Eating Back Exercise Calories

Melionfire

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At the weekend I was watching the biggest looser couples that is running on a Sunday morning and one of the guys on there put two pounds on and the trainer suggested it was because he was eating his exercise calories.

If an individual gains weight after starting to eat calories burned through exercise, that is because: (1) the individual was miscalculating his or her maintenance needs; (2) the individual was failing to properly log his or her intake; and/or (3) the individual overestimated calories burned during exercise.

I blame a combination of (2) and (3) primarily.


OP, it's really pretty easy. You're probably lightly active now. Look up what the lightly active TDEE is for your size, age, and sex. http://www.fitnessfrog.com/calculators/tdee-calculator.html

Now subtract some calories from that. You have 70 to lose, so you can have a pretty big deficit. Adjust your intake based on scale trends over time (using more data points than one week, especially if you are female). If you follow this method, ignore calories burned when planning your intake.
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onmyown326

"If you chose to exercise you must eat most or all of your exercise calories back."

That's the part I take issue with. There is a logical fallacy here that says you need to 'eat back' to properly fuel your workouts. Your body's functions, all of them, are fueled just fine by stored calories or today's intake alike. The calories aren't dated.

If you need to fuel today's run with today's calories, why can you use last month's excess calories to fuel some other portion of today's burn? It just doesn't matter where your deficit comes from, just that you maintain a sensible deficit level and a sensible food intake, which is generally considered to be 1000/day deficit and 1200/day intake.

1000% agree with this entire post!:drinker:

heybales

I personally do not eat back all of my calories-I leave 200-250 left. I do insanity so I burn anywhere from 300-400 calories. But leaving a deficient of about 200 a day-if your buring a lot-is good.

Are you aware your calorie eating goal already has a deficit in it - without any exercise being done?

if bigger is better, why do you think it would be unwise to just stop eating until you lost your weight?

That same thing can happen, it just takes longer.

Melionfire

Oops!! I eat 500 cals less than my tdee to give an average loss of 1 pound per week. I don't eat my exercise calories back because it is already factored into my total. I feel i can stick to this long term and that is what really mattered to me. Once I lose a bit more I will adjust this with my me BMR and tdee.

jacksonpt

MFP is setup to eat your calories back. As long as you don't fall below 1200 consistently you should be fine.

Question-why is falling below 1200 a day bad? I don't normally, but sometimes I do.

If you don't know the answer to this, you probably shouldn't be giving advice regarding calorie intake:

I personally do not eat back all of my calories-I leave 200-250 left. I do insanity so I burn anywhere from 300-400 calories. But leaving a deficient of about 200 a day-if your buring a lot-is good.

But going back to your question... falling below 1200 (1200 for the sake of conversation, but it's really more about an unhealthy calorie intake) occasionally isn't a problem. Doing it regularly and consistently can lead to a variety of undesirables, most commonly muscle loss.

.

Nicolee_2014

Some days I do, some days I don't.

onmyown326

MFP is setup to eat your calories back. As long as you don't fall below 1200 consistently you should be fine.

Question-why is falling below 1200 a day bad? I don't normally, but sometimes I do.

If you don't know the answer to this, you probably shouldn't be giving advice regarding calorie intake:

I personally do not eat back all of my calories-I leave 200-250 left. I do insanity so I burn anywhere from 300-400 calories. But leaving a deficient of about 200 a day-if your buring a lot-is good.

But going back to your question... falling below 1200 (1200 for the sake of conversation, but it's really more about an unhealthy calorie intake) occasionally isn't a problem. Doing it regularly and consistently can lead to a variety of undesirables, most commonly muscle loss.

.

I don't have an unhealthy calorie intake-I eat about 1350 a day. And I can give advice-been on here a while-I just LOVE to hear why people think its so bad....there a 1000 reason people give-yours is right.

CallMeCupcakeDammit

www.shouldIeatmyexercisecalories.com

and

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/475726-very-low-calorie-diets-and-metabolic-damage (it's not what you think)

SchroederNJ

Partial because I believe that the number that comes through from the Endomondo synch is overcalculated.

Plan to add more calories once I get closer to the maintenance/toning phase - still trying to lose another 10

ttknowles01

I am currently eating back most of my exercise calories. I didn't start really losing until I started eating them back (my MFP calories are currently 1470, and I burn 400-600 calories per workout). In the end, you will do what works best for you :-)

jacksonpt

MFP is setup to eat your calories back. As long as you don't fall below 1200 consistently you should be fine.

Question-why is falling below 1200 a day bad? I don't normally, but sometimes I do.

If you don't know the answer to this, you probably shouldn't be giving advice regarding calorie intake:

I personally do not eat back all of my calories-I leave 200-250 left. I do insanity so I burn anywhere from 300-400 calories. But leaving a deficient of about 200 a day-if your buring a lot-is good.

But going back to your question... falling below 1200 (1200 for the sake of conversation, but it's really more about an unhealthy calorie intake) occasionally isn't a problem. Doing it regularly and consistently can lead to a variety of undesirables, most commonly muscle loss.

.

I don't have an unhealthy calorie intake-I eat about 1350 a day. And I can give advice-been on here a while-I just LOVE to hear why people think its so bad....there a 1000 reason people give-yours is right.

Yes, dear.

suziepoo1984

I determine the calories burnt using HRM..and then deduct around 50-100 from them to accomodate BMR and yes, i eat those back. Because i am always hungry Lol..If you are not burning too many, reaching your macro goals and netting what you say you are, you should be fine.

Morgaath

I always did. Now I just do TDEE-20% though... but definitely factor in my walks in there.

It doesn't burn 'very little' though. At 170 lbs I was burning 200-250 calories walking for 45 minutes. It's not negligible on a 1200/1400 calories diet.

TDEE means Total Daily Energy Expenditure.
TDEE -20% means that you eat back 20% fewer calories than you burn.
It doesn't matter if you sit on the couch all day and burn 1450cals (goal of 1160 for -20%), or if you run a marathon and burn 4857cals (goal of 3885 for -20%), the number of cals burnt is TDEE.

onmyown326

MFP is setup to eat your calories back. As long as you don't fall below 1200 consistently you should be fine.

Question-why is falling below 1200 a day bad? I don't normally, but sometimes I do.

If you don't know the answer to this, you probably shouldn't be giving advice regarding calorie intake:

I personally do not eat back all of my calories-I leave 200-250 left. I do insanity so I burn anywhere from 300-400 calories. But leaving a deficient of about 200 a day-if your buring a lot-is good.

But going back to your question... falling below 1200 (1200 for the sake of conversation, but it's really more about an unhealthy calorie intake) occasionally isn't a problem. Doing it regularly and consistently can lead to a variety of undesirables, most commonly muscle loss.

.

I don't have an unhealthy calorie intake-I eat about 1350 a day. And I can give advice-been on here a while-I just LOVE to hear why people think its so bad....there a 1000 reason people give-yours is right.

Yes, dear.

your such a pain in the a**-you now that? (in a good-I know everything so don't go under cals kinda way):laugh: :drinker: :flowerforyou:

onmyown326

[

your such a pain in the a**-you now that? (in a good-I know everything so don't go under cals kinda way):laugh: :drinker: :flowerforyou:
[/quote]

typos-sorry!!!!

WalkingAlong

If you need to fuel today's run with today's calories, why can you use last month's excess calories to fuel some other portion of today's burn?

Because a one hour, 10k run for me burns ~1000 calories, and it takes my body about 16 hours to metabolize 1000 calories worth of energy from fat stores. Which means my body *has* to hit the glycogen and intramuscular fat stores. Which means if I don't replenish them - ie, eat a significant amount of my exercise burn back - my body will be physically unable to keep running 10k.

Are you saying you can't physically run a 10k without first eating a significant portion of the 1000 calories that you burn running it, in addition to a sensible base level of calories, despite being overweight?

Letje_Lux

Find your sedentary maintenance calories, subtract 500. Eat that.

Wear a heart rate monitor to track calories burned during exercise and eat your exercise calories back.

The confusion comes in because a lot of people have unwittingly already factored exercise into their maintenance calories, so they inadvertently count it twice.

And/or, they are going by the mfp exercise calculations, which are wildly inaccurate. It usually tells me I've burned 2X the amount of calories I actually burned.

SLLRunner

"If you chose to exercise you must eat most or all of your exercise calories back."

That's the part I take issue with. There is a logical fallacy here that says you need to 'eat back' to properly fuel your workouts. Your body's functions, all of them, are fueled just fine by stored calories or today's intake alike. The calories aren't dated.

If you need to fuel today's run with today's calories, why can you use last month's excess calories to fuel some other portion of today's burn? It just doesn't matter where your deficit comes from, just that you maintain a sensible deficit level and a sensible food intake, which is generally considered to be 1000/day deficit and 1200/day intake.

I understand where you are coming from. The only absolute to weight loss is you must burn more calories than you take in. That's it. Nothing else is required.

If you choose to exercise and don't eat at least a portion of those exercise calories each day, you're not going to have the energy to keep exercising. It's the bottom line. I know this because for awhile when I started logging my food and exercise, I did not eat much of my exercise calories back. Sure, I lost weight but my energy level was seriously lacking. Once I listened to people here regarding eating back exercise calories, my energy level went up and I am now able to exercise at the intensity that I really enjoy.

If I exercised like I do and ate only 1,200 calories a day, I'd be stupid and comatose after a few days. I don't want to be either of those.

However, you're free to do whatever you please.

SLLRunner

Find your sedentary maintenance calories, subtract 500. Eat that.

Wear a heart rate monitor to track calories burned during exercise and eat your exercise calories back.

The confusion comes in because a lot of people have unwittingly already factored exercise into their maintenance calories, so they inadvertently count it twice.

And/or, they are going by the mfp exercise calculations, which are wildly inaccurate. It usually tells me I've burned 2X the amount of calories I actually burned.

While I agree about accurately tracking calories in/expended, I don't know if you mean your TDEE for sedentary or your BMR for sedentary.

SLLRunner

If you need to fuel today's run with today's calories, why can you use last month's excess calories to fuel some other portion of today's burn?

Because a one hour, 10k run for me burns ~1000 calories, and it takes my body about 16 hours to metabolize 1000 calories worth of energy from fat stores. Which means my body *has* to hit the glycogen and intramuscular fat stores. Which means if I don't replenish them - ie, eat a significant amount of my exercise burn back - my body will be physically unable to keep running 10k.

Are you saying you can't physically run a 10k without first eating a significant portion of the 1000 calories that you burn running it, in addition to a sensible base level of calories, despite being overweight?

It's not a day by day thing. Eating properly is an everyday thing. I normally exercise in the morning at 5 a.m. on an empty stomach (can't eat that early). Calories are stored, but what if you eat too few for the workouts you do? You get exhausted.