’t log my exercise solely because I wouldn’t want to sabotage myself and eat more calories than I should because I see the number of positive calories on MFP go up. With that said, I should just keep doing what I’m doing and logging in my before workout meal?

janejellyroll

lexirelissofia wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

You aren't burning THAT EXACT FOOD with your exercise, as your body is still processing it.

Question: are you logging your exercise or accounting for the exercise calorie burn in your overall goal? The important thing is that you don't double-count it. If you're rather not log your exercise and then not log the food you're eating to account for that calorie burn, I suppose that's one way to do it. I personally prefer to have a record of my exercise calorie burn AND the food I'm eating. It's easier for me to make adjustments when I have all the data. That said, my way isn't the only way to be successful.

I don’t log my exercise solely because I wouldn’t want to sabotage myself and eat more calories than I should because I see the number of positive calories on MFP go up. With that said, I should just keep doing what I’m doing and logging in my before workout meal?

If you're eating food and not logging it on the assumption that exercise is burning it off, you're doing the exact same thing as logging your exercise and then eating the extra calories. You're just doing it "invisibly." Functionally, it's no different than logging exercise that burns 200 calories and then eating, and logging, 200ish calories worth of food.

For me, your method would be less than ideal because I couldn't see the data if I needed to make adjustments. But if it works for you, there's no reason not to do it.

You should know that eating exercise calories (which again, is exactly what you're doing, just without using the system to do it) isn't "sabotaging" yourself. You're using MFP as designed and in a way that has been successful for many people here.

sijomial

lexirelissofia wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

You aren't burning THAT EXACT FOOD with your exercise, as your body is still processing it.

Question: are you logging your exercise or accounting for the exercise calorie burn in your overall goal? The important thing is that you don't double-count it. If you're rather not log your exercise and then not log the food you're eating to account for that calorie burn, I suppose that's one way to do it. I personally prefer to have a record of my exercise calorie burn AND the food I'm eating. It's easier for me to make adjustments when I have all the data. That said, my way isn't the only way to be successful.

I don’t log my exercise solely because I wouldn’t want to sabotage myself and eat more calories than I should because I see the number of positive calories on MFP go up. With that said, I should just keep doing what I’m doing and logging in my before workout meal?

Sorry but that's really odd!
You did eat the food, you did do the exercise.

It's not sabotaging anything to eat more when you exercise, that's how your calorie goal is worked out.
If someone gave you $300 and then you spent $300 you aren't worse off are you?
And of course although your calorie balance might be the same you have the fitness and health benefits of exercising.

In a game of numbers you want data not pretence.

westrich20940

IMO it's simplest to log everything you eat and log your calories burned based on your exercise.

If your calorie goal on MFP is already set at a deficit then you should probably be eating back at least 1/2 of your exercise calories burned. Otherwise your net calories are gonna be too low.

ninerbuff

Personally I don't eat before exercise. I've had issues with nausea while training when eating before. I train fasted every morning now and my workouts have been much better than I would train a couple of hours after eating.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

Dogmom1978

I don’t have enough energy to lift without eating first, but that’s just me.

I would log the food and the exercise. The food because you aren’t burning the exact calories you ate PLUS I keep track of my macros and I can’t do that if I don’t add the food in.

I like to log the exercise so I can see how many extra calories I burned and then I can determine how many to eat back based on my hunger levels.