Eating Back Exercise Calories

lightandflight

So I've been eating all of my exercise calories, and so far its been working. I'm getting to the point that the "in 5 weeks" is just maintenance if I go over calories, so Im concerned about MFP potentially overestimating. It will start to make a difference pretty soon if that is happening.

I've seen some posts that MFP overestimates how many calories are burned during exercise, and some people eat back half.

Do you use the "Quick calories" to just add some calories into your diet to make half "disappear" or is there a setting for only half of the exercise calories to add into the diary? Or is it just a mental calculation that you are all doing? Any suggestions are welcome.

Juliarosemary66

I tend to "bank" my exercise calories as I like to see calories remaining at the end of the day! It makes me feel as though I am being successful! At most I eat about half back and I try to stick with healthy calories- otherwise what is the point! I use the note section to keep a mood diary and detailed log as I find it a useful tool to look back on when I'm struggling! I also listen to my body as to whether I am hungry as it varies from day to day! Hope this helps!

LuisSoto62

I use a Heart Rate Monitor when I exercise, that way I can check how many calories I burned on each exercise.
I also like to see some remaining calories at the end of the day, so I enter the calories burned after I log all my meals.
I also use MapMyWalk to help me keep my walking around 10 minutes/Km and the calories it calculates are above a 10% of what my HRM shows.

I don't like to eat back my burned exercise calories on a daily basis, since there are always special occasions when I can over eat a little without the guilt.

I still have a lot of weight to lose, so I try to always be under my caloric goal, not counting the exercise burned calories.

REGARDS

ChrisM8971

Because MFP calorie goals are calculated from your NEAT the system assumes that you are not going to exercise and therefore expects you to eat back your exercise calories.

Now if you eat them back and don't lose at the expected rate or you don't eat them back and only lose at the predicted rate it means there is some inaccuracy in your logging (remember there are a lot of inaccurate entries on the food database).

The MFP exercise database does over estimate calorie burn imo and I guess people use different methods to only eat 50% back. Quick add calories would be one way, another would be to leave half of those calories uneaten, you could even set up your own exercise list and use them

Experiment to find what works for you, if you eat 50% back and lose to quickly or are too hungry switch it up to 75% and see how that goes.

I do see a lot of people say that they listen to their bodies and eat when they are hungry, I don't see that as a good guide personally, I listened to my body for years and am now having to lose the resulting weight

ssmkgp

As per MFP :
Net calories consumed = total calories consumed - exercise calories burned. So the more you exercise, the more you can eat !

999tigger

I too am a bit concerned about the accuracy as the exercise component is pretty important for me.
I dont have a set rule on eating back, but its like my insurance that if I want to eat more then it creates a nice reserve of calories I can use. Some days I will eat into it other days not at all , especially if im not hungry.

For the moment id discount say 20% off calories burned or alternatively eat only 80% of your eat vack calories. Some of them are accurate and others not.

Keep an eye on your scales, look at your log and then make common sense decisions.

brianpperkins

The key to successfully eating back exercise calories is accurate logging of both intake and burn. What is commonly seen on MFP is people underestimating what they eat coupled with overestimating what they burn through exercise. That combination creates an inadvertent eating back of some, if not all, exercise calories. Deciding to then eat back what the app says is remaining to meet the net calorie goal further exacerbates the issues caused by inaccurate logging.

lemurcat12

Do you use the "Quick calories" to just add some calories into your diet to make half "disappear" or is there a setting for only half of the exercise calories to add into the diary? Or is it just a mental calculation that you are all doing? Any suggestions are welcome.

When you log exercise you can change the number of calories. I either modify the count based on what I think is reasonable (some activities I think MFP measures better than other--IME, circuit training and elliptical get vastly over estimated, running seems much more reasonable), or else I just leave them as is and eat about about half of the extra calories. So if it gives me 600 extra, I aim for eating 300-400. But again I mostly just use my judgment based on how much extra I think I've really done that day, and how reasonable the totals seem. 10 calories per minute as the max for truly hard exercise and about half that for more moderate exercise is kind of how I think of it.

SideSteel

So I've been eating all of my exercise calories, and so far its been working.

Based on the above I wouldn't change anything until it is no longer working.