my doc says don't eat exercise calories??????

batty5

As currently it isn't working for me my doctor has said not to eat my exercise calories, or as few as possible of them. He says it is a simple input/ output equation so if I am not losing weight I must be eating too many calories! Currently I am eating about half of my exercise calories & I have to say I am inclined to agree with him even though so many people lose weight here. I think that we don't all burn calories at the same rate even if we weigh the same so looks as if I burn them very slowly but am thinking yoying calories may work so one week less next week more what do others advise please? I am desperate as have been trying to lose weight for 2 years now & to date have only lost 7lbs total & only 2lbs in last 6 weeks since joining.

FunkBunny

I understand the doctor's advice...but you have to understand that the MFP base calories it assigns you is already at a calorie deficit from your metabolic rate based on your lifestyle. So if you don't exercise and stay in your caloric range, you will still lose.
But when you exercise you will need more calories to maintain your metabolism in order to lose weight still.
Also, as you build muscle you will begin to rev up your metabolism and burn more calories even while resting. everyone's metabolism is different, be it for genetic reasons, body composition or due to medications people are on. All those factors come in to play. The good point is that you are losing, you are moving in the right direction, evn if it's slower than you would like. Weight will fluctuate up and down, but if the results are coming in, stick with it!

klmix08

What do you have your activity style set at? You may not have the level set appropriately.

SHBoss1673

As currently it isn't working for me my doctor has said not to eat my exercise calories, or as few as possible of them. He says it is a simple input/ output equation so if I am not losing weight I must be eating too many calories! Currently I am eating about half of my exercise calories & I have to say I am inclined to agree with him even though so many people lose weight here. I think that we don't all burn calories at the same rate even if we weigh the same so looks as if I burn them very slowly but am thinking yoying calories may work so one week less next week more what do others advise please? I am desperate as have been trying to lose weight for 2 years now & to date have only lost 7lbs total & only 2lbs in last 6 weeks since joining.

I see this a lot with both doctors and trainers. It's usually because the MFP member failed to properly explain MFP to them. Did you explain to your doctor that MFP already puts you at a caloric deficit before you even think about exercising? And that the exercise calories are just the way to remain at that deficit?

I've spoken to plenty of trainer all of which initially say "don't eat them" but then after explained the situation say "Oh, well if they're already at a deficit then that's fine." I don't have the opportunity to speak to a lot of doctors on this (and in truth, doctors aren't always the best people to advise on nutrition, usually it's better to see a dietitian as they have specific nutrition training where many doctors don't).

Lisa0711

Since talking with your doctor is more individual-specific, I would give it a try. Many people on here eat all, some, half, or none of their calories. I've heard of success stories with each. It can't hurt to give it a try since nothing else is working. Just be sure you're eating ENOUGH calories. If you don't eat enough (at least 1200) it can put your body in starvation mode and halt progress just like eating too many calories would. I hope it works for you - good luck!

BrattyLori

Thats what my doc says too. I THOUGHT people were full of baloney to say to eat exercise cals so I asked my doc. My doc says that people who say that just want permission to overeat. Do NOT eat your exercies cals!

recipe4success

Another thing to keep in mind is that the calorie amounts given by MFP for exercise are not very accurate, so you may actually be burning less or more than what it says. Of course if you are using a heart rate monitor (not sure if you are) then you can be confident that your numbers are as accurate as possible.

If you made your diary public i'd be happy to take a peek at it for you.

recipe4success

Also, with all due respect, doctors only get about 2 classes worth of nutrition, so they are certainly not the experts in regards to what one should do with exercise calories

smuehlbauer

I have two suggestions if you aren't already doing them.

HRM - get one. The calorie burn they have on MFP is very general and will vary from person to person.

Food scale - get one. Gussing at you portion size is one of the biggest mistakes that people do. Do you really now what an ounce of cheese, or meat looks like? You'd be surprised!

I usually leave some calories on the table when the day is done, but I eat most of my exercise calories, and no, I'm not looking to 'over eat' like the previous poster suggested. Ha!

mooz

I've always been of the same mindset - don't eat them. I know MFP already puts me at a deficit but I think of it as this...the deficit is to lose weight, exercise is to make my heart happy. I don't think of exercise as a necessity to lose weight, it's a necessity of good health. May not make sense to anyone else but it does to me.

Plus, MFPs exercise cals always seem SO high to me and I don't have a HRM to accurately measure my output. So I think I'd likely be overeating all the time.

AVeryMegGirl

I use a heart rate monitor to see how many calories I am actually burning vs MFP calories.. Majority of the time MFP is off.. Depending on the amount I burn I will usually eat half my exercise calories.

Hope this helps!

vencellia

I agree with your doctor maybe we all are different, because I dont lose when I eat mine. So I just eat healthy and workout and I lose really good that way!

Rugbychick16

Thats what my doc says too. I THOUGHT people were full of baloney to say to eat exercise cals so I asked my doc. My doc says that people who say that just want permission to overeat. Do NOT eat your exercies cals!

I for one most definatly do not eat my excersise calories so I can give myself "permission to overeat", and that general statement with regards to everyone who does eat them seems a little bit harsh.

Everyone on here needs to do whats BEST for THEM. Don't do what's best for me, or your friends or anyone else.

I ALWAYS eat my excersise calories, due to the caloric deficit on MFP, NOT in order for me to have "permission" to eat.

It just makes sence to me to do that for myself. And it works for me.

SHBoss1673

I've always been of the same mindset - don't eat them. I know MFP already puts me at a deficit but I think of it as this...the deficit is to lose weight, exercise is to make my heart happy. I don't think of exercise as a necessity to lose weight, it's a necessity of good health. May not make sense to anyone else but it does to me.

Plus, MFPs exercise cals always seem SO high to me and I don't have a HRM to accurately measure my output. So I think I'd likely be overeating all the time.

to the first part. While I understand your line of thought, it's inaccurate in that exercise does burn extra calories, so ignoring them doesn't make them irrelevant, whether you choose to eat them or not, your body will still need more calories if it burns more calories.
I completely agree that exercise is very good for your cardiovascular system and a necessity for most people to live a happy, healthy life, but it also means you must provide fuel for that exercise.

To the second part: I agree, MFP's exercise database is basically of very little use as everyone burns calories at their own rate, and thus using someone else's calorie burn for a particular exercise is not very accurate.

mworld

He says it is a simple input/ output equation so if I am not losing weight I must be eating too many calories!

The doctor makes perfect sense here and obviously agrees with MFP's methodology. Of course if you use the wrong numbers in the equation you won't get the expected result.

mooz

I agree that I need to fuel my body appropriately to function with or without exercise. I guess I think that way because my weight is so high [335lbs] that I really feel at this point its counter-productive to eat those calories or at the very least not detrimental to my health if I don't eat them.

I know at my weight that my body won't go into "starvation mode" so I'm not too worried about it. As I lose weight I know I'll have to adjust my caloric intake and output.

merebear

YES!!!! My doctor said the same. Just this week I went to a medical weight loss center to sign up and the physician there said to go down to a 1000 calorie diet - as opposed to the 1200 the MFP gave me - and she said that no matter how much I work out, I should still only take in the 1000 calories a day....this confused me because MFP says that "if you keep your calories this low your body will go into starvation mode" - the important thing she said also is to slightly vary how many calories you take in each day - 950, 1050, 1000, etc - to keep your body guessing. Wow! Now I know why i have hit a plateau......I thought if i burned an extra 400 calories then it meant I could have a little extra that day or a treat :sad: Yikes!! But I am going to follow my doctor's advice since I am under her care specifically for this medical weight loss program.

merebear

YES!!!! My doctor said the same. Just this week I went to a medical weight loss center to sign up and the physician there said to go down to a 1000 calorie diet - as opposed to the 1200 the MFP gave me - and she said that no matter how much I work out, I should still only take in the 1000 calories a day....this confused me because MFP says that "if you keep your calories this low your body will go into starvation mode" - the important thing she said also is to slightly vary how many calories you take in each day - 950, 1050, 1000, etc - to keep your body guessing. Wow! Now I know why i have hit a plateau......I thought if i burned an extra 400 calories then it meant I could have a little extra that day or a treat :sad: Yikes!! But I am going to follow my doctor's advice since I am under her care specifically for this medical weight loss program.

SHBoss1673

I agree that I need to fuel my body appropriately to function with or without exercise. I guess I think that way because my weight is so high [335lbs] that I really feel at this point its counter-productive to eat those calories or at the very least not detrimental to my health if I don't eat them.

I know at my weight that my body won't go into "starvation mode" so I'm not too worried about it. As I lose weight I know I'll have to adjust my caloric intake and output.

this is true, the more adipose fat you have, the larger the deficit you can have without entering starvation mode. But the concept is still there, to put it maybe in a better way, when you do lose much of the weight, it's good to be aware of this concept as it will eventually be something you need to deal with. But for now, I doubt it's something that will cause you an issue. To YOU specifically though, not as a general rule.

S_H84

Also, with all due respect, doctors only get about 2 classes worth of nutrition, so they are certainly not the experts in regards to what one should do with exercise calories

uh, and how many nutritional classes have people on MFP taken? /sarcasm
The information that medical school students get is enough for them to give great advice on nutrition.

Personally, I would give it a try what your doctor said. Maybe your setting is also wrong on here ( in regards to how much you want to loose etc). Maybe you are not working out enough, eating the right things, etc. There are so many variables.

There are days where I eat my exercise calories, because I feel my body needs it, on other days I don't eat them. My husband is a marathon runner and doesn't eat (all) his exercise calories. It is more important to give your body the nutrition that it needs than ensuring you eat the exercise calories.....

Good luck.

mooz

Boss man, you're right. I know I'll have to adjust my thinking later on. And I'm glad I'm on this site with people like you to help guide me along if I need it

SHBoss1673

YES!!!! My doctor said the same. Just this week I went to a medical weight loss center to sign up and the physician there said to go down to a 1000 calorie diet - as opposed to the 1200 the MFP gave me - and she said that no matter how much I work out, I should still only take in the 1000 calories a day....this confused me because MFP says that "if you keep your calories this low your body will go into starvation mode" - the important thing she said also is to slightly vary how many calories you take in each day - 950, 1050, 1000, etc - to keep your body guessing. Wow! Now I know why i have hit a plateau......I thought if i burned an extra 400 calories then it meant I could have a little extra that day or a treat :sad: Yikes!! But I am going to follow my doctor's advice since I am under her care specifically for this medical weight loss program.

first, you should never use your own anecdotal situation to advise others (give anecdotes as examples of outcome, not as guidelines for others). Second, you should never advise others to use a program that has been built and relies upon expert supervision, let the expert give that advice. Telling others to go to a 1000 calorie plan just because you are on a medically supervised 1000 calorie diet is not good advice.
third, we have no idea what your situation is, therefore we have no idea why the doctor would have advised this for you. If you're going to advise a 1000 calorie diet, at least give us your complete situation, numbers, activity schedule, the doctor's reasoning. In other words a complete consultation.

dharmachic

May I make a suggestion? I watched an interesting BBC program on weight loss and they showed that on average, people under-report their calories, even when keeping a food journal. In a case study, there was a woman who swore up and down that she ate well between 1100-1200 calories but couldn't lose weight and blamed her lack of progress to a slow metabolism.

Her metabolism tested to be almost on the spot normal, so she was asked to do one week of keeping a video diary where she recalled everything she ate at the end of the day, and the next week, writing down what she ate in a food journal immediately after each meal. Since she said she's always eaten between 1100-1200 cal, she was asked not to change her typical meal plan but continue as usual. Her urine was also tested daily to reveal exactly how many calories she did happen to eat.

Her results? Her urine samples showed that she actually ate over 3000 cal/day. She underreported her calories in the video diary by over 60%, and underreported her calories in the food journal by 43%.

This is not to say that this is what happened in your case, only that the majority of us don't really recall or incorrectly estimate our food intake. Keeping a food journal is still the best thing to do statistically, but before worrying about exercise calories or whatnot - if I were in your situation - I would carefully examine how accurately I am recording my calories. No one is asking for 100% accuracy, but as in the example above, she was eating over twice as many calories as she genuinely thought she was, by not accounting for the little mindless snacks she had, or the quantity of food and portion sizes she was having.

Having a food scale greatly helped me and honestly, surprised the heck out of me at how much food weighs! I bought mine at Ralph's for a reasonable price, and while I don't weigh every single morsel, it has helped in "re-calibrating" my food expectations.

SHBoss1673

Also, with all due respect, doctors only get about 2 classes worth of nutrition, so they are certainly not the experts in regards to what one should do with exercise calories

uh, and how many nutritional classes have people on MFP taken? /sarcasm
The information that medical school students get is enough for them to give great advice on nutrition.

Personally, I would give it a try what your doctor said. Maybe your setting is also wrong on here ( in regards to how much you want to loose etc). Maybe you are not working out enough, eating the right things, etc. There are so many variables.

There are days where I eat my exercise calories, because I feel my body needs it, on other days I don't eat them. My husband is a marathon runner and doesn't eat (all) his exercise calories. It is more important to give your body the nutrition that it needs than ensuring you eat the exercise calories.....

Good luck.

A recent study from the New England Journal of Medicine found that 80 % of doctors that replied to a survey failed a basic nutrition exam. That good enough?

Doctors receive 1 or sometimes 2 classes in pre-med on nutrition, basic 200 level classes that every biology major receives, I personally wouldn't ask a doctor for general nutrition advice unless I asked and received confirmation that they have attended follow up courses. Some do now, as diet is becoming a huge concern, but the majority of doctors still have little or no specialized nutrition training. And I don't think they need it, what they should be doing is refering people to registered dietitians, or specialists, just like if they found cancer they would refer to an oncologist.
There are now a few Med Schools that offer additional training in nutrition, but it's by no means the norm in medical school.

And yes, my PT certification has an extensive section on nutrition, though I would never ever consider myself a nutritionist, I've done quite a bit of research on it. I still defer to dietitians.

lisawest

As currently it isn't working for me my doctor has said not to eat my exercise calories, or as few as possible of them. He says it is a simple input/ output equation so if I am not losing weight I must be eating too many calories! Currently I am eating about half of my exercise calories & I have to say I am inclined to agree with him even though so many people lose weight here. I think that we don't all burn calories at the same rate even if we weigh the same so looks as if I burn them very slowly but am thinking yoying calories may work so one week less next week more what do others advise please? I am desperate as have been trying to lose weight for 2 years now & to date have only lost 7lbs total & only 2lbs in last 6 weeks since joining.

I have had to use all three exercise calorie theories (all, some, none) in order to get where I am. My MIL and SIL neither one lose weight by eating their exercise calories. My husband loses weight best by eating almost all of his. You have to experiment and figure out what is going to work best for you. Give the doctor's suggestion a good try (at least a month, if not more!). See where you are then. Evaluate how you feel, and your energy levels, not just the weight loss. If it works for you, stick with it. If it's not working, maybe you need to try something else. The most important thing to remember is that this is a journey, NOT A SPRINT!!! Give each new tweak time to work (a month or two will generally tell you if it's working). Most importantly, ENJOY THE RIDE! If you aren't happy, you are less likely to stick with your new lifestyle after you lose the weight.

Good luck in finding what works for you!:flowerforyou:

SHBoss1673

May I make a suggestion? I watched an interesting BBC program on weight loss and they showed that on average, people under-report their calories, even when keeping a food journal. In a case study, there was a woman who swore up and down that she ate well between 1100-1200 calories but couldn't lose weight and blamed her lack of progress to a slow metabolism.

Her metabolism tested to be almost on the spot normal, so she was asked to do one week of keeping a video diary where she recalled everything she ate at the end of the day, and the next week, writing down what she ate in a food journal immediately after each meal. Since she said she's always eaten between 1100-1200 cal, she was asked not to change her typical meal plan but continue as usual. Her urine was also tested daily to reveal exactly how many calories she did happen to eat.

Her results? Her urine samples showed that she actually ate over 3000 cal/day. She underreported her calories in the video diary by over 60%, and underreported her calories in the food journal by 43%.

This is not to say that this is what happened in your case, only that the majority of us don't really recall or incorrectly estimate our food intake. Keeping a food journal is still the best thing to do statistically, but before worrying about exercise calories or whatnot - if I were in your situation - I would carefully examine how accurately I am recording my calories. No one is asking for 100% accuracy, but as in the example above, she was eating over twice as many calories as she genuinely thought she was, by not accounting for the little mindless snacks she had, or the quantity of food and portion sizes she was having.

Having a food scale greatly helped me and honestly, surprised the heck out of me at how much food weighs! I bought mine at Ralph's for a reasonable price, and while I don't weigh every single morsel, it has helped in "re-calibrating" my food expectations.

this is probably a better explanation of why we don't lose on reduced calorie than any other one I've seen in a long time. McMadame says this all the time too, and I would tend to agree.

batty5

Actually I keep my journal after each meal & weigh my portions so know I do not under estimate my intake.

jtapp9

You also need to consider the fact that MFP is trying to teach us a new way to eat FOR LIFE and not just to lose weight. I personally love food to much to ONLY eat 1000 calories a day for the rest of my life. And if I only eat 1000 a day for now then what happens when I lose all the weight then want to go back to a more normal amount of calories? My body wont be able to handle it and I will gain the weight back.

cb1039

Some others have already stated it, but if u are eating under ur calories and exercising and still not losing, u are perhaps under reporting ur calories. I hate to suggest it cause its so expensive, but i would consider investing in a body bug or heart rate monitor and food scale. You also have to remember to add condiments, cream and sugar that u put in ur coffee and all that jazz. those things add up! my sig other is a personal trainer and advises not to eliminate exercise calories, ur body needs these for performance and to keep ur metabolism working. good luck!!

batty5

My activity style is set to sedentary as cannot walk much due to health issues but I swim at least 5 hours weekly & once in the pool I swim as fast as I can for either an hour or hour & half usually breaststroke but currently aqua jogging due to an injury & usually eat about half my exercise calories but obviously they must be too much for me.

recipe4success

Also, with all due respect, doctors only get about 2 classes worth of nutrition, so they are certainly not the experts in regards to what one should do with exercise calories

uh, and how many nutritional classes have people on MFP taken? /sarcasm
The information that medical school students get is enough for them to give great advice on nutrition.

I totally disagree. I have heard this right from the mouth of doctors, that they are not qualified to give any but basic advice on nutrition. They do not get enough training in it to be considered 'experts'.

And i have taken several nutrition classes, which is one of the reasons I can state this with certainty, in addition to having conversations with numerous doctors (who have been in practice for several years).