Some musings on eating back calories

earlnabby

I hope I can explain myself here. I am of two minds about the whole eating back exercise calories idea. On the one hand, it makes sense to fuel your body based on energy expenditure and I fully agree with this. The issues I have are with the ideas of rewarding yourself with more calories for working out and also using working out as a way to burn off excess calories eaten. I know everyone is different and many people have a very healthy relationship with food and exercise, but there are enough people here who don't, which is why they need to lose weight (like me).

I sometimes read comments like "I walked an extra 30 minutes. Wow, I can eat more now". Food shouldn't be used as a reward for doing something good. I fall into this category and am really trying to change my mindset. Generally, I do not eat back the incidental calories my fitbit gives me for walking extra steps,and eat back just 50% of what I get for targeted exercise like my water aerobics class. Sometimes I catch myself thinking "cool, I get an extra 100 calories, what can I eat?" without considering if I really am hungry and need to eat.

I also see comments when people eat more than their target like "just go and exercise more". If you are exercising more just because you ate more, are you using exercise as a punishment for overeating? If exercise hasn't been a part of your daily life until recently, can this put you off exercising?

I guess these are just kind of Sunday morning random ramblings but I am curious as to what others think.

SuthernKimby

At first I did eat my calories from working out while I got use to a lower caloric intake (lower than what I was used to) and not feel bad. It was my way of trying to stay as close as I could to my program as a newbie. I didn't purposefully look at as I can eat more but it didn't make me feel bad about being over because I was working at still being healthier. Then as I got more accustom to my program I tried to not eat back as many and now my goal is not to eat back any. I am sure there will be times I do eat back all my calories, but not as a way to live in my program. It simply gives me breathing room to stay closer to my target and not feel guilty. But it is important your motives/how you look at extra calories. Good topic!:flowerforyou:

Anniebotnen

I do agree with you that food should not be thought of as a reward for exercising or anything else. Rewarding yourself with food does not seem like a healthy thing for people who have a tendency to be overweight. On the other hand, you obviously have to consider the calorie burn of exercise in order to create the appropriate deficit to lose weight. And if exercising allows someone to eat enough not to be unbearably hungry while they are losing weight, that is a good thing - they are reducing fat and getting fitter a the same time. Anything can be carried to extremes, but for most people, eating your exercise calories back, or doing some extra exercise when they have over indulged is just fine, IMO.

almondjoy206

Im still sort of new. But I barely been eating back my calories I burn. I try to stay near my goal and keep it at that. So far it has been working for me. But just because I hit the gym or dance for an hour doesn't mean I can just go and eat whatever I want. I'm finally learning its more about moderation and everything.

Lourdesong

It seems to me to be a fool's errand to try to convince oneself that food should not be seen as a reward. I don't think our culture allows for that, and we are products of our culture. Trying to look at halloween candy and easter baskets and beautiful dessert carts and the menu's of 5 star restaurants and saying with a straight face "this is fuel for the body and nothing more" seems kind of silly to me. An alien from outer space might say that with a straight face, but good luck to any human trying to convince themselves of that.

I guess I don't see the problem with viewing food as a reward, especially since you exercised and earned calories to spend. That's the fruit (reward) of your labor to spend however you see fit.

Samstan101

I run 30+miles a week, cross train 3 days a week and weight train 2 days a week, if I didn't eat back most of my exercise cals I'd have either quit or had to reduce my workouts. When I started it was so I could eat more but now food is fuel for my workouts. I think the issue is a much with attitudes to exercise as to food. I exercise because I love it so there's little/ no chance of me stopping when I get to goal. For those that see exercise as a chore I can see the issue of food as a reward as they're less likely to continue a regular exercise routine.

zoeysasha37

My thoughts on eating back exercise calories are, if I'm hungry I eat more. It's a nice thought that we shouldn't look at food as a reward, but it's easier said then done.

lisalsd1

I think a lot of "eating back exercise calories" has to do with where you are at in terms of fitness and weight loss.

When I was actively losing weight, I didn't eat back most of my exercise calories. I lost the weight and slowly began to eat back calories. Currently, I eat back the majority of calories that I burn. I'm also at the point where I'm not trying to lose weight and have switched to fitness goals.

Believe me, I have not always had the healthiest relationship with food. It was a process to develop a healthy relationship with food....just like losing weight is a process. I don't really think about food as a reward anymore; BUT if I have a day where I burn a lot of extra calories, I will have something that I don't normally eat that maybe a little more calorie dense. It isn't that I "earned it" or "deserve it," I have the room for it in my daily calories.

There isn't really an emotional attachment to food anymore for me. Food is fuel; BUT at the same time, I still like ice cream and cookies...I'm just not emotional attached anymore. I'll have a cookie if I have 200 calories left...and I won't have one if I don't.

shadowofender

No, food isn't a reward, and it's hard to change that mind set. But for me, because I have my deficit set to 1000 calories a day, I HAVE to eat back or I'm way under eating. I always cut the estimated burns in half, to be on the safe side, but I get dizzy and lightheaded if I don't eat some of them back. Food is fuel. In a way, food is the hardest addiction because no matter what, I can't stop eating if I want to live.

geebusuk

I like eating.
Why shouldn't I 'earn' some food?

I like going to Glastonbury festival and not worrying about cash etc while I'm there.
I made sure I did some overtime before I went so I'd have enough cash. Was this also a bad thing?

Similarly, I always fancied a proper RC car since I was a kid (yes I'm in my 30s now). I worked some over time a few weeks ago, which meant I had enough cash to get one. A bad thing, again?


As far as eating goes, if I wanted a bigger deficit, I'd set a bigger deficit in the first place and eat less normally.
A situation where I might eat back calories (though hasn't occurred for me) is one where I couldn't sustain my desired deficit - so normally I eat more, but then if I didn't feel hungry, would be happy to not eat back the calories and hit my intended deficit.

I lose weight with nutrition.
Exercise both makes me fitter and allows me to eat more.

joshpass

I see absolutely nothing wrong with "earning" to eat more food. I like the way my body looks and feels but quite frankly, sometimes the only motivation I have for the day to exercise is that I get to eat more if I exercise more lol. I've ALWAYS eaten back my exercise calories since the beginning and I think I did pretty well losing 160 pounds lol...But you also have to make sure you have your calories set properly. I have my calories set at sedentary and then I earn more calories the more I exercise. I find that way better than including exercise in my calories already because i burn calories differently each day so it fluctuates dramatically sometimes.

Jim_Barteck

I have to disagree: food *can* be a reward, and there's nothing wrong that.

Food is not just something you squeeze out of a tube in order to survive. No one eats that way. It is meant to be flavorful and enjoyable. It's just not meant to be consumed in mass quantities which, let's face it, we have all done from time to time.

I understand where you're coming from. Many people who wind up overweight do so because they have developed an emotional *dependence* on food. They use food to satisy other holes in their emotional and mental well-being. Breaking that dependency cycle is important, but taking a 180 degree turn and viewing it as nothing more than pure sustenance is simply an extreme in the other direction.

The key is to deal with the dependence issues. Whether that means working it out on your own, with loved ones, or with a professional therapist; it has to be dealt with, or we'll be seeing you back here with an "I gained it all back" post in another couple of years. Food is not the enemy, the dependence is.

If you do well today, there's absolutely nothing on this planet wrong with rewarding yourself with a piece of cheesecake or whatever your favorite indulgence is so long as it fits within your calorie budget. It's no different than any other self-reward you might consider.

This next piece is very important: Weight loss and weight management are *NOT* about denial. They are about control. Control of yourself, your diet, your exercise, and your mental state. Long term, you are not going to be able to deny yourself indulgences no matter how much you try to fool yourself today into thinking you will. It's. Not. Going. To. Happen. You will indulge. And the only thing that will be standing between you and gaining all that weight back will be whether you are the one in control or your dependence is.

If you can't control yourself and manage to eat an appropriate amount of that cheesecake, the problem isn't the cheesecake. It's your inability to control yourself. Until you manage to do that, *everything* you eat is going to be an issue.

LAT1963

The targets set for you by MFP are already adjusted for your normal daily activities--for what a fitbit would record if you were just going about your business and not seeking additional activity. For that reason you should not eat back your baseline tracker calories because those have already been figured into your target.

When you seek exercise beyond what had been habitual prior to your weight-loss effort--those are the calories that you can eat back.

I don't use my workout calories as a "reward", per se. It's just that my weight loss target is about 1540 cals/day, and my BMR was measured recently at 1760 cals/d, and I feel it is nutritionally safer to eat at or above my BMR. I also feel sated and thus unlikely to binge if I eat around 1800-2000 cals/d.

So, I use exercise to raise my allowable calories for the day above 2000 cals a day. That way (so long as I avoid carbs, which make me hungry), I don't have to walk around feeling hungry all the time. Any exercise calories I don't eat back just increase my loss-rate.

I avoid the logic of saying "I ate 300 calories so I can have a donut", or "I had a donut better go for a walk".

I just use exercise to raise the ceiling on my healthy food choices so I can eat large enough portions not to feel hungry. This makes it easier to ignore unhealthy treats when they become available during the day.

add: I am fortunate that at least for the next few weeks, anyway, the backbone of my exercise is a pleasant hilly hike in a park. So the exercise is in no way a punishment for bad behavior, and is itself a reward.

MeanderingMammal

Food shouldn't be used as a reward for doing something good.

If you hadn't used an absolute I may have passed this by, but as you have I'd say I fundamentally disagree. Different individuals can motivate themselves in different ways, and if that involves food then there is nothing wrong with that.

It may be a beer, a wedge of stilton, a tub of ice cream but it's up to the individual.

There may be a degree of proportionality, and for those that burn up 100-200 calories then there is a risk around rewarding at that low level. When one is burning up in the order of 1000 calories per session the issue becomes more dealing with the volume of food to be eaten back.

Mr_Knight

I sometimes read comments like "I walked an extra 30 minutes. Wow, I can eat more now".

Those people, most of the time, quickly run into weight loss trouble. Walking for 30 minutes burns SFA in calories, so what they are really doing, in effect, is giving themselves permission to over-eat.

Which is fine, everybody can make their own choices, but that is not one consistent with weight loss.

Food shouldn't be used as a reward for doing something good.

Sure it should. Food is awesome, it is a *great* way to reward oneself.

As a general guideline, there is no compelling need to eat back calories from low burn exercise. But if you're running 5k, for example, you'll want to refuel because if you don't you'll burn through your accessible energy reserves and hit a wall.

kensteven

I set out on a plan. For the week I know exactly all the foods I will eat and the calories I will burn and other stuff that constitutes good nutrition. By now I do make better choices at meal time . NO fast food ever. If I don't have time there is so much info around that I always create healthy alternatives. And the best part is (drum roll please) i am not missing cookies,cake or hot dogs French fries. You get the drift. Once I changed my behavior making healthy choices came easier. But wait, No I am not a super human. I have struggled with weight since ever I can remember. As a teen my mother took me to a doctor who prescribed speed to decrease my appetite . So when I finish my foods for the day and log my activities for the day and click "submit" and that summary at the end says " if you ate like this for the week you would be anywhere from 1 to 2 pounds lighter by the end of the week. That is my reward. Not that I can eat more food because I have not used 250 calories.

AglaeaC

Well, I did the naughty yesterday, "rewarded myself with food". I was hungry, I wanted to eat to avoid feeling hungry, I went out for a very brisk walk and burned 350 kcal, I ate, and I didn't feel hungry anymore. I didn't pat myself on the back when done exercising and start thinking weird stuff about the food in front of me; it was fuel and intended not to feel hunger.

I can't stand these lecturing writings where everyone is put in the same box. Yes, food = Reward is bad, as it implies something is not quite in balance in one's mind, but if that's the intention of this post, then just say so.

earlnabby

This has been interesting so far. Thank you all for your replies and perspective. Like I said in my OP, I really believe that each person's approach to food and exercise is different and totally unique to them.

Personally, I am trying to stay in the middle of the road. I eat back some of my calories but try to not see it as a reward. I do have a treat when the opportunity presents itself and try to work it in my daily targets. If I go over, I look back to my weekly net calorie report and figure out my average. If it is under my target, I don't feel like I have to work out extra in order to make up for it, I already made up for it on the days I was under my target.

oinkerjnn

I run 30+miles a week, cross train 3 days a week and weight train 2 days a week, if I didn't eat back most of my exercise cals I'd have either quit or had to reduce my workouts. When I started it was so I could eat more but now food is fuel for my workouts. I think the issue is a much with attitudes to exercise as to food. I exercise because I love it so there's little/ no chance of me stopping when I get to goal. For those that see exercise as a chore I can see the issue of food as a reward as they're less likely to continue a regular exercise routine.

Bingo. Once you start exercising at a high level, your body needs food to replenish itself afterwards (as well as before). You can't physically work out with any level of intensity if you don't give your body the nutrients it needs.

I don't eat back calories from exercise as a rule, but I definitely tend to eat more on days I work out hard.

oinkerjnn

I set out on a plan. For the week I know exactly all the foods I will eat and the calories I will burn and other stuff that constitutes good nutrition. By now I do make better choices at meal time . NO fast food ever. If I don't have time there is so much info around that I always create healthy alternatives. And the best part is (drum roll please) i am not missing cookies,cake or hot dogs French fries. You get the drift. Once I changed my behavior making healthy choices came easier. But wait, No I am not a super human. I have struggled with weight since ever I can remember. As a teen my mother took me to a doctor who prescribed speed to decrease my appetite . So when I finish my foods for the day and log my activities for the day and click "submit" and that summary at the end says " if you ate like this for the week you would be anywhere from 1 to 2 pounds lighter by the end of the week. That is my reward. Not that I can eat more food because I have not used 250 calories.

Also very well said.

geebusuk

I should note that I can be on 3750 calories (my weights workout day calories before cardio) and STILL want some more so I can have MORE cake .

yogicarl

When I first joined MFP I ate back all my exercise calories and was frustrated to find I was sticking at maintenance; not gaining but not losing.

I think if you are burning large amounts of calories, running 30+ miles a week, cross fit on other days etc then it makes sense to fuel those sessions, but in my case my daily Ashtanga yoga burns around 300 calories and my two or three swims also burn around 300, so I got out of the idea of "I've exercised so I'm going to eat a bit more" and take the attitude that that's 300 calories off my excess fat.

I make sure I am fuelled up prior to or just after my workouts by timing my meals accordingly and I find that is enough for me not to feel faint or affect recovery. If I feel I need those calories I will eat but not every time and that is working for me.

I think the lower the calorie burn your chosen exercise regime demands, the less you need to eat back those calories.

Sam_I_Am77

Everybody needs to find a method that works for them. My thoughts on this...

1. Calorie estimation is a swag
2. Calorie projection from an HMR is a swag
3. Post-exercise anabolism is very hard to track unless you're part of a study and getting blood work done post-exercise.

Why would you not minimize the guess work related to exercise calories "burnt" and use a TDEE approach? TDEE is also a bit of a swag in estimating your activity level but you don't have to worry about tracking your exercise calories as well. Fitness and managing one's nutrition is difficult and to be successful I feel that it's best to keep things as simple as possible.

lemurcat12

Hmm, at first blush I was inclined to agree with you about food as a reward, although not the implications for exercise calories, but I'm not sure I do. I think it's perfectly fine for food to be a special treat or a celebration for a special event or holiday, so I guess that would be food as a reward. What I don't think is okay--for me, anyway, since I get into problems with this--is food as a way to deal with troublesome emotions or self-comfort, But (again, for me, anyway), I don't think that's the same thing.

But beyond this, I don't see this as what eating exercise calories is about. I think of losing weight mathematically, and I eat based on the deficit I'm trying to achieve. If I exercise, one benefit (NOT reward) is that my burn is higher, so I can eat more and still make that deficit, and eating more will likely make my exercise better. This is important since I have fitness goals (running and biking farther and faster) that are as important to me at the moment as losing weight, and I enjoy these activities. But I am also trying to increase my TDEE longterm by building my activity level, and if I under fuel it, that won't work/be sustainable.

I do take advantage of the extra calories from long workouts (running 6-7 miles, say, or biking for 2.5 hours) to cover restaurant meals or the like, but again I don't see this as a reward. I'd fit restaurant meals into my plan somehow (I did back at the beginning when I had few exercise calories), because that's going to be part of my lifestyle, and this is just an easy and painless way to do it.

As for exercise as punishment, I don't see that. I see needing to burn off spent calories or prepare for a situation where the calories will be needed as an added incentive to exercise sometimes, but that doesn't make the exercise punishment. At worst (since I usually enjoy it), it makes the exercise a necessary part of my routine, like brushing my teeth or going to work. I'm not inclined to punish myself in such a way, though--I do agree if someone had such an attitude then working off extra calories could be a dangerous thing. For me, though, exercise invariable ends up being mentally healthy and a stress relief and I don't get overly strict with myself or abusive in that way.

Finally, a better way to think of exercise calories than "eating them back" might be to think of yourself creating a deficit in two ways--by eating less and exercising more. While you could say you are just eating less and separately plan to exercise, that misses the fact that being active is an important part of maintaining your weight, as well as your fitness. Based on this, maybe you plan to cut calories by about 500 per day and exercise for an average of 250 or 500 per day (depending on what you are doing, etc.). If this were the plan (and it's kind of how I think of my plan), you might eat a little less if you were unable to meet your exercise goals, but you wouldn't routinely cut calories twice as much to cover the exercise you are, in fact, doing. That's in essence what people are doing if they go for 2 lbs (a deficit that is pretty high, so would ideally be built with something other than just calorie cutting) and then also exercise and don't eat back the calories.