Eating back exercise calories?

Imbiutiful

Should I be eating my exercise calories back? Why or why not? Mfp has my cals set at 1600...

mikeyrp

Yes - at least some of them

erickirb

Yes, assuming you are calculating them correctly. MFP sets you up to lose your goal amount of weight with no exercise and gives you a daily caloric deficit to meet this. When you workout you increase the deficit, and if your deficit is too large you may damage your metabolism, not to mention you set up a goal for a reason, so why not just aim for the goal. The closer you get to your goal weight the more important it is to eat them to avoid burning muscle, instead of fat.

kennysrush

Search the message boards for exercise calories... there are weekly posts on this and your answers lie within.

Vcaser

I looked that up on here and found a blurb about it, sorry I don't have the link. I believe it said that Fitness Pal builds in a little bit of a calorie deficit in your daily goal. It is designed for you to eat back your exercise calories. Personally, I try not to eat them ALL but usually eat some of them. Depending upon the type of exercise you're doing, you might need the extra calories. I didn't start losing until I tweaked my goal calories down to 1200, so I definitely enjoy eating back some of my earned calories!

fitaliciag

i dont eat them all back, sometimes i eat half it's working for me gotta find what works for you

ciege77

If your goal is 1600 and you know you're burning 300 in exercise, you'll probably be ok, but burning any more than that and you probably need to be eating them back. One thing I know is when I exercise and work out, I'm hungry a LOT, so if you're feeling hungry most of the time when you're exercising, your body is probably telling you to take in a little bit more food.

shortee75

I am in the same situation. I exercise quite a bit, but don't seem to be losing per the scale (I have lost 6.6 since Feb 19th with the help of WW, but I am no longer a member so trying to do this based on calories). It very rare for me to eat under 1200 calories even with exercise. I am trying to find ways to increase my calorie intake; however, it's kind of hard for me when I already feel like I am eating at points just to hit 1200/day. Basically, I will eat 1200-1300/day and burn 200+ with exercise so i know I should probably try to eat 1500-1600 per day, but I don't know how to do that.

tersh79

erickirb is right on - if you under-eat too many calories it almost reverses your metabolism; your body goes in to sort of a "starvation mode" where it burns muscle instead of fat, and banks any extra calories (converts them to fat) that you do eat; definitely not what you want to do to! To avoid wrecking your metabolism, shoot for a 500 calories deficit a day (i.e., if you need 2000 cals to maintain weight, go for 1500; 3500 cals = 1 pound, so with a deficit of 500 cals a day, you are right on track to losing 1 lb a week); whether that is from undereating alone, exercising alone, or splitting it between diet and exercise is up to you. Typically the literature out there suggests a 1000 cal deficit is where you get in to real trouble with your metabolism and starvation mode. Remember also, focusing on improving healthy habits and creating a better, healthy lifestyle, will help keep the weight off in the long run -- depending on HOW much more you are working out/less you are eating, it may not be reasonable to sustain the weight loss once you return to "normal" eating/maintenance eating. Good luck!

tersh79

@Shortee75 -- This sort of diet is where I went so wrong in my life -- too much home work, not enough time to cook, and food just became an after thought; and of course, when I did eat, it was usually high fat content sort of foods. As I mentioned in my other post, this puts your body in to a "starvation mode" where it burns muscle instead of fat, to protect that fat store for when the muscle is gone too; and it will also convert extra calories in to fat as well, versus breaking them down to metabolize in to proteins, etc. You need to nurture your metabolism! Honestly, I found eating MORE so much harder than eating LESS; but you can do it!

I found creating "on hand" foods to be a great way to work in the extra calories; When you go to the grocery store, buy loads of veggies, and when you get home, don't put them away, get out the cutting board and cut them up in the sticks, slices, whatever, and portion out servings you can grab and take with you. This way, you are increasing your calorie intake with healthy foods, and convincing your body that food IS available, you won't starve. Healthy cereals are another great way; Kashi Go Lean tastes pretty good and is packed with protein, definitely a plus, and a quick easy meal to increase your daily intake.

So how much more do you want to eat? You want to increase intake and maintain it for "maintenance" weight (http://www.bmrcalculator.org/ for a calculator; remember, BMR is essentially the minimal calories you need to live, i.e., to breath and digest food, and that's about it - scroll down for a "plus activity" calculation) for a few weeks, even if that means 1800 calories a day; then after that start worrying about creating a calorie deficit.

It will take a few weeks, and you will probably gain weight at first, but eventually the metabolism will kick over from "save everything!" to "ok, food isn't a problem, I can behave like a normal, healthy metabolism now!" -- hang in there, eat right, increase your healthy calories for a few weeks, and you will see results!

There really is a lot of information about "starvation mode" - I encourage you to google it and learn a lot for yourself!

shortee75

So how much more do you want to eat? You want to increase intake and maintain it for "maintenance" weight (http://www.bmrcalculator.org/ for a calculator; remember, BMR is essentially the minimal calories you need to live, i.e., to breath and digest food, and that's about it - scroll down for a "plus activity" calculation) for a few weeks, even if that means 1800 calories a day; then after that start worrying about creating a calorie deficit.

I have researched my BMR and based on the information I had to input it came out to 1290.06 then when I add my exercise it went up to 2000-2225 for maintenance. Per the website, decreasing by 500-1000 to lose weight, I should be eating 1000-1725. I am going to try my best to hit a minimum of 1500/day after I have added any exercise (ex: if I ate 1500 cals then burn 150 I will eat those back to bring my total intake back up to 1500/day; if I ate 1700 cals then burn 650, I would eat back 450 to get my total back 1500/day - hope that makes sense)

psuLemon

To quote myself, this is what I do. This is actually my perception on eating back your workout calories. My suggestion so you don't end up with calories at the end of the day is preplan your food and workout. Figured out what your average workout will yield in terms of caloric burn so you can compensate for that while you do your food journal.

Here is my perception on the matter. I actually use this site just to track my calories. I use a different method to determine how many calories I should be eating and suggest it to many. According to this website, if you use their calculations, if you workout and burn 300 calories, than you should eat an extra 300 calories that day because the site has already built in a deficit for you. The more you have to lose the bigger an acceptable deficit is but the closer your goal is, the smaller your deficit should be. This is because the more muscle you have, the lower the body fat, the more fuel you body needs to sustains it's functions. Also, a deficit is should never been more than 1000 calories a day (which would allow for 2 lbs per week loss) but it more acceptable to do 1 lb a week or 500 calorie deficit. Additionally, a woman should eat not less than 1200 net calories. This is the amount of calories after you workout. So if you burn 500 calories, you need at least 1700 calories; men should be no less than 1500-1700 after workout calories from my research. Also, a large part of these calories should be driven by protein based sources. The ammino acids in the protein is what stimulates muscle growth. The more muscle your body has, the more calories you burn at rest.

My approach looks at Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR); BMR is the amount of calories you would burn if you slept 24 hours, for me, my BMR is 2000 calories. I then mutliply it by my Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE); how many calories I should eat to make up for daily activities (walking, working out, etc) to get a total number of calories. Because I do a program like p90x, I multiply my 2000 calories by 1.725 which equals 3400 calories. This amount of calories is the amount I need to eat to maintain weight. I back off 500 caloires as my deficit and eat 3000 calories in a day. This is the website I use.


http://www.cordianet.com/calculator.htm

I then go into a custom setup under my goals and set my daily intake for 3000 calories (well I will starting sunday, right now it's 2800 because I haven't officially started p90x until sunday). Additionally, to follow the p90x food guide, I set up custom ratio's. I do 45% of carbs, 35% of protein and 20% for fats. As I progress, I will lower protein and increase carbs. This method has worked for me and others I have worked with on the site. MFP just makes it simple for anyone to come on and lose weight. I take more of a scientific approach to weight loss. When I started I was 210 & 18% body fat. Now I am 189 and 12% body fat and hoping to break single digits within 3 months.

Cliff notes: if you go by the sites calculations, you absolutely should eat back your workout calories as they preload the deficit. If you go by the more scientific method, you don't have to worry about it, it's already figured in your number.

Good luck everyone.

psuLemon

So how much more do you want to eat? You want to increase intake and maintain it for "maintenance" weight (http://www.bmrcalculator.org/ for a calculator; remember, BMR is essentially the minimal calories you need to live, i.e., to breath and digest food, and that's about it - scroll down for a "plus activity" calculation) for a few weeks, even if that means 1800 calories a day; then after that start worrying about creating a calorie deficit.

I have researched my BMR and based on the information I had to input it came out to 1290.06 then when I add my exercise it went up to 2000-2225 for maintenance. Per the website, decreasing by 500-1000 to lose weight, I should be eating 1000-1725. I am going to try my best to hit a minimum of 1500/day after I have added any exercise (ex: if I ate 1500 cals then burn 150 I will eat those back to bring my total intake back up to 1500/day; if I ate 1700 cals then burn 650, I would eat back 450 to get my total back 1500/day - hope that makes sense)

You really shouldn't have a deficit more than 500 unless you have several hundred pounds to lose. And once you really get within 20 lbs or about there, you should decrease that more to 250 calorie deficit (.5 lbs per week).

shortee75

So how much more do you want to eat? You want to increase intake and maintain it for "maintenance" weight (http://www.bmrcalculator.org/ for a calculator; remember, BMR is essentially the minimal calories you need to live, i.e., to breath and digest food, and that's about it - scroll down for a "plus activity" calculation) for a few weeks, even if that means 1800 calories a day; then after that start worrying about creating a calorie deficit.

I have researched my BMR and based on the information I had to input it came out to 1290.06 then when I add my exercise it went up to 2000-2225 for maintenance. Per the website, decreasing by 500-1000 to lose weight, I should be eating 1000-1725. I am going to try my best to hit a minimum of 1500/day after I have added any exercise (ex: if I ate 1500 cals then burn 150 I will eat those back to bring my total intake back up to 1500/day; if I ate 1700 cals then burn 650, I would eat back 450 to get my total back 1500/day - hope that makes sense)

You really shouldn't have a deficit more than 500 unless you have several hundred pounds to lose. And once you really get within 20 lbs or about there, you should decrease that more to 250 calorie deficit (.5 lbs per week).

I actually just went to that website you provided and according to the site...I would need to eat 1630-1645 calories per day in order to lose. So with that in mind I will change my daily goal on MFP to ensure that I can hit that total.

I do have one question...there are days when the calories I burn from exercise are not as high as others so would I still need to eat the same amount on those days or do I need to adjust accordingly?

psuLemon

I actually just went to that website you provided and according to the site...I would need to eat 1630-1645 calories per day in order to lose. So with that in mind I will change my daily goal on MFP to ensure that I can hit that total.

I do have one question...there are days when the calories I burn from exercise are not as high as others so would I still need to eat the same amount on those days or do I need to adjust accordingly?

The premise of the website I gave actually allows for you to NOT account for your exercise totals and rather just concentrate on food. Effectively, it will automatically zigzag your caloric intake. This is pending you have a good workout program. I do either chalean extreme or p90x. Some days in these programs, i woudl burn 500 calories, some days I would burn 1000 calories and others only a few hundred depending on the day. But my average was around 600 calories. If I noticed I temporarily plateau at weight, I would increase my intake by 200 calories for two weeks to see if it would restart my weight lose. I did that 2 times and both times it worked.

sleepytexan

MFP's most popular and misunderstood topic. Short answer: YES

Nice explanation: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/196502-for-the-people-who-work-out-like-crazy-and-are-not-losing?hl=for+people+who+work+out+like+crazy

blessings.