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Shorting exercise calories on intense cardio days

richardgavel
richardgavel Posts: 1,001 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I tend to do best when I stick with a routine and constantly reinforce my habits. I have a pretty steady calorie burn and eat roughly 2100 calories on an average day (trying to lose .5 lbs/week) and I'm dialing in the calories pretty well, not quite there yet. My question comes in when I have a more intense cardio day (a long run or a significant bike ride, something that gets my exercise burn for the day in the 800+ range), which is maybe once or sometimes twice a week. I've struggle to get myself to eat the extra calories beyond normal (I'll eat a little beyond normal, but not enough to fully compensate). Should I worry about this and work to break that mental barrier to eat more?

Replies

  • Mithridites
    Mithridites Posts: 600 Member
    You can bank them for the next day or the weekend. I get hungry the day after an intense workout. Maybe you so too Some people like to have an indulgent meal once a week. Basically you can view your calorie budget as weekly. Whatever works.
  • spiriteagle99
    spiriteagle99 Posts: 3,730 Member
    After a hard workout, I eat to my hunger. Sometimes it's the same day, sometimes the day after. Don't force yourself to eat if you aren't hungry.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    Unless you have ambitions to increase your running or cycling to long endurance distances that need specific fuelling on the day then not seeing a problem in averaging out your calorie needs out over time.
  • SharpWellbeing
    SharpWellbeing Posts: 68 Member
    richardgavel wrote: »
    I tend to do best when I stick with a routine and constantly reinforce my habits. I have a pretty steady calorie burn and eat roughly 2100 calories on an average day (trying to lose .5 lbs/week) and I'm dialing in the calories pretty well, not quite there yet. My question comes in when I have a more intense cardio day (a long run or a significant bike ride, something that gets my exercise burn for the day in the 800+ range), which is maybe once or sometimes twice a week. I've struggle to get myself to eat the extra calories beyond normal (I'll eat a little beyond normal, but not enough to fully compensate). Should I worry about this and work to break that mental barrier to eat more?

    If your goal is weight loss then why try and eat the extra calories from the exercise unless you actually feel low on energy and feel you need extra energy? Don't listen to people telling you what your body needs listen to your body.
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
    janejellyroll wrote: »
    I'm usually not hungry the day of intense cardio, it tends to dampen my appetite. I'm usually hungry the next day, so I'll have the calories then (or over the next couple of days if I'm not especially hungry the next day).

    All of this, me too.
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,825 Member
    janejellyroll wrote: »
    I'm usually not hungry the day of intense cardio, it tends to dampen my appetite. I'm usually hungry the next day, so I'll have the calories then (or over the next couple of days if I'm not especially hungry the next day).

    Yes, me too! Especially things that make people super hungry like swimming.
  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,522 Member
    I'm amazed all the other cyclists have missed this discussion. It comes up a lot!

    Cycling can burn a lot of calories. But, certain estimates can be high. I think the MFP estimate is a little high, for example, and I use the one from my Garmin watch. It amounts to a few hundred calories difference over a 90 minute vigorous ride.

    Riding makes me hungry. Also, I sometimes need to eat during a longer ride to keep up the pace (usually a banana or sometimes a sports gel like Gu). Sometimes I'm not all that hungry later in the day, but I'm generally ravenous the next day and I have to be careful not to over-compensate.

    (Soap box: MFP should list your deficit averaged over several days instead of just for the current day.)

    Anyway, if your goal is to lose weight, and you aren't particularly hungry, then you don't need to eat all your exercise calories back. In fact, I've found that it pays to short your exercise calories somewhat.

    Best of luck!
  • SharpWellbeing
    SharpWellbeing Posts: 68 Member
    Jthanmyfitnesspal wrote: »
    I'm amazed all the other cyclists have missed this discussion. It comes up a lot!

    Cycling can burn a lot of calories. But, certain estimates can be high. I think the MFP estimate is a little high, for example, and I use the one from my Garmin watch. It amounts to a few hundred calories difference over a 90 minute vigorous ride.

    Riding makes me hungry. Also, I sometimes need to eat during a longer ride to keep up the pace (usually a banana or sometimes a sports gel like Gu). Sometimes I'm not all that hungry later in the day, but I'm generally ravenous the next day and I have to be careful not to over-compensate.

    (Soap box: MFP should list your deficit averaged over several days instead of just for the current day.)

    Anyway, if your goal is to lose weight, and you aren't particularly hungry, then you don't need to eat all your exercise calories back. In fact, I've found that it pays to short your exercise calories somewhat.

    Best of luck!

    Good advice there mate!
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,053 Member
    Another vote for having some of those extra calories the next day.
  • Dogmom1978
    Dogmom1978 Posts: 1,580 Member
    If you are confident that you are burning 800+ calories, you should be eating some of them back. You said in your OP that you eat some back, but didn’t specify how many. As others suggested, you can bank them for later in the week to have a special meal also (I do this once or twice a month).
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    richardgavel wrote: »
    I tend to do best when I stick with a routine and constantly reinforce my habits. I have a pretty steady calorie burn and eat roughly 2100 calories on an average day (trying to lose .5 lbs/week) and I'm dialing in the calories pretty well, not quite there yet. My question comes in when I have a more intense cardio day (a long run or a significant bike ride, something that gets my exercise burn for the day in the 800+ range), which is maybe once or sometimes twice a week. I've struggle to get myself to eat the extra calories beyond normal (I'll eat a little beyond normal, but not enough to fully compensate). Should I worry about this and work to break that mental barrier to eat more?

    Is the struggle that you are not really particularly hungry, or is it an actual mental barrier telling you that you can't consume more than 2100 calories?

    Also, some other points of clarification...does your normal 2100 calories to lose 1/2Lb per week include your regular exercise? I'm just wondering because with my regular exercise I can regularly eat 2300-2500 calories per day and lose about 1 Lb per week...so 2100 to lose 1/2 Lb seems low to me if you're exercising regularly.

    I'd say it ultimately comes down to what your actual deficit is as to whether or not this could present an issue. For myself, with regular exercise, 2100 calories would be a pretty substantial deficit...somewhere between 1.5 to 2 Lbs per week.

    Are you using MFP as designed or are you using TDEE? I switched to TDEE later in my weight loss endeavors as exercise became more regular and routine...while this provided me with a pretty steady CI, the actual size of my deficit day to day was variable depending on what I did that day...ie when I was training for a sprint tri, I would have a larger deficit on a brick work day and a smaller or even non-existent deficit on a recovery day, but it all smoothed out over the course of a given week.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    SharpWellbeing wrote: »
    richardgavel wrote: »
    I tend to do best when I stick with a routine and constantly reinforce my habits. I have a pretty steady calorie burn and eat roughly 2100 calories on an average day (trying to lose .5 lbs/week) and I'm dialing in the calories pretty well, not quite there yet. My question comes in when I have a more intense cardio day (a long run or a significant bike ride, something that gets my exercise burn for the day in the 800+ range), which is maybe once or sometimes twice a week. I've struggle to get myself to eat the extra calories beyond normal (I'll eat a little beyond normal, but not enough to fully compensate). Should I worry about this and work to break that mental barrier to eat more?

    If your goal is weight loss then why try and eat the extra calories from the exercise unless you actually feel low on energy and feel you need extra energy? Don't listen to people telling you what your body needs listen to your body.

    The problem with this blanket poor advice is that following it doesn't always result in immediate reaction that is noticeable.

    Usually slowly over time is the effect, and for some "listening to your body" (which frankly most are not experienced enough at) won't work while moving into a state of stressed from lack of recovery.

    Each workout will "feel" difficult because you may be pushing yourself to what "feels" like the same amount.

    But by reading (not feeling) external numbers (is pace dropping, is HR going higher to maintain same pace, ect) it can be noticed not actually doing as well.

    Lifting weights and having numbers is another type of workout one can catch this on at least.
    Other common workouts not so much - you feel like you are pushing yourself just as hard, but no way to confirm.

    And the problem with it taking a while to be noticeable enough, it can take awhile to recover from that state too.

    OP - if this is a very reasonable deficit, then you may not notice the extra deficit and if a day or two between harder workouts you are able to refill the tank enough for next workout to be decent.
    But think about the recovery of the one you just did, if really burning that much in short time, probably was intense enough to warrant a good recovery makeup of food.
  • Dunegirl15
    Dunegirl15 Posts: 12 Member
    Jthanmyfitnesspal wrote: »

    (Soap box: MFP should list your deficit averaged over several days instead of just for the current day.)

    Not sure if someone has mentioned this, but you can see how far over/under your calorie deficit you are for a week rather than just daily, at least in the app version of MFP. In the diary, if you go to Nutrition button (alternate shortcut is to tap your daily calories at the top), then click on Calories and then Day View, you can toggle the setting from “Day View” to “Weekly View” which gives you that data. Makes it easier to bank calories.

    Personally I use the TDEE method to smooth out the strong fluctuations in my activity. I have an arbitrary week (currently Tuesday-Monday) and I don’t worry too much about a particular day’s calories but mainly watch the weekly numbers.
  • SharpWellbeing
    SharpWellbeing Posts: 68 Member
    heybales wrote: »
    SharpWellbeing wrote: »
    richardgavel wrote: »
    I tend to do best when I stick with a routine and constantly reinforce my habits. I have a pretty steady calorie burn and eat roughly 2100 calories on an average day (trying to lose .5 lbs/week) and I'm dialing in the calories pretty well, not quite there yet. My question comes in when I have a more intense cardio day (a long run or a significant bike ride, something that gets my exercise burn for the day in the 800+ range), which is maybe once or sometimes twice a week. I've struggle to get myself to eat the extra calories beyond normal (I'll eat a little beyond normal, but not enough to fully compensate). Should I worry about this and work to break that mental barrier to eat more?

    If your goal is weight loss then why try and eat the extra calories from the exercise unless you actually feel low on energy and feel you need extra energy? Don't listen to people telling you what your body needs listen to your body.

    The problem with this blanket poor advice is that following it doesn't always result in immediate reaction that is noticeable.

    Usually slowly over time is the effect, and for some "listening to your body" (which frankly most are not experienced enough at) won't work while moving into a state of stressed from lack of recovery.

    Each workout will "feel" difficult because you may be pushing yourself to what "feels" like the same amount.

    But by reading (not feeling) external numbers (is pace dropping, is HR going higher to maintain same pace, ect) it can be noticed not actually doing as well.

    Lifting weights and having numbers is another type of workout one can catch this on at least.
    Other common workouts not so much - you feel like you are pushing yourself just as hard, but no way to confirm.

    And the problem with it taking a while to be noticeable enough, it can take awhile to recover from that state too.

    Using timing and distance i.e. performance as a guide is excellent advice but doesn't detract from listening to your body. I also think it's disempowering to assume people don't know how to listen to their body. Most people know when they're tired or not. The body has a knack for telling you. The poster is already saying he is doing that by referring to the fact he feels like he is forcing food down himself.

    I may have understood the original post but it was my understanding the poster is trying to lose weight and is not an athlete or in training, if I'm wrong then hands up and very different approaches and advice would be more suitable. However for someone on a weight loss journey listening to the body is exactly what is needed, generic equation/formula numbers are a sure fire way for things to be more difficult then they have to be.

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