I am going eat my exercise calories

Corrie62

I have been reading a lot of posts on here about the "should I" or "shouldn't I" eat exercise calories. I am one who traditionally doesn't eat them...usually...well not all of them anyway. I have actually been purposely trying not to, but only use them to allow me to have a evening snack if I am really hungry or craving and don't have enough regular calories to accomodate, or to allow me to get to the 1200 without worrying about going over (after all if I am at 1195, can't imagine eating only like 1 peanut to get me to 1200).

I am consistently losing weight, so probably shouldn't change what I am doing, but I feel I need to shake things up. Am I bored? I don't know...maybe. I just know that I am feeling discouraged and like I am getting into a rut. Also I have been having headaches. I think those may be more related to the excessive humidity that us Saskachewanians (don't try to pronounce that...Saskatchewan is a province in Canada, and those are the people who live there...lol) are not used to, but maybe because I am not eating enough.

My weigh-in day is Monday evening after supper (I know that's a dumb time, but I go to TOPS and that weigh-in is what I use as official). So, beginning August 16th, I will start to eat ALL (or at least with in 0-100 cal remaining) of my exercise calories.

I will make my food diary public so feel free to look at it an give me heck if I am not meeting my committment to myself and please let me know if there are things I can do to tweak my intake.

I do have a questions. If I consider this an experiment, how long should I do it for? Of course if it is working I will continue to do it, but if it isn't and I am maintaining, or gaining weight, do I quit right away, or give my body a few weeks to adjust?

My deficit is set at 2 lbs a week, but I think because of my weight it says I should lose 1.6 lbs a week

If anyone wants to try this with me feel free to come along for the ride (or walk, or run, or bike)

VeryKerri

Just a suggestion.. Not sure if you should just jump right into eating them all right away. I think you will see a gain in weight and that may discourage you. I have seen many PT recommend working your way up to this by starting out slowly 50-100 cals a day extra for a week and then in two weeks add another 50-100 cals. Of course it's your decision, I just wanted to offer the advice.
Thanks

Corrie62

Just a suggestion.. Not sure if you should just jump right into eating them all right away. I think you will see a gain in weight and that may discourage you. I have seen many PT recommend working your way up to this by starting out slowly 50-100 cals a day extra for a week and then in two weeks add another 50-100 cals. Of course it's your decision, I just wanted to offer the advice.
Thanks

Hmmm...thanks...good suggestion. Maybe I will start that part right away and not wait til next week.

batty5

Sorry to say I cannot understand why you want to change a winning formula? I gained weight eating my exercise calories & have now dropped to 1000 calories on doctors advice & eat very few of my exercise calories & finally am losing weight. After over 9 weeks I have only lost 10 lbs but most of that has been lost in the last 2 weeks.If boredom is the problem why not experiment with your meal content???

Corrie62

Sorry to say I cannot understand why you want to change a winning formula? I gained weight eating my exercise calories & have now dropped to 1000 calories on doctors advice & eat very few of my exercise calories & finally am losing weight. After over 9 weeks I have only lost 10 lbs but most of that has been lost in the last 2 weeks.If boredom is the problem why not experiment with your meal content???

Well I have been reading lots of posts and articles on this issue, and for as many as I read that say it is not necessary to eat exercise calories there are just as many that say that it is really important to eat them...and for as many people that say they are losing without eating them, there are just as many people who say they are losing (faster?) eating them. Because I can't find any definitive yes or no about the issue, just though I would try it myself. If it doesn't work, I will go back to what I was doing before. I am a Social Worker working in the Mental Health field, and belong to a highly research oriented team (whole bunch of PhD Psychologists), and I think some of it has rubbed off on me. So this is my own research project I guess and I am my own guinea pig.

Easy to tell I am bored and not motivated at work today isn't it. :blushing:

stormieweather

Don't forget to leave uneaten the ones you would have burnt normally during that exercise time. Ie: I burn 75 calories per hour doing absolutely nothing (my RMR). So if I go on the elliptical for an hour and burn 500 calories, I need to NOT eat 75 of those calories, because that's already included in my base caloric allowance. I actually leave a little more than that because I don't use a heart monitor and it's all just guesstimates.

Corrie62

Don't forget to leave uneaten the ones you would have burnt normally during that exercise time. Ie: I burn 75 calories per hour doing absolutely nothing (my RMR). So if I go on the elliptical for an hour and burn 500 calories, I need to NOT eat 75 of those calories, because that's already included in my base caloric allowance. I actually leave a little more than that because I don't use a heart monitor and it's all just guesstimates.

But aren't those already accounted for in my daily allowance?

LotusF1ower

I have been reading a lot of posts on here about the "should I" or "shouldn't I" eat exercise calories. I am one who traditionally doesn't eat them...usually...well not all of them anyway. I have actually been purposely trying not to, but only use them to allow me to have a evening snack if I am really hungry or craving and don't have enough regular calories to accomodate, or to allow me to get to the 1200 without worrying about going over (after all if I am at 1195, can't imagine eating only like 1 peanut to get me to 1200).

I am consistently losing weight, so probably shouldn't change what I am doing, but I feel I need to shake things up. Am I bored? I don't know...maybe. I just know that I am feeling discouraged and like I am getting into a rut. Also I have been having headaches. I think those may be more related to the excessive humidity that us Saskachewanians (don't try to pronounce that...Saskatchewan is a province in Canada, and those are the people who live there...lol) are not used to, but maybe because I am not eating enough.

My weigh-in day is Monday evening after supper (I know that's a dumb time, but I go to TOPS and that weigh-in is what I use as official). So, beginning August 16th, I will start to eat ALL (or at least with in 0-100 cal remaining) of my exercise calories.

I will make my food diary public so feel free to look at it an give me heck if I am not meeting my committment to myself and please let me know if there are things I can do to tweak my intake.

I do have a questions. If I consider this an experiment, how long should I do it for? Of course if it is working I will continue to do it, but if it isn't and I am maintaining, or gaining weight, do I quit right away, or give my body a few weeks to adjust?

My deficit is set at 2 lbs a week, but I think because of my weight it says I should lose 1.6 lbs a week

If anyone wants to try this with me feel free to come along for the ride (or walk, or run, or bike)

First of all, I wouldn't personally change something that works.

However, as you wish to try this and asked how long should you do it for, I would do it as long as it works. If eating the exercise calories works better for you than not eating them, stick with it, but if not eating them works better for you, I would then stop the experiment and revert back to what I know did work before.

Just don't sabotage your own progress for the sake of an experiment :flowerforyou:

stormieweather

Don't forget to leave uneaten the ones you would have burnt normally during that exercise time. Ie: I burn 75 calories per hour doing absolutely nothing (my RMR). So if I go on the elliptical for an hour and burn 500 calories, I need to NOT eat 75 of those calories, because that's already included in my base caloric allowance. I actually leave a little more than that because I don't use a heart monitor and it's all just guesstimates.

But aren't those already accounted for in my daily allowance?

But your heart monitor and the machines at the gym don't know that. Since these calories are already accounted for in your daily allowance, they shouldn't be eaten again. Ie: I have 1500 calories per day allowance, which is 62.5 calories per hour. I'd have used those calories no matter what I was doing (and eaten them). If I add 500 calories to that, I'm basically saying I burned 562.5 calories in that one hour, which is not the result I want. Basically, I deduct 10-20% of my workout calories and leave them as a cushion against miscalculations and normal burn.

Corrie62

But your heart monitor and the machines at the gym don't know that. Since these calories are already accounted for in your daily allowance, they shouldn't be eaten again. Ie: I have 1500 calories per day allowance, which is 62.5 calories per hour. I'd have used those calories no matter what I was doing (and eaten them). If I add 500 calories to that, I'm basically saying I burned 562.5 calories in that one hour, which is not the result I want. Basically, I deduct 10-20% of my workout calories and leave them as a cushion against miscalculations and normal burn.

Okay...that makes sense. I do have a HRM...just new Tuesday. That means when I do log my cals I should either eat less or deduct my BMR/24 (or should it be my allowance/24?) from what I enter for exercise. Do I have that right? What about the MFP exercise estimations...does that include the deduction for resting heart rate?

canstey

But your heart monitor and the machines at the gym don't know that. Since these calories are already accounted for in your daily allowance, they shouldn't be eaten again. Ie: I have 1500 calories per day allowance, which is 62.5 calories per hour. I'd have used those calories no matter what I was doing (and eaten them). If I add 500 calories to that, I'm basically saying I burned 562.5 calories in that one hour, which is not the result I want. Basically, I deduct 10-20% of my workout calories and leave them as a cushion against miscalculations and normal burn.

Okay...that makes sense. I do have a HRM...just new Tuesday. That means when I do log my cals I should either eat less or deduct my BMR/24 (or should it be my allowance/24?) from what I enter for exercise. Do I have that right? What about the MFP exercise estimations...does that include the deduction for resting heart rate?

I would recommend that you don't attempt to back out your BMR/RMR calories and here is why.

When the charts used in the calculations for calories burned during exercise were created, it was based upon measuring O2 consumption during activity, as in purely aerobic activity. However there will be some anaerobic (without O2) energy used that was not accounted for and takes your body up to 24 to 48 hours to restore depending on how much you depleted. This is where the notion of "Post exercise increase in metabolism" or EPOC (Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption) comes from. I don't like the term but it is accurate in the sense that some of the calories burned during exercise cannot be recorded at the time of activity by traditional O2 consumption measurements but can only be measured after exercise as an increase in energy use over normal BMR/RMR.

It is like trying to determine how much hot water energy you just used taking a shower. You used the energy during the shower but the only way to measure it is to see how much energy it takes to reheat the water in the hot water tank back to normal after you have finished your shower.

Corrie62

Been reading more, and decided that I am not going to do engage in this "experiment". I am not saying that I am not going to eat back my exercise calories ever, but just that I am not going to make a point of it.

Thanks for all the information...this has helped me in my decisions.

eannecherick

I have been eating my exercise calories and I have already lost a pound! I just started this program a week ago. I eat my exercise calories, but I make sure not to eat all of them (I usually leave just under 100 calories) and I don't eat late at night.

Good luck to you!

chugglebunny

I personally would only eat back my exercise calories if not eating them would leave me under my 1200 a day....say I eat 1000 then work off 300 i'd eat up to 500 if I could after (which includes 300 exercise) to make sure my body gets the orginal 1200....or it starts the starvation mode risk.

raymj61

It sounds like you're doing well. If you decide to do this, I would ease into it if I were you, and not necessarily be on a mission to eat all of your exercise calories.

I'm doing 1200 cals intake also but, I don't stress too much about not going a little over as long as I don't go over 1400 because most people can still lose weight consistantly on anything under 1500, plus on days when I exercise a lot, I feel my body wanting more cals but I never make a conscious effort to eat my exercise cals and rarely eat them all except on the few occasions where I had dinner at a restaurant for an occasion of something

Keep in mind, this is only my very unprofessional opinion but this is working well for me thus far and it sounds like whatever you've been doing is working too, that's why I would ease into it if I were you and get a sense of what does and doesn't work. Good luck