Questions about "eating back calories" - my two cents
MzFury
Posts: 283 Member
I see people asking about their calorie levels a lot, whether to "eat back" calories worked off in exercise, that sort of thing. I want to make a couple of points that may be useful, and throw in some suggestions from my own education and experience.
FIRST:
MFP is a "feedback loop", which is something that gives you interactive information and feedback about your own actions, and which affects your subsequent behavior as a result (there's a whole article from an issue of Wired magazine earlier this year about feedback loops, by the way...) - that's what feedback loops do. The MFP feedback loop happens to use science-based calculations to drive its goals and calories and progress functions, and provides some very good guidelines, especially for people who really need basic guidance. The feedback loop, on the positive side, means that people are more likely to feel compelled to eat and exercise to meet a goal; the negative side may be that people will become hung up on the goal calorie number and be unhappy seeing "red", "going over" their goals, or otherwise be confused or disheartened by feedback that's actually inconsequential to their physical reality.
What MFP is NOT is a definitive point of reference, and cannot make up for basic understandings of health, nutrition and fitness. I am not a trainer or medical professional, but I have a lot of understanding of these things and want to give people a bit of basic reference that might help - please check it out further, but I'm pretty sure about a few basics.
First, we all probably know the rule of thumb that the body can't metabolize more than 2 pounds of fat in a week, and that it requires 7,000 calories to do this, or 3,500 per pound. This does not take into consideration the caloric requirements to support maintenance or slight building of muscle mass, either.
But it leaves us with the understanding that we should not consume less than 1,000 calories under our maintenance requirement in a day - I need about 1900 - 2100 calories a day to maintain my weight at a variable basic activity level (not including vigorous exercise, but including non-sedentary activity), so I should not drop below 900 - 1100 calories, ever, in a day, if I were trying to lose 2 pounds of fat a week. However, this should be a net figure: most fitness professionals do not suggest that level of calorie deficit in food - it's almost unsustainable and hard to get proper nourishment.
So we're also assuming we will target a caloric remainder through exercise to get to that 1.5 to 2 pound weekly fat burn. This is the point at which our MFP settings and feedback may become confusing: if I set my weight loss goal to 2 pounds weekly, MFP is telling me to eat 1100 calories a day, then giving me more when I exercise. Because this is the FAR end of fat metabolism, I DEFINITELY SHOULD eat those calories back. However, if weight loss speed is set to 1.5 pounds, or especially less than that, per week, it is not always going to be necessary to "eat back" calories.
Also, if you are significantly overweight, MFP or any similar calculator is going to skew things... let's say you're a somewhat active, 5'7" woman weighing 250 pounds: MFP will tell you your maintenance calories are very high, maybe around 2700 calories a day - this makes sense - you've had to be overeating to reach this point, and will have to continue to overeat a bit to maintain it (in most cases). Therefore, your 500-cals/day deficit, while helpful in your quest to lose a pound a week, is different than that of a thinner person's - if you're being told that 2200 calories a day is a deficit for you, you have plenty of room to eat less, and plenty of room not to eat back calories worked off. So if you're weaning yourself off eating too much, this can be helpful, but in the long term is possibly not the best guide to follow.
I suggest a few steps to get to some solid figures you can write down and refer to, instead of (in addition to) MFP feedback.
First, quickly use MFP to learn your base line maintenance level intake - be sure to be honest about your normal (non-exercise) physical activity level. Change your goals to weight maintenance, set all your current measurements correctly, and see what it tells you your maintenance calories are (write this down). Now you can change your goals back to whatever weight loss speed you've been aiming for.
Next, if you have more than 20 or 30 pounds to lose (if taller, more than 30 or 40 - at this point this only makes about 100 cals of difference to my situation, for instance), use another on-line calculator such as http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm to find out the maintenance caloric requirement for a person of your same age, height and gender at your (REALISTIC! This only works if your goal is REALISTIC...) GOAL WEIGHT.
For many women, 1800 - 2100 cals/day is going to be a sensible MAINTENANCE intake for goal weight WITH 5 days of exercise per week (older and smaller people will, sadly, need less food, but hey, it's still not such a bad deal - a 65-year-old 5'4" woman working out 5 days a week needs about 1700 cals to maintain 140 pounds - that's still a nice full day of food!).
So, you can use one of these as a starting point - either your actual maintenance level (for people with maybe less than 30 pounds to lose) or your goal-weight maintenance level (for people with 50 or more pounds to lose).
If you're very overweight, now you can check if your goal-weight calorie level is roughly in the ballpark of what you are being instructed by computer programs to consume to reach a deficit - if GOAL CALORIES are LESS than CURRENT DEFICIT CALORIES, you may want to start revising your eating habits to consume less - first, it's safe and you'll probably lose weight faster, and second, you'll become more comfortable with what that feels like, and possibly find it easier to maintain that once you are at or near your goal.
Now that you know your maintenance level, factor in a realistic deficit - probably no more than 500 calories - that you can live with eating daily and feeling strong on. This is where it gets simple: I need about 2100 cals to maintain my weight; I need about 1600 to burn a pound of fat a week.
Try not to go too far BELOW a deficit of 500 - again, if you are eating nearer a 1000-cal deficit, you have run out of room for fueling workouts, and are closer to working against your fitness and weight loss goals if your body begins to slow down to conserve energy.
On the other hand, at this level of deficit, you should have enough leeway 1) to work out up to a 400 - 500 calorie burn without needing to "eat back" (though you should always refuel after a workout, and pay attention to your energy levels), especially since you shouldn't be working out quite that hard every single day, and 2) to eat an extra 100 - 200 calories every now and then (couple days a week) or even an "extra" 500 once every couple of weeks without "blowing your diet" - I'll still be killing it on a 1700 cal day, for instance.
So I strongly suggest getting an idea of a sensible daily target number in mind - use MFP to do so by choosing the pound-a-week loss goal - and aiming to eat that pretty much every day, without any thought of "eating back" your workout calories (unless you're starving / super athletic / etc.), and only with concern as to what the final daily intake is, not to whether MFP says you're "under" or "over".
ONE BIG BENEFIT of this approach - setting a 1-pound/week goal, but working out on top of this instead of as part of it (adding a 300-cal burn to a 500-cal food deficit day for a total deficit of 800) is likely to give you the psychological boost of outperforming your goal and losing faster - setting a 2-pound goal is likely to have the opposite effect.
Stay motivated with MFP, but use it as a tool, not a just a feedback loop you react to mechanically, without your own knowledge.
FIRST:
MFP is a "feedback loop", which is something that gives you interactive information and feedback about your own actions, and which affects your subsequent behavior as a result (there's a whole article from an issue of Wired magazine earlier this year about feedback loops, by the way...) - that's what feedback loops do. The MFP feedback loop happens to use science-based calculations to drive its goals and calories and progress functions, and provides some very good guidelines, especially for people who really need basic guidance. The feedback loop, on the positive side, means that people are more likely to feel compelled to eat and exercise to meet a goal; the negative side may be that people will become hung up on the goal calorie number and be unhappy seeing "red", "going over" their goals, or otherwise be confused or disheartened by feedback that's actually inconsequential to their physical reality.
What MFP is NOT is a definitive point of reference, and cannot make up for basic understandings of health, nutrition and fitness. I am not a trainer or medical professional, but I have a lot of understanding of these things and want to give people a bit of basic reference that might help - please check it out further, but I'm pretty sure about a few basics.
First, we all probably know the rule of thumb that the body can't metabolize more than 2 pounds of fat in a week, and that it requires 7,000 calories to do this, or 3,500 per pound. This does not take into consideration the caloric requirements to support maintenance or slight building of muscle mass, either.
But it leaves us with the understanding that we should not consume less than 1,000 calories under our maintenance requirement in a day - I need about 1900 - 2100 calories a day to maintain my weight at a variable basic activity level (not including vigorous exercise, but including non-sedentary activity), so I should not drop below 900 - 1100 calories, ever, in a day, if I were trying to lose 2 pounds of fat a week. However, this should be a net figure: most fitness professionals do not suggest that level of calorie deficit in food - it's almost unsustainable and hard to get proper nourishment.
So we're also assuming we will target a caloric remainder through exercise to get to that 1.5 to 2 pound weekly fat burn. This is the point at which our MFP settings and feedback may become confusing: if I set my weight loss goal to 2 pounds weekly, MFP is telling me to eat 1100 calories a day, then giving me more when I exercise. Because this is the FAR end of fat metabolism, I DEFINITELY SHOULD eat those calories back. However, if weight loss speed is set to 1.5 pounds, or especially less than that, per week, it is not always going to be necessary to "eat back" calories.
Also, if you are significantly overweight, MFP or any similar calculator is going to skew things... let's say you're a somewhat active, 5'7" woman weighing 250 pounds: MFP will tell you your maintenance calories are very high, maybe around 2700 calories a day - this makes sense - you've had to be overeating to reach this point, and will have to continue to overeat a bit to maintain it (in most cases). Therefore, your 500-cals/day deficit, while helpful in your quest to lose a pound a week, is different than that of a thinner person's - if you're being told that 2200 calories a day is a deficit for you, you have plenty of room to eat less, and plenty of room not to eat back calories worked off. So if you're weaning yourself off eating too much, this can be helpful, but in the long term is possibly not the best guide to follow.
I suggest a few steps to get to some solid figures you can write down and refer to, instead of (in addition to) MFP feedback.
First, quickly use MFP to learn your base line maintenance level intake - be sure to be honest about your normal (non-exercise) physical activity level. Change your goals to weight maintenance, set all your current measurements correctly, and see what it tells you your maintenance calories are (write this down). Now you can change your goals back to whatever weight loss speed you've been aiming for.
Next, if you have more than 20 or 30 pounds to lose (if taller, more than 30 or 40 - at this point this only makes about 100 cals of difference to my situation, for instance), use another on-line calculator such as http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm to find out the maintenance caloric requirement for a person of your same age, height and gender at your (REALISTIC! This only works if your goal is REALISTIC...) GOAL WEIGHT.
For many women, 1800 - 2100 cals/day is going to be a sensible MAINTENANCE intake for goal weight WITH 5 days of exercise per week (older and smaller people will, sadly, need less food, but hey, it's still not such a bad deal - a 65-year-old 5'4" woman working out 5 days a week needs about 1700 cals to maintain 140 pounds - that's still a nice full day of food!).
So, you can use one of these as a starting point - either your actual maintenance level (for people with maybe less than 30 pounds to lose) or your goal-weight maintenance level (for people with 50 or more pounds to lose).
If you're very overweight, now you can check if your goal-weight calorie level is roughly in the ballpark of what you are being instructed by computer programs to consume to reach a deficit - if GOAL CALORIES are LESS than CURRENT DEFICIT CALORIES, you may want to start revising your eating habits to consume less - first, it's safe and you'll probably lose weight faster, and second, you'll become more comfortable with what that feels like, and possibly find it easier to maintain that once you are at or near your goal.
Now that you know your maintenance level, factor in a realistic deficit - probably no more than 500 calories - that you can live with eating daily and feeling strong on. This is where it gets simple: I need about 2100 cals to maintain my weight; I need about 1600 to burn a pound of fat a week.
Try not to go too far BELOW a deficit of 500 - again, if you are eating nearer a 1000-cal deficit, you have run out of room for fueling workouts, and are closer to working against your fitness and weight loss goals if your body begins to slow down to conserve energy.
On the other hand, at this level of deficit, you should have enough leeway 1) to work out up to a 400 - 500 calorie burn without needing to "eat back" (though you should always refuel after a workout, and pay attention to your energy levels), especially since you shouldn't be working out quite that hard every single day, and 2) to eat an extra 100 - 200 calories every now and then (couple days a week) or even an "extra" 500 once every couple of weeks without "blowing your diet" - I'll still be killing it on a 1700 cal day, for instance.
So I strongly suggest getting an idea of a sensible daily target number in mind - use MFP to do so by choosing the pound-a-week loss goal - and aiming to eat that pretty much every day, without any thought of "eating back" your workout calories (unless you're starving / super athletic / etc.), and only with concern as to what the final daily intake is, not to whether MFP says you're "under" or "over".
ONE BIG BENEFIT of this approach - setting a 1-pound/week goal, but working out on top of this instead of as part of it (adding a 300-cal burn to a 500-cal food deficit day for a total deficit of 800) is likely to give you the psychological boost of outperforming your goal and losing faster - setting a 2-pound goal is likely to have the opposite effect.
Stay motivated with MFP, but use it as a tool, not a just a feedback loop you react to mechanically, without your own knowledge.
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Replies
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I LIKE!0
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VERY good info!!!0
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great post.0
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Why I love ya FURY in action dropping knowledge! So realistic....I wish most people were because when you are not realistic you will gain it all back!0
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Preach it! We keep saying that! Nice post.0
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Nice!0
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thank you for taking the time to write all this down!!!0
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Good morning, all. 0 -
bump0
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Thank you, makes sense!0
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This is very overwhelming... I'm really having a hard time following :-(
I can't tell if I'm doing this right or wrong. ugh. *frustrated*0 -
This helped me so much, thank you!0
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This is very overwhelming... I'm really having a hard time following :-(
I can't tell if I'm doing this right or wrong. ugh. *frustrated*
I'm with Jordan. BAH.0 -
bump0
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Is there a Cliff Notes for this?0
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My shoes are tight.0
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An oasis of well thought-out fact in a desert of hearsay!0
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im eating about 1200 calories a day and not eating back my exercise calories unless im doing alot alot of cardio. heres my snapshot from that website you posted and for me honestly its way to high..i want you guys feedback..
heres the snapshot
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Bumping for my records!!!0
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So I strongly suggest getting an idea of a sensible daily target number in mind - use MFP to do so by choosing the pound-a-week loss goal - and aiming to eat that pretty much every day, without any thought of "eating back" your workout calories (unless you're starving / super athletic / etc.), and only with concern as to what the final daily intake is, not to whether MFP says you're "under" or "over".
ONE BIG BENEFIT of this approach - setting a 1-pound/week goal, but working out on top of this instead of as part of it (adding a 300-cal burn to a 500-cal food deficit day for a total deficit of 800) is likely to give you the psychological boost of outperforming your goal and losing faster - setting a 2-pound goal is likely to have the opposite effect.
This suggestion makes alot of sense to me. I changed my weight loss goal to .5 lb/week, per a suggestion on another post, and started eating back my workout calories in order to get over a plateau last fall, but it hasn't really helped. I find that eating back my exercise calories has given me permission to cheat on things like dessert and wine...0 -
Good lord, I just keep it simple.
Intake less calories than your body burns to reflect 1 lb weight loss per week.
What is so hard about this?0 -
more like 7,432 cents.0
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Bump!0
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This is pointing to the question being "how much does your body burn". So many people who don't even eat 1200 calories (what MFP generalizes as being everyones basic body burn) and then exercise ton and not giving their body back any fuel to rebuild don't seem to be taking into account their basic body needs. The focus is on weight loss, no matter the cost. Which is why so many bodies need to loose, since previously it was possibly a form of gratification or self-loathing, no matter the cost.
Take some time to understand your body and it's needs before you end up just as unhealthy in a situation that can't be sustained and will rebound you someplace you don't want to be.0 -
Great post - thx!0
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I'm basically burning what i eat but I'm told that this is not good. I'm trying to hit about 1300 calories a day.0
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That website has a really high number for me as well. My "goal weight" has 2051 calories... so I should be eating that to lose?? how would I ever lose weight eating that much? i feel like I must have missed something in the instructions?0
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Bump to read later..good information0
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I have no idea if I am doing it right, I want to loose about 15kg and and have put in to loose 2lb a week, goal is 1350 a day, sometimes I go over, other days I am under if I have exercised... Should I change my settings to 1lb a week?? My idea of thinking is if I eat healthy and often I only need the 1350 a day.... HELP!!!0
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When you set your goal to lose 2lb per week the total calories that MFP gives you per day should result in the intended loss. It is already figuring your basic calorie needs to maintain then subtracting calories to help you reach your goal. This means that when you exercise and put your numbers lower, you could petentially lose more, although it may just result in your body feeling neglected in the calorie department which leaves you hungry and tired. When you eat over your calorie "goal" you will potentially still loose, but maybe just not the full 2lb per week. Overall though you should be averaging the right numbers for a week at a time. Your body is not an exact science and will not "lose" at the exact moment you create a calorie deficit. It will work with what it has and take from stores when it is ready to. I would say don't stress about the exact day by day and do work towards having good weeks overall.
So sjpowell24, 1350 per day is to lose 2lb per week. If you are feeling hungry with that number, exercise and eat back your calories and you should still lose 2lb per week, potentially. If you decrease your intended loss, yes you will be able to eat more calories and still lose. And then on days you exercise, eat back those calories and yes, you will potentially still lose at your intended pace. The number that MFP gives you is what you can/should eat to reach your goal.0
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