Why you should eat your exercise calories

CaliforniaGirl84

My experiences for losing weight were restricting calories. For me diet is 90% to lose weight and working out supplements the weight loss. I think a lot of people undersestimate just how many calories they are burning in the gym and sometimes think they can overindulge. I was definitley guilty of that as well. I'd have a great work out and think it was okay to eat a big mac/fries and then wonder why I wasn't losing weight.
My plan now is to eat my work out calories but I also use a heart rate monitor to see just how hard I'm working and I also eat way healthier. LIke so many of you others have said,"one size does not fit all" Gotta find what works best-and slow and steady wins the race so don't get discouraged if you reach a plateau. It's a lifestyle change!

KimsWeightloss

Thanks for the link! :happy:

Steph_Marie29

I don't eat the calories back.

SongbirdTrisha

maybe im slow but i dont understand the article

Eating too few calories can actually slow down the rate at which you lose weight. This can be confusing as all too often you are told that the way to lose weight is to eat less calories and exercise. While technically this is true, it is important to understand that your body needs a certain amount of calories in order to function. If you are eating too few calories, your body feels like it is starving. At this point, your body will actually begin to store fat and your metabolism will begin to slow down. When your metabolism slows down, it burns calories at a slow speed and basically puts your body into neutral mode. Basically, your weight loss efforts are going nowhere and you stop losing weight. The amount of calories you should intake to remain healthy depends on your body weight and activity level. Before you can determine how many calories are too few calories, you must find the amount of calories that your body needs to survive. There are many online calculators that are able to calculate this for you. These calculators generally do not include exercise. Therefore, if you do any activity at all, including walking to the car, you must add calories to this number. This is an important number and you must take it seriously. Eating too few calories below this number will cause serious damage to your body. Never take in less than 1200 calories per day. Once you determine what you need to survive, you will need to determine what calories you need to maintain your existing weight. There are also online calculators to help you with this task. After you determine what calories are needed to maintain the weight, you will be able to determine how many calories you need to lose weight. It is important to understand that you must lose weight at a reasonable rate, or your body will go into starvation mode. This is usually about one to two pounds per week. All you need to do this is to reduce or burn about 500 extra calories each day. It is important to include exercise into this equation. Try cutting back on 300 calories per day as well as burn 200 calories by exercising. Eating too few calories can slow down your weight loss efforts by slowing down your metabolism and causing serious health problems.



Hope this helps....

It sure helped me! Very well put, and so easy to understand- thank you!

Tara4boys

GREAT discussion and information!!! Ya'll rock!

Its been touched on here but I think it is crucial to the issue. Especially when you are eating back ALL your calories. I think eating back all of your exercise calories can be difficult advice especially for newbies. Not because the science and mathematics of it doesn't make sense. I think it makes sense and I believe in a starvation mode. I think it is difficult advice because it is HARD to ACCURATELY calculate your calories in vs. calories out.

1. Track calories in carefully. Are you really eating *just* a tablespoon of peanut butter - better yet I see people recording they had a PB sandwich with 1 TEASPOON of PB. Really??? 1 tsp how in the world did you spread it on??? Was that apple really a small 80 calorie apple? Those giant fuji apples can be >120 calories a pop - that's 50% more. Now I'm not saying you are going to get fat eating apples but it applies to other areas as well. There is wonderful blog www.freewebs.com/goingskiing/plateaubusters of a lady (who has done a lot of research on many things including portion sizes) She even went to McD's and ordered a small fry took it home and weighed it. The website says small order weigh 90g = 150 calories. Her small order actually weight 30% more and thus 30% more calories (256cal).

In one study she cites, a bunch of registered dietitians were asked to keep a food diary. Even registered dietitians UNDERreported their calories by 10%. What about studies on the average dieter - the average was to under report by 29%.


2. Track Calories burned carefully. This one is hard. HRM's aren't 100% but neither are MFP's exercise calculators, and those calorie calculators on the cardio machines - fuhgetaboutit! In almost all cases, these tools OVERestimate your calorie burn. Yesterday I saw where someone said they burned 400 calories doing 10 minutes of exercise (I'm hoping that was a mistake because I'm not buying it). Ideas to help, set your HRM for a lower weight than you actually are. Round down your numbers.

Or like me... I eat back roughly half of my exercise calories to make up for my errors. I'm not perfect. I leave that slightly larger deficit as "insurance" to cover mistakes - is my ACTUAL deficit really that large - probably not. I might have forgotten to record that my teaspoon of EVOO actually overflowed a little, I didn't actually weigh my grapefruit to make sure it was the textbook size (a lot of these calorie guides were made years ago and produce was smaller - produce has gotten bigger with advances in agricultural practices), I wore my HRM but it might have not been 100%, was that soft serve ice cream cone that was supposed to be a 150 calorie treat really the standard 150 calorie size - it sure looked HUGE

If all else fails, let weight loss be your guide! Try it both ways and see what happens.

whtlatina1214

maybe im slow but i dont understand the article

Eating too few calories can actually slow down the rate at which you lose weight. This can be confusing as all too often you are told that the way to lose weight is to eat less calories and exercise. While technically this is true, it is important to understand that your body needs a certain amount of calories in order to function. If you are eating too few calories, your body feels like it is starving. At this point, your body will actually begin to store fat and your metabolism will begin to slow down. When your metabolism slows down, it burns calories at a slow speed and basically puts your body into neutral mode. Basically, your weight loss efforts are going nowhere and you stop losing weight. The amount of calories you should intake to remain healthy depends on your body weight and activity level. Before you can determine how many calories are too few calories, you must find the amount of calories that your body needs to survive. There are many online calculators that are able to calculate this for you. These calculators generally do not include exercise. Therefore, if you do any activity at all, including walking to the car, you must add calories to this number. This is an important number and you must take it seriously. Eating too few calories below this number will cause serious damage to your body. Never take in less than 1200 calories per day. Once you determine what you need to survive, you will need to determine what calories you need to maintain your existing weight. There are also online calculators to help you with this task. After you determine what calories are needed to maintain the weight, you will be able to determine how many calories you need to lose weight. It is important to understand that you must lose weight at a reasonable rate, or your body will go into starvation mode. This is usually about one to two pounds per week. All you need to do this is to reduce or burn about 500 extra calories each day. It is important to include exercise into this equation. Try cutting back on 300 calories per day as well as burn 200 calories by exercising. Eating too few calories can slow down your weight loss efforts by slowing down your metabolism and causing serious health problems.



Hope this helps....

It sure helped me! Very well put, and so easy to understand- thank you!

yes yes me too i def understand it now i dont ever eat all the calories back but if i do workout i usually eat a skinny cow ice cream or a lil mini candy or a jello cheesecake soooo idk i have only been on here since december 15th and i have only lost 4lbs

SergeantSunshine_reused

I dont even try to understand it. I am going by what my trainer wants me to do. Eating 4-6 times a day, smaller portions, and my excercise. I eat about 1600 to 2000 calories a day right now and thats eating better foods and im still trying to get to where i need to be on my better foods list for my trainer. There is NO WAY IN HELL id be able to eat back over 1500 calories a day plus what i already eat from what i burn. You do what works for you. Everyone is different.

I swear half of you aren't even READING the article I posted.

UsedToBeHusky

First, the article refutes the validity of the study, then he goes on to state that he is speculating, and that the effect of high caloric deficits is not the same on everyone.

In my opinion, this doesn't really support the case that you are making. But at the same time, the information on the effects of cortisol is very helpful. I recently started eating back my exercise calories because my weight loss has leveled off. I won't call it a plateau because I have been fluctuating. Instead, I will say that my weight loss is hovering. Eating back my exercise calories only made a minimal difference. After reading this, I really think my problem could be stress-related since I have never dealt with stress well. Now I just have to decide how I want to approach this. Thanks for posting the article, even though, I'm not really certain that it supported your point, it was still valuable insight. :happy:

SergeantSunshine_reused

I posted this a while ago, but I have been seeing more and more new members asking whether or not they should be eating them back.

Short answer: YES!

Here is why: http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/why-big-caloric-deficits-and-lots-of-activity-can-hurt-fat-loss.html

MFP has already created a deficit for you. When you don't eat your exercise calories back you are creating an even larger deficit which can cause you to stop losing. I strongly suggest you to read the link I provided for details!

That article doesn't actually say you need to eat your calories back. What it's saying is choosing a large calorie deficit and also exercising will not help you lose weight, let alone see it fall off.

I get nervous when I see people saying you have to eat your exercise calories back - it opens the door to abuse. To eat my calories back I'd either be eating the crap I cut out in the first place or be sick by the quantity. Also as correctly pointed out by others - MFP is never exact and you should allow margins of error, so why not have it under and be a good one?

If I've eaten 1800 calories and still have 500 spare due to exercise, I won't eat it back if I'm full and content. It's all about moderation and listening to your body

I think people misunderstood the post a little bit. I am not stating that eating back 100% of your exercise calories is the only way for everyone. I am saying that too big of a deficit (caused by huge amounts of cardio and little food) can cause problems. I personally don't eat back ever calorie because of error :]

As for calories - Not that hard to get in if you increase the healthy fats. Olive oil, pistachios, and almonds make calories incredibly easy to get it :]

auticus

It is different for each person. Someone trying to soapbox how all people should do this one thing is pretentious.

I put in an hour of cardio every day 6 times a week. That's roughly 5-6 miles of running or eliptical a day, or 25-30 miles a week. My goal burn is 6000 calories a week.

If I eat my calories back, I don't lose weight.

If I don't eat my calories back, I lose what I'm supposed to lose.

If I eat some of my calories back, I may or may not lose weight depending on how my body feels at the time relational to saturn's axiom tilt compared with the cross nebula of EB192.

In short: I try not to eat my calories back because it gives me the best results and always has. There are some people who are the reverse of me. That's perfectly ok too.

Note: I do not starve myself. I eat 1700-2000 calories a day.

Butterfly3730

Its a good article but there's also a lot of self admitted speculation in the article. Like anything else..it works for some and not for others and no one size fits all.

This

mommy2jkserjlja

I think this is why I've had so much success. I eat most (not all) of my exercise calories back. I agree that our bodies are different and react differently, but for the most part, I believe eating them back really works.

jchrisman717

My personal trainer told me that what MFP gave me for my personal training class was not accurate. He said it was too high. To get an accurate court I needed a Heart Rate Monitor. I don't have one and probably won't be getting one anytime soon. So what I do is I add my exercise but I don't add the whole hour I only add 1/2 hour and he said to never ever go below 1200 calories and to Yes - eat back my exercise calories, and to eat the right foods, ex. carbs before class and protein after class. Exercise alone is so important for health reasons not just losing weight, heart health, cholesteral health, diabetes health, etc.

I have gone from doing almost nothing in about 1 1/2 years to doing a personal training class 3 days a week and I know that has got to be better for me overall then doing nothing.

I think each person's body make up is different, especially for women depending on their age. I know I used to be able to drop 10 lbs in a couple weeks by limiting my food and working out, now it takes more like 10 weeks to lose 10 lbs!

I think the OP here is trying to say that if you limit your calorie intake too much even if you are working out, you will most likely stall in your weight loss.

SaraTN

@ engineman Me too! But what I drink doesn't look as healthy -- I have yet to find a pinot smoothie...

_Ben

While I agree you are able to eat it back, Id say by not eating them back, you get the quickest weight loss results. I try to not eat back my calories, but now that Im at my goal weight, if I do go over, its not the end of the world

Kayla165

Yup! Exercise is also good for your heart and your brain.

erickirb

It is different for each person. Someone trying to soapbox how all people should do this one thing is pretentious.

I put in an hour of cardio every day 6 times a week. That's roughly 5-6 miles of running or eliptical a day, or 25-30 miles a week. My goal burn is 6000 calories a week.

If I eat my calories back, I don't lose weight.

If I don't eat my calories back, I lose what I'm supposed to lose.

If I eat some of my calories back, I may or may not lose weight depending on how my body feels at the time relational to saturn's axiom tilt compared with the cross nebula of EB192.

In short: I try not to eat my calories back because it gives me the best results and always has. There are some people who are the reverse of me. That's perfectly ok too.

Note: I do not starve myself. I eat 1700-2000 calories a day.

If you gain by eating them back then either you have a slow metabolism, are under estimating what you eat, or over estimating what you burn. If you are tracking everything with any degree of accuracy and your BMR and activity level on MFP are correct then you must eat 100% of your exercise calories back in order to lose your weekly goal amount of weight.

With the amount of cardio you are doing there is a good change you are burning a lot of lean muscle away which will further lower your metabolism. I eat 1900-2200 cals/day and don't gain and my maintenance is arount 1900, the extra 200-300 accounts for exercise.

For those that don't want to eat your exercise calories back you should be setting your activity level much higher to account for exercise that way. Instead of sedentary put in active, this will give you more cals to fuel your workouts and if you do this you should not eat the exercise calories back. This is the way nutritionist and doctors set your caloric intake and if you set the proper weekly weight loss goal for your stats you will always be higher than 1200 cals unless your are 5 foot nothing and 100 and nothing pounds.

LorinaLynn

While I agree you are able to eat it back, Id say by not eating them back, you get the quickest weight loss results. I try to not eat back my calories, but now that Im at my goal weight, if I do go over, its not the end of the world

But "quickest weight loss" isn't the same as "most fat loss."

Last time I lost weight, at 130# I wore a size 8.

This time, I'm around 130# and a size 2 or 4.

erickirb

While I agree you are able to eat it back, Id say by not eating them back, you get the quickest weight loss results. I try to not eat back my calories, but now that Im at my goal weight, if I do go over, its not the end of the world

True you should lose faster this way the problem is a large % of your lose doing it this way would be lean muscle, not just the fat you are looking at losing, this is even more likely the less you have to lose as the less you have to lose the smaller your caloric deficit should be.

Moliver568

I recently downloaded myfitnesspal to my iPad. While the phone and web version add my exercise calories to my calories for the day (ex: if I burn 400 calories doing cardio, I get an extra 400 for my day's total), the iPad version doesn't. So, since I'm usually on the ipad and not the pc in the evening, I have to remember to have a late night snack to eat those "extra" calories back instead of just seeing oooh, I have 400 more calories tonight.

erickirb

My personal trainer told me that what MFP gave me for my personal training class was not accurate. He said it was too high. To get an accurate court I needed a Heart Rate Monitor. I don't have one and probably won't be getting one anytime soon. So what I do is I add my exercise but I don't add the whole hour I only add 1/2 hour and he said to never ever go below 1200 calories and to Yes - eat back my exercise calories, and to eat the right foods, ex. carbs before class and protein after class. Exercise alone is so important for health reasons not just losing weight, heart health, cholesteral health, diabetes health, etc.

I have gone from doing almost nothing in about 1 1/2 years to doing a personal training class 3 days a week and I know that has got to be better for me overall then doing nothing.

I think each person's body make up is different, especially for women depending on their age. I know I used to be able to drop 10 lbs in a couple weeks by limiting my food and working out, now it takes more like 10 weeks to lose 10 lbs!

I think the OP here is trying to say that if you limit your calorie intake too much even if you are working out, you will most likely stall in your weight loss.

If you are using MFP's to calculate calories burned I would suggest only eating around 75% of them as the site tends to over estimate caloric burn.

SergeantSunshine_reused

My basic reasoning behind the post: Eating too little can do more harm than good. Not saying everyone should do it the same! Goodness xD

auticus

It is different for each person. Someone trying to soapbox how all people should do this one thing is pretentious.

I put in an hour of cardio every day 6 times a week. That's roughly 5-6 miles of running or eliptical a day, or 25-30 miles a week. My goal burn is 6000 calories a week.

If I eat my calories back, I don't lose weight.

If I don't eat my calories back, I lose what I'm supposed to lose.

If I eat some of my calories back, I may or may not lose weight depending on how my body feels at the time relational to saturn's axiom tilt compared with the cross nebula of EB192.

In short: I try not to eat my calories back because it gives me the best results and always has. There are some people who are the reverse of me. That's perfectly ok too.

Note: I do not starve myself. I eat 1700-2000 calories a day.

If you gain by eating them back then either you have a slow metabolism, are under estimating what you eat, or over estimating what you burn. If you are tracking everything with any degree of accuracy and your BMR and activity level on MFP are correct then you must eat 100% of your exercise calories back in order to lose your weekly goal amount of weight.

With the amount of cardio you are doing there is a good change you are burning a lot of lean muscle away which will further lower your metabolism. I eat 1900-2200 cals/day and don't gain and my maintenance is arount 1900, the extra 200-300 accounts for exercise.

For those that don't want to eat your exercise calories back you should be setting your activity level much higher to account for exercise that way. Instead of sedentary put in active, this will give you more cals to fuel your workouts and if you do this you should not eat the exercise calories back. This is the way nutritionist and doctors set your caloric intake and if you set the proper weekly weight loss goal for your stats you will always be higher than 1200 cals unless your are 5 foot nothing and 100 and nothing pounds.

My metabolism is 20% slower than normal and I have to account for that. This was confirmed after several months of study and finding what numbers work for me and involved using an HRM (MFP states I burn over 1000 calories if I run 6 miles but I actually only burn 750; MFP often times is wrong when it comes to calories burned and seems to use a base average)

My non-active BMR is 1900 calories. For a 220 lb guy it should be between 2200 and 2400.

In addition to my cardio I also do about 180-240 minutes of strength training per week.

I am a former wrestler/pro-wrestler so gyms and nutrionists etc are not new concepts for me.

maryjay51

i eat six times a day as it is..i dont typically get hungry anymore but if i do i listen to my body and have something more. i try to stick to my plan and if i workout a ton ,then well, i work out a ton.. i always eat before and after workouts . i keep stuff im my car at all times in case an emergency hunger strikes and it prevents me from driving through a mcdonalds drive thru.

erickirb

It is only a good idea to not eat the extra caloris if, and only if, you increase your activity level to account for exercise. changing your activity level will give you more calories so you will be eating enough, without the thought of "eating your exercise calories".

Essentially you would be setting your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) then creating a deficit from that to lose weight. This is what most trainer/doctors/nutritionists do. Most professionals will tell you not to eat your exercise calories back because they added it into your TDEE, whereas MFP ignores planned exercise and only accounts for it when you perform and enter it. Either way should get you to the same place.

As an example say MFP gives you 1450 calories to lose 1 lb/week, and you plan on exercising 5x/week for an average of 400 cals per workout. well MFP will tell you to eat 1450 on the days you don't workout and 1850 on the days you do whereas a "professional" may tell you to eat 1750 everyday regardless if you workout.

So for the week MFP will have you eat 12,150 (1450*2+1850*5) whereas doing it the other way will have you eat 12,250 (1750*7) almost the same number of cals for the week. The issue in not following MFP is if you don't workout the full 5 days or burn more or less than planned. If that is the case you may lose more or less than your goal, whereas MFP will have you lose your goal amount regardless how much you actually workout.

What many MFPers do is take the low 1450 and not eat back exercise calories which is wrong, if you are not eating them back then your daily activity level should reflect the higher burn which would be covered in the 1750/day above.

As an example your day to day requirements are like a tank of gas. if you use a tank of gas/week going to and from work, if you go on any extra trips or errands you will need to add more gas in order to have enough gas to get to work. So if you need 1450 for day to day stuff (you will lose weight with 1450 cals and no exercise), then when you do extra (workout) you need to put more calories in your body.

SergeantSunshine_reused

That is why I use a BodyMedia Fit and HRM to attempt to get close to what I should be eating - although these are still estimates so I leave about 100-200 calories usually for that. I would probably leave a little more on cardio days if I didn't have these. Mfp can sure give some crazy high readings for somethings!

I have seen so many posts of "Im not losing!!!" Then see that they are eating 1200 calories and burning 800+ each day. The thought of exercise calories is foreign besides this site, so I think many people do not understand.

Exercise = great! Eating too little = bad.

shadow997

great post ! common sense should always prevail

Candida1983

I have a friend who eats all of her exercise calories, and she has lost 33 pounds in the last 5 months!! I have been inspired by her, but what if you can't eat all of the calories back because you're way too full to think about it? I really tried last night but wasn't able to and ended up with 300+ calories that I didn't eat.

shadow997

great post ! common sense should always prevail
GREAT discussion and information!!! Ya'll rock!

Its been touched on here but I think it is crucial to the issue. Especially when you are eating back ALL your calories. I think eating back all of your exercise calories can be difficult advice especially for newbies. Not because the science and mathematics of it doesn't make sense. I think it makes sense and I believe in a starvation mode. I think it is difficult advice because it is HARD to ACCURATELY calculate your calories in vs. calories out.

1. Track calories in carefully. Are you really eating *just* a tablespoon of peanut butter - better yet I see people recording they had a PB sandwich with 1 TEASPOON of PB. Really??? 1 tsp how in the world did you spread it on??? Was that apple really a small 80 calorie apple? Those giant fuji apples can be >120 calories a pop - that's 50% more. Now I'm not saying you are going to get fat eating apples but it applies to other areas as well. There is wonderful blog www.freewebs.com/goingskiing/plateaubusters of a lady (who has done a lot of research on many things including portion sizes) She even went to McD's and ordered a small fry took it home and weighed it. The website says small order weigh 90g = 150 calories. Her small order actually weight 30% more and thus 30% more calories (256cal).

In one study she cites, a bunch of registered dietitians were asked to keep a food diary. Even registered dietitians UNDERreported their calories by 10%. What about studies on the average dieter - the average was to under report by 29%.


2. Track Calories burned carefully. This one is hard. HRM's aren't 100% but neither are MFP's exercise calculators, and those calorie calculators on the cardio machines - fuhgetaboutit! In almost all cases, these tools OVERestimate your calorie burn. Yesterday I saw where someone said they burned 400 calories doing 10 minutes of exercise (I'm hoping that was a mistake because I'm not buying it). Ideas to help, set your HRM for a lower weight than you actually are. Round down your numbers.

Or like me... I eat back roughly half of my exercise calories to make up for my errors. I'm not perfect. I leave that slightly larger deficit as "insurance" to cover mistakes - is my ACTUAL deficit really that large - probably not. I might have forgotten to record that my teaspoon of EVOO actually overflowed a little, I didn't actually weigh my grapefruit to make sure it was the textbook size (a lot of these calorie guides were made years ago and produce was smaller - produce has gotten bigger with advances in agricultural practices), I wore my HRM but it might have not been 100%, was that soft serve ice cream cone that was supposed to be a 150 calorie treat really the standard 150 calorie size - it sure looked HUGE

If all else fails, let weight loss be your guide! Try it both ways and see what happens.

SergeantSunshine_reused

I have a friend who eats all of her exercise calories, and she has lost 33 pounds in the last 5 months!! I have been inspired by her, but what if you can't eat all of the calories back because you're way too full to think about it? I really tried last night but wasn't able to and ended up with 300+ calories that I didn't eat.

If you didn't have a huge calorie deficit then I don't worry too much about it. I add olive oil to my foods to get the cals in :]
Or protein ice cream or dark chocolate ^-^ hehe