Reluctant to Eat Exercise Calories Back

WhisperingCloud

Hi, everybody, I'm relatively new to this, been at it about a month. I'm eating 1200 calories a day, and exercising 5 days a week for about an hour, half cardio, half strength... I haven't been recording my exercise for the most part, but recent topics that I've been reading in the forums have got me kind of concerned that maybe I'm being unhealthy. I typically burn 200-400 calories a day exercising, which would put me at a net of around 900 calories a day, which of course, when I put it like that, seems very low. But I don't feel hungry, I eat LOTS, its just mostly veggies, and I've been very satisfied with the results I've seen so far, I've lost 8 lbs, I look good, I feel good. So what I'm wondering is, what will happen if I start eating my exercise calories back, will my weight loss slow down? What will happen if I don't, considering I feel fine?

fangmouse

Bump! I'm like you too, I think! I wanna know more

gollywogger

Same for me. I don't like to eat my exercise calories.

LokiOfAsgard

I don't know your stats, so I can't say how much you should eat. But me? I need about 1800 plus whatever I burn.
If I were to eat 1,200 and not what I burn, I'd only be eating about half of what I need.

I'm going to assume you're set to lose 2 lbs a week.

Here's what happens most of the time. You feel pretty good, you lose a lot of weight, it doesn't bug you that you're not eating so much. In the beginning. After a while, your body is going to have a hard time keeping up with about half of what it needs. You might feel tired, dizzy, maybe hungry. You might lose your hair, get dry skin, brittle nails, possibly permanently damage your metabolism. It's all might, symptoms are different for different people, but chances are you'll get AT LEAST one.

What you're doing isn't healthy, I'm sorry to say Slower is MUCH MUCH better, you'll feel much better if you change your goal to just one lb a week, and eat back your exercise calories

now for the actual explanation
Your body is a car, the food is fuel.
Lets say you can go one mile, every gallon (calorie)
Everyday you need to go 1800 miles
Any exercise you do, each calorie burned is a mile off track having fun
So you eat 1,200, burn 300, now you're left with enough fuel to go 900 miles.

Not enough, is it? You body needs calories for other things in your body. It's not all fat. It's muscles and breathing and moving. Even if you were comatose, I have a feeling you'd need more than 1,200 calories to stay alive.
And you're probably not feeling hungry, because you're use to eating so little. You body does that sometimes,

So please, eat more and go slower

nutmegoreo

I eat 1700 calories per day at 5'2". It has not hurt my weight loss at all. If anything I am doing better than any time when I tried to eat at 1200/day. I don't always eat my calories back from exercise, and when I do, I usually only eat about half of what MFP calculates. When you are netting 900 cals/day, your are likely not getting enough nutrition to support organ functioning or to prevent muscular wastage. You need to fuel your body. Perhaps try eating the 1200/day plus half your exercise back. Give it a few weeks and see how it goes. You might be surprised.

moeisreal

If you excersise late at night forget about eating, even if your hungry. Ive learned my lesson from that.

87monkey

that is a very low net, big no no. Just because your stomach doesn't say you are hungry doesn't mean the rest of your insides aren't suffering. you may feel fine now but the damage will catch up. Eat your exercise calories back, so what if it slows your loss down, as long as you are still losing. Good luck with your journey.

geekyjock76

Regarding MFP and exercise calories

MFP is designed for people to be able to lose fat without exercise. In other words, it treats everyone as a non-exerciser and does not include the calories you burn from exercise in its formulation to maintain weight. Thus, exercisers start with an exercise-induced calorie deficit before they even enter any information. Let's say you chose a 0.5 lb weekly weight loss goal. MFP will tell you to eat 250 calories less than what's needed to maintain your weight based on your stats and what you entered as your non-exercise activity level. If you burn 200-400 calories in exercise, you are likely exceeding the 250 calorie deficit set by MFP and maybe looking at a larger 450-650 calorie deficit.

But you should view this from a fat loss (with minimal lean mass loss) perspective rather than weight loss. The less fat mass you have to lose, the less fat can be burned in a 24 hour period. This is why very fat people can burn significantly more calories from fat than leaner persons. Furthermore, this means the less fat mass you have to lose, the smaller the calorie deficit you should chose. A more appropriate deficit based on total fat mass will yield a greater preservation of lean mass which results in a more favorable body composition once you reach your goal.

moeisreal

I disagree with 87 monkey, eating less is better if your trying to lose weight. Its that simple, if your really worried about "unhealthy' take supplements. Protein, multivitamin, etc. Maybe one day you can eat more, but dont eat when your not hungry, cuz your going to have days where your ravenous all day. Use those days to eat a little extra.

LokiOfAsgard

I disagree with 87 monkey, eating less is better if your trying to lose weight. Its that simple, if your really worried about "unhealthy' take supplements. Protein, multivitamin, etc. Maybe one day you can eat more, but dont eat when your not hungry, cuz your going to have days where your ravenous all day. Use those days to eat a little extra.

I looked through you're diary and I suggest you up your intake. You've rarely eaten more than 1,200. in the past few days. It's very very unhealthy. Just because you have the right nutrients, doesn't mean you have enough calories. Calories are important, they do not just feed fat, they feed everything else your body does too.

prettyface55

Bumping

WhisperingCloud

Thanks for the tips and explanations, everybody! I am going to start eating some of the exercise calories back, and see how it goes. I guess I have been experiencing some side effects, and I just didn't realize that these things could be because of too big of a deficit.(i.e: dry skin, dizziness, yelling at my children for "breathing like that", etc).

87monkey

I disagree with 87 monkey, eating less is better if your trying to lose weight. Its that simple, if your really worried about "unhealthy' take supplements. Protein, multivitamin, etc. Maybe one day you can eat more, but dont eat when your not hungry, cuz your going to have days where your ravenous all day. Use those days to eat a little extra.

Yes eating at a deficeit is how you lose weight but you are absolutely wrong about "eating less is better", this is not an opinion is is basic biological function. What you are doing is creating an unhealthy relationship with food and an eating disorder. Calories are not an enemy, we need them to function, and we need so many of them to be healthy (depending on your personal stats). And we can get most of(if not all) of our nutrient from food, the way our bodies are intended to. MFP is a golden weight loss tool where you can see everything you are putting into your body, broken down into all of the nutrients we need. How amazing is that? Instead of abusing it use it to create a permanent lifestyle. It is so easy to get too focused on "fat loss" but our bodies are so much more that that and I hope you are able to learn this.

TigerBite

How sure are you that you are actually eating 1200 kcals? Are you weighing and measuring your food? MFP is designed for you to eat back your exercise calories; however, it is also designed for you to be accurate when logging ... If you are accurate in your logging, yes, eat your exercise calories back ...

Also, some people say that MFP overestimates calories burned from exercise ... I personally have not found this to be the case ... I log my exercise accurately (example: when I run, I calculate the MPH and find the corresponding entry I the database) and weigh all my food (so, I know the number of kcals going in) ... I have been maintaining my weight (which was my goal, while lowering body fat) ... The key is being accurate and honest with yourself ...

ETA: MFP actually underestimated the calorie burn on the elliptical for me and I was losing weight (went down to 102 over 2 1/2 - 3 weeks), I found a few other online calculators and took an average of the results I got and upped it to the average I got, 88kcals per 10 mins instead of 70ish that MFP was giving me and I got back to 104 and have stayed steady ...

BIW2012

I'm similar to you: I set my calorie goal at 1200 and I burn around 400 calories or more on average per day. I don't eat back my exercise calories so I average a net of 800 per day. I lose less than 1 pound a week on average. My net calories is very low for some people (and trust me, I'd eat more if I could!) but it seems to be the formula the works best for me right now.

I'll back myself up by saying that I am doing my eating plan under the supervision of a registered nutritionist/dietician who is the official nutritionist for the All Blacks - the New Zealand rugby team (who hold the Rugby World Cup). Just saying, she's not some personal trainer offering me lousy advice.

(Note: If you're looking at today's diary entry, things were a little different today as I burned 1000+ calories during 2 hours of cardio. Not a typical day for me! I tagged along on a training session with my husband who is training for a 155 mile endurance race.)

xx

SLLRunner

I'll be the example here of the what eating back exercise calories actually does.

For my last few pounds left until my goal I am set to lose .5 pounds per week. My calories without exercise comes to 1630. Depending on what my exercise is, I can burn anywhere from 300-500 calories exercising each day (strength training, running, elliptical, spinning/stationary bike), and sometimes, like today, I just go for a hike and burn a little over a hundred calories.

So, my calorie intake includes exercise, which generally allows me to eat between 1,900-2,100 calories per day.

Look at my ticker. I have only 3 pounds of 33 left to lose.

Eating back at least a portion of your exercise calories is necessary to fuel your body. If I didn't eat most of my exercise calories back I eventually would not be able to exercise at the intensity that I do now.

shunsoku2013

This helped me: http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/topicoftheweek88.htm. I would read that and make your own conclusions. I've pasted what mine were.

Basically lifting and cardio put your body into two related but opposing states.

Lifting heavy is anabolic, your body attempts to build more muscle from simpler once. Cardio, by in large, is catabolic, which means it will break down your complex structures (muscle + fat) into simpler ones.

The short story (that has worked for me) is if you want to lose fat, but keep your muscle, then you'll want to lift heavy while eating back the calories lost from your cardio. The goal is to eat back with more protein to spare your muscle while maintaining the caloric deficit. Having a high caloric deficit will help you lose weight faster, but a lot of that might be muscle, which you might not want to lose. I believe the rule of thumb I've seen again and again is 2 lbs of fat loss or .5 lbs of muscle gain per week max. Any more than 2 lbs and you're probably not sparing any muscle. Eating back your cardio session with protein might help save more muscle if that's important for you.

Obviously if you don't care about muscle preservation, then not eating back the calories will help you lose weight the fastest as your caloric deficit will be higher.

Francl27

The main issue is you're going to get very tired, have no energy and might lose your hair if you don't eat them back. If that doesn't bother you, *shrug*.