Do I HAVE to eat some of my exercise calories back?

michelleepotter

I have a Polar FT4. You can get it on Amazon for about $60. Polar is a well respected brand, and I have every reason to believe that the burn estimates it's giving me are realistic.

As for whether to eat back your calories, that's a matter of preference. What's important is getting as accurate as you can with your calories (weigh your food, use a HRM), and maintaining a reasonable deficit. You need to eat enough calories to fuel the work your body is doing, but also have enough deficit to lose weight. Some people manage this by setting their calories high enough in the first place to account for exercise, others set them lower and eat back their exercise calories. I prefer the latter, but all that really matters is coming out with the right amount of deficit in the end.

ChrisM8971

So as always there is a flip side to every coin. Personally I don't eat back exercise calories unless I need more fuel for any given activity. I mostly skip the gym and just hop on the bike for a few hours a day but the calorie burn estimates are huge. If I am hungry or feel low on energy I eat more food but most of the time my 1700-1900 calories eaten a day is plenty even if I go for a five hour bike ride with an estimated calorie burn of 3000 or more.

For me, most of the hunger stuff was dealt with by finding foods that fill me up. I'll eat a serving of lean meat and a big bowl of veggies for 300-400 calories and be good to go for a few hours whatever I am out doing. If you keep poking around with different foods you might find you can fill up well on most any caloric goal you set for yourself.

As others have mentioned, the calorie burns are normally over estimated and most people seem to underestimate their calories eaten (especially before they start weighing and measuring stuff) so if you decide to eat them back just try to keep that in mind especially if you don't end up losing close to what your weekly goal is set for.

Anyway, just thought I would toss out the "conflicting" view. Good luck!

While I admire your self control and ability to maintain large negative net calories I would also suggest that you need to do some research about the potential consequences

One of the issues with a large deficit is the loss of a higher percentage of muscle than you would wish and I would guess the ultimate result of this style of diet may be a hospital stay.

Promoting an unhealthy diet is also against the rules at MFP and suggesting its ok to eat at a substantial negative net on calories is about as unhealthy as it gets

karahm78

I can also recommend the previously mentioned Polar FT4, best place I found was Amazon and there is TONS of colors for the watch. In addition to measuring caloric burn, a bonus is that the treadmills at my gym pick up the signal and display my heart rate while I am working out.

I eat back half of my exercise calories, or at least enough to get up to 1200 net. That is healthier and makes it much more likely for me to stay on plan and be ready for maintenance. I don't want to gain it all back when I get to my goal.

segovm

While I admire your self control and ability to maintain large negative net calories I would also suggest that you need to do some research about the potential consequences

One of the issues with a large deficit is the loss of a higher percentage of muscle than you would wish and I would guess the ultimate result of this style of diet may be a hospital stay.

Promoting an unhealthy diet is also against the rules at MFP and suggesting its ok to eat at a substantial negative net on calories is about as unhealthy as it gets

While I admire you reply I find it utterly irrelevant as I have done plenty of research into my specific plan that is unique to my weight loss goals. At no point have I recommend anyone do anything, instead I cheerfully contributed to a conversation with personal input relevant to my experiences on the topic being discussed, highlighting that my specific plan was both conflicting and in opposition to other peoples ideas with regard to weight loss.

Perhaps you should provide insight and input into the conversation at hand rather than breaking the forum guidelines and attempting to hijack this thread with your opposition to my particular, albeit well informed, personal decisions.

If you would like to discuss this further just drop an email in my inbox so these nice folks can enjoy a bicker free reading of the topic at hand.

perseverance14

I did the Zumba 20 minute express and used my heart rate monitor and chest strap, it burned 189 calories, which means in 1 hour you would burn 597, about the same as the hour long treadmill workouts I do with 2/3 of the time on 9-10% incline, 3-4 speed (I like fast walking). I weigh 143.8, and my heart rate doing Zumba averaged 145-150, your mileage may vary, but probably not that much, I suggest a heart rate monitor.

GrandmaJackie

I say experiment, when I want to lose weight I don't! That being said, if your hungry you need to eat DON'T starve yourself! I usually eat about 15,000 calories a day!

criticaltodd

I eat back my exercise calories but I also set my calorie goals so that they don't assume exercise in the calculation.

As for MFP overestimating calories, I've found that often the calories estimated my MFP come in below what my HRM presents, sometimes by over 100 calories.

shiningpotential

I did the Zumba 20 minute express and used my heart rate monitor and chest strap, it burned 189 calories, which means in 1 hour you would burn 597, about the same as the hour long treadmill workouts I do with 2/3 of the time on 9-10% incline, 3-4 speed (I like fast walking). I weigh 143.8, and my heart rate doing Zumba averaged 145-150, your mileage may vary, but probably not that much, I suggest a heart rate monitor.

Thank you so much for checking!! At least that gives me a starting point, until I can get my HRM. As for everyone's suggestions regarding which one to buy, thank you!! I just didn't want to waste money on one that was to cheap and inaccurate, or one on the opposite ends of the spectrum that has way more bells and whistles than I need.