eat eat eat

Lizzy_Sunflower

This is because it is very difficult to know exactly how many calories you burn during exercise and most people tend to overeat when they add their exercise calories to their diet.

Very interesting that the reasons given are kind of secondary reasons--calculation errors and intake control, rather than actually stating that eating your burned calories itself is detrimental.

I agree. But knowledge is half the battle, right? I do think everyone has to find the balance for their body. Just keeping an eye out for the signs of "starvation mode" and knowing that you have to mix it up to keep your body guessing...

ladyhawk00

Hey girl, I asked my nutritionist (part of a weight loss study I am in) this very question...here's what she said...

"That is a good question! We typically tell people to try to stick to 1500/day WITHOUT accounting for calories burned through exercise. This is because it is very difficult to know exactly how many calories you burn during exercise and most people tend to overeat when they add their exercise calories to their diet. That being said, I think you would probably not log your exercise there and stick to 1500 calories per day."

I am still gonna log my exercise, just to keep track. If my weight loss stalls I will re-evaluate my "net" calories...

This can be appropriate for some people I suppose, but I'd like to point something out.

Following this idea to its logical conclusion looks like this: Because exercise burns are just an estimate, rather than using a reasonable estimate, we should just assume that there was no exercise and not account for it in daily expenditure.

BMR is an estimate. Activity Level is an estimate. Intake is an estimate. Exercise burns are an estimate. So for that matter, why count calories, manage intake or account for exercise or other caloric burn at all, if the requirement is that every factor must be exact (which, of course, is impossible)?..... Sounds a bit like throwing the baby out with the bathwater, doesn't it?

Any calorie counting where you are attempting to account for calories in/calories out is a game of estimates. It's not intended to be an exact science where every single calorie is measured and accounted for - because that's physically impossible. What IS intended to is give reasonable estimates and allow for a general accounting that keeps you at a deficit for weight loss (if your goal is to lose weight.) Clearly, you want the best numbers you can get, so weighing/measuring food and using the most accurate exercise burns available to you is important - but stressing about whether everything is exact or not is an exercise in futility.

What I'm hoping is that the nutritionist is going off of how most counters/trainers work - in that they use "intended exercise" to create a deficit and keep the cal goal stable each day. MFP is different in that it creates a built in deficit, regardless of exercise. So you lose weight whether you exercise or not. They add calories in for purposeful exercise because that calorie expenditure is not included in the normal daily cal goal - this keeps the deficit stable - and therefore keeps the loss stable as well. Many trainers/docs/nutritionists are not aware of this difference in calculations and don't understand what people are asking when they ask if they should "eat exercise calories". Most who DO understand how MFP works recommend eating exercise cals to avoid having too large of a deficit.

Lizzy_Sunflower

What I'm hoping is that the nutritionist is going off of how most counters/trainers work - in that they use "intended exercise" to create a deficit and keep the cal goal stable each day. MFP is different in that it creates a built in deficit, regardless of exercise. So you lose weight whether you exercise or not. They add calories in for purposeful exercise because that calorie expenditure is not included in the normal daily cal goal - this keeps the deficit stable - and therefore keeps the loss stable as well. Many trainers/docs/nutritionists are not aware of this difference in calculations and don't understand what people are asking when they ask if they should "eat exercise calories". Most who DO understand how MFP works recommend eating exercise cals to avoid having too large of a deficit.

Thank you for pointing this out. I have given her a link to the site, but I will also continue this conversation with her using your points to make mine :drinker: