"Eating back your calories"- A New Approach
TexNut
Posts: 53
I read a lot of posts about "eating back your calories" and would like to suggest an alternate view for those that find that way of thinking difficult to understand.
Weight-loss (or -gain) is CUMULATIVE. What we eat today affects us today, tomorrow, and beyond. Just as the exercise/activities we do have on-going effects. While counting calories is effective (especially for those just beginning a weight-loss regimen or first trying to change eating habits) - it can be misleading to rely solely on the QUANTITY of calories. My suggestion may be easier said than done for some, but here it is: try to stop thinking about calories in vs. calories out on a daily basis, and think more long-term.
One pound = 3500 calories. If you manage to just create a deficit of 500 calories a day, you will lose 1 pound within a week (500 calories X 7 days). How are caloric deficits created? 1. By eating less. 2. By exercising more. 3. Through the thermogenic properties of foods (they require energy to digest and use). Most of you are using a combination of all three of these ways!
If you're being active and eating healthy (mostly fresh, raw foods = high QUALITY calories) and drinking lots of water, your body will do the work it's supposed to do. If you exercise and feel hungry after a workout, it's because your body has expended all the ready energy in your bloodstream, thus decreasing the amount of insulin in your blood...resulting in hunger. You need to keep fueling your body when it needs it!
Think of your metabolism like a campfire. If you put 2 or 3 giant logs on the fire, it dampens down and doesn't burn as brightly or as hot. (Think of this as 2-3 large meals or poor-QUALITY calories.) If you instead put a couple of medium-sized branches and more twigs and kindling, your campfire burns hotter, brighter and faster. (Think of medium-sized branches as lean protein; and twigs/kindling as complex-carbohydrates.) The campfire burns through the smaller wood very quickly, requiring more of it to keep burning at that rate!
Keep "stoking" that metabolic fire, my friends! Feed your body frequent, high-QUALITY calories and use exercise to train your metabolism to burn faster.
Feel free to add me as a friend. I'm a nutritionist, exercise coach and wellness counselor and am always eager to learn more and to meet new people - each of whom present new and interesting challenges!
Weight-loss (or -gain) is CUMULATIVE. What we eat today affects us today, tomorrow, and beyond. Just as the exercise/activities we do have on-going effects. While counting calories is effective (especially for those just beginning a weight-loss regimen or first trying to change eating habits) - it can be misleading to rely solely on the QUANTITY of calories. My suggestion may be easier said than done for some, but here it is: try to stop thinking about calories in vs. calories out on a daily basis, and think more long-term.
One pound = 3500 calories. If you manage to just create a deficit of 500 calories a day, you will lose 1 pound within a week (500 calories X 7 days). How are caloric deficits created? 1. By eating less. 2. By exercising more. 3. Through the thermogenic properties of foods (they require energy to digest and use). Most of you are using a combination of all three of these ways!
If you're being active and eating healthy (mostly fresh, raw foods = high QUALITY calories) and drinking lots of water, your body will do the work it's supposed to do. If you exercise and feel hungry after a workout, it's because your body has expended all the ready energy in your bloodstream, thus decreasing the amount of insulin in your blood...resulting in hunger. You need to keep fueling your body when it needs it!
Think of your metabolism like a campfire. If you put 2 or 3 giant logs on the fire, it dampens down and doesn't burn as brightly or as hot. (Think of this as 2-3 large meals or poor-QUALITY calories.) If you instead put a couple of medium-sized branches and more twigs and kindling, your campfire burns hotter, brighter and faster. (Think of medium-sized branches as lean protein; and twigs/kindling as complex-carbohydrates.) The campfire burns through the smaller wood very quickly, requiring more of it to keep burning at that rate!
Keep "stoking" that metabolic fire, my friends! Feed your body frequent, high-QUALITY calories and use exercise to train your metabolism to burn faster.
Feel free to add me as a friend. I'm a nutritionist, exercise coach and wellness counselor and am always eager to learn more and to meet new people - each of whom present new and interesting challenges!
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Replies
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Without commenting either way on what you've said, it's a generally a little unfocused.
For example, you're not really talking about eating back calories burned through exercise. This post covers.
1) The age old calories in/calories vs quality of food debate.
2) Spikes in metabolism from the thermic effects of digestion vs. eating several times/day.
3) and...?? The importance of activity on metabolism, I suppose.
The problem is that it's kind of all over the map and not really brought together. Is it fair to summarize the entire post by saying you advocate eating multiple, smaller meals made of higher quality calories (however you choose to define higher quality)? I don't really see how it fits into eating back calories...unless you're advocating not counting calories and just trying to be circumspect about it.0 -
Hi MikeSEA,
My apologies for the lack of clarity, my friend! I guess I'm a little frazzled at the end of a long day! But you suppose correctly when you said that I was suggesting NOT counting calories (again, not for everyone). I wrote this post due to the increasing number of messages on the board regarding "eating back your calories after a workout". It seemed to me that a lot of people were thinking of their calories (in AND out) in a very misleading manner. IT'S CUMULATIVE; and it would be a mistake to think that you're undoing your hard work by having a healthy snack post-workout.Without commenting either way on what you've said, it's a generally a little unfocused.
For example, you're not really talking about eating back calories burned through exercise. This post covers.
1) The age old calories in/calories vs quality of food debate.
2) Spikes in metabolism from the thermic effects of digestion vs. eating several times/day.
3) and...?? The importance of activity on metabolism, I suppose.
Let me be clear on this: we are ALWAYS "eating back" our calories burned through movement!
You burn calories in your sleep, even. Then you wake up and "eat those back" so to speak, but you're also fueling your body to keep working and "breakfast" literally means breaking the fasting cycle by eating again and is vital to our daily metabolic burn. (On average, eating breakfast increases your metabolic burn by about 30% for the day.)
While "calories in/calories out vs. quality of food" may be an age-old argument, common sense dictates that higher-quality calories result in a lower overall intake. Have you ever been eating junk food (a cheeseburger & fries, maybe) and you thought you could just go on eating it forever, and you weren't feeling full? Our bodies tell us we're no longer hungry when we've received enough NUTRITION. You could eat a lot of cheeseburger calories before you felt full...as opposed to a healthy meal of lean protein, fresh veg, and whole grains that fills you up quickly - not b/c of the bulk, but the quality of the calories your body was able to process and uptake.
Don't be afraid to fuel your body if you're using Premium Grade gasoline!! (aka high-quality calories) Give your body what it needs, then use it! Give your body more fuel when it needs it...and KEEP using it! We're always "eating back our calories"...but we're also always burning them. Make the most of it by eating 70%+ fresh, raw foods (better fuel in fewer calories) and burning all you can (think of all of your movements as potential exercise!)
Hope that clarifies some things! And CONGRATS on the 56 pounds lost!!!0 -
I'd like to see your claim about breakfast cited. I don't buy it. I've seen too much evidence to the contrary.0
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Thanks for the incite ..I love learning from new people and having someone to bounce things off of ..expect a add to come your way
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I like your thoughts. They are well thought out and you make some terrific points. You are bold to publish your opinions and thoughts because I have seen many posts that get torn to shreds by those with opposing views. Not that everyone has to agree but replies are not always thoughtfully made. And I like your campfire analogy. :bigsmile:0
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Don't be afraid to fuel your body if you're using Premium Grade gasoline!! (aka high-quality calories)
So I should be afraid to fuel up if I'm not eating your prescribed diet? That is... clean, mostly raw, whole foods? I think this is irresponsible and ultimately bad advice on this forum... especially for those can't afford or get access to the "premium grade."
I think it's safe to say it's worse to not give your body enough of any kind of fuel than to quibble over what's premium and what's not.0 -
I read a lot of posts about "eating back your calories" and would like to suggest an alternate view for those that find that way of thinking difficult to understand.
Weight-loss (or -gain) is CUMULATIVE. What we eat today affects us today, tomorrow, and beyond. Just as the exercise/activities we do have on-going effects. While counting calories is effective (especially for those just beginning a weight-loss regimen or first trying to change eating habits) - it can be misleading to rely solely on the QUANTITY of calories. My suggestion may be easier said than done for some, but here it is: try to stop thinking about calories in vs. calories out on a daily basis, and think more long-term.
One pound = 3500 calories. If you manage to just create a deficit of 500 calories a day, you will lose 1 pound within a week (500 calories X 7 days). How are caloric deficits created? 1. By eating less. 2. By exercising more. 3. Through the thermogenic properties of foods (they require energy to digest and use). Most of you are using a combination of all three of these ways!
If you're being active and eating healthy (mostly fresh, raw foods = high QUALITY calories) and drinking lots of water, your body will do the work it's supposed to do. If you exercise and feel hungry after a workout, it's because your body has expended all the ready energy in your bloodstream, thus decreasing the amount of insulin in your blood...resulting in hunger. You need to keep fueling your body when it needs it!
Think of your metabolism like a campfire. If you put 2 or 3 giant logs on the fire, it dampens down and doesn't burn as brightly or as hot. (Think of this as 2-3 large meals or poor-QUALITY calories.) If you instead put a couple of medium-sized branches and more twigs and kindling, your campfire burns hotter, brighter and faster. (Think of medium-sized branches as lean protein; and twigs/kindling as complex-carbohydrates.) The campfire burns through the smaller wood very quickly, requiring more of it to keep burning at that rate!
Keep "stoking" that metabolic fire, my friends! Feed your body frequent, high-QUALITY calories and use exercise to train your metabolism to burn faster.
Feel free to add me as a friend. I'm a nutritionist, exercise coach and wellness counselor and am always eager to learn more and to meet new people - each of whom present new and interesting challenges!
i get it and have been following this it some way, it works for me.0 -
I agree with MikeSea, your post is confusing. I don't really understand what your advocating.
I don't eat junk food, but I'm not always hungry after a work out either.
I want to retain the most lean mass as possible, so I eat back my cals (even if I'm not hungry) and I eat a LOT of protein.
Is it what you mean by ''premium grade gasoline''? Healthy food doesn't necessarily mean that you're eating the right macro-nutrient for what you intent to do. I can eat tons of spinach, it's healthy, but I won't be able to eat 80-100g of protein from spinach only.0 -
I've also been trying to do more of this: eat more "quality" foods and more frequently. It's really helping me not be so hungry all the time ! !
And thanks for posting ! !0 -
Wow. Didn't expect such a vehement response from some people! I appreciate your opinions, as well as the opportunity to air mine. If you've posted a specific question, I'll try to send you a message.
(And next time I try to start a discussion, I may leave out the fact that I'm in the industry...was kind of like putting a target up! :happy: I don't claim to know everything about everything...far from it! I'm still learning, but this is what my experience has taught me - both personally and through working with hundreds of clients of all fitness levels.)
Keep on keepin' on, friends!0 -
Thank you! I found your post very helpful. 0
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Ok, I think I have a better idea about what you're saying now.
For my own 2 cents, while I agree that eating back calories shouldn't be viewed as undoing the calories burned through exercise, there are a few points I think may need some feedback.
Breakfast hasn't been shown to offer any metabolic benefit to weight loss. It might help people feel sated and prevent over eating throughout the day but that's not the same thing. I could make a similar statement about eating smaller meals.
On the other hand, it's not going to cause any harm either. So if it works for a person, then yay!0 -
A note on breakfast:
I'm kind of surprised that there's anybody left that doesn't believe eating breakfast is important and directly affects our metabolism! It's something that's been re-iterated to me throughout college (Public Health - Texas A&M) as well as my on-going training and certifications in nutrition & fitness.
I don't want to argue about it, though; and certainly know plenty of non-breakfast eaters that just can't bring themselves to eat early in the morning; yet still maintain a healthy weight. :flowerforyou:
Unfortunately, I don't have tons of time to cite a bunch of folks...but found the following on the first site I checked:
"It makes sense: Eating early in the day keeps us from "starvation eating" later on. But it also jump-starts your metabolism, says Elisabetta Politi, RD, MPH, nutrition manager for the Duke Diet & Fitness Center at Duke University Medical School. "When you don't eat breakfast, you're actually fasting for 15 to 20 hours, so you're not producing the enzymes needed to metabolize fat to lose weight."
Among the people she counsels, breakfast eaters are usually those who have lost a significant amount of weight. They also exercise. "They say that before having breakfast regularly, they would eat most of their calories after 5 p.m.," Politi tells WebMD. "Now, they try to distribute calories throughout the day. It makes sense that the body wants to be fueled."
**As every BODY is different, we all have to go through trials and errors to find what does and doesn't work for our particular vessel. Eating breakfast with lean protein seems to be one of those things that stands to help almost everyone. That is to say, I'm yet to meet someone it DIDN'T work for!
Be well, friends! And keep up the good work!!0 -
In my quick and dirty attempt to find some citations other people have used on this topic, I can see you've posted in a thread that had a lot of back and forth on these issues already. There's no particular need to rehash that here, so I won't
I will say, though, that I think part of the confusion I get from what you've said is that you've said a few times that everyone's different, so what you're advocating may not work for everyone. I think I would probably just use the last part of that..."The same weight loss techniques won't necessarily work for every person." There could be a lot of different reasons for that. One person could have a medical condition, one person could simply not want to do the same routine (nutrition or otherwise) as someone else, psychological factors can come into play as well. The list goes on.
And while you make the claim that not every technique will work for ever person (I agree), you also either make claims or imply that certain techniques do work generally for everyone (e.g. eating breakfast). Whether or not breakfast offers a metabolic benefit is question that's probably best left in other threads where it's been discussed at length. Sufficed to say you and I have differing takes on it and that's fine. But it is a little odd to say that people are different and also imply that breakfast works for everyone. It's a little contradictory.
You've said that you haven't met the person for whom it hasn't worked. Well, all I can say is: it's nice to meet you :flowerforyou: My name is Mike, and if I eat anything before about 4 hours after waking, I usually feel ill. Heaven forbid I actually workout after having eaten breakfast (even several hours after eating). I find I can work much harder after fasting for about 10-12 hours. And I feel great afterwards.
Thank you for the congrats on the weight loss. Add me to the list of people of people who've done it through calories in/calories out with particular attention to macronutrients. Be well.0 -
"It makes sense: Eating early in the day keeps us from "starvation eating" later on. But it also jump-starts your metabolism, says Elisabetta Politi, RD, MPH, nutrition manager for the Duke Diet & Fitness Center at Duke University Medical School. "When you don't eat breakfast, you're actually fasting for 15 to 20 hours, so you're not producing the enzymes needed to metabolize fat to lose weight."
I have to lol@ this. A 15-20 hour fast does not inhibit hormonal triggers to burn fat. Quite the opposite, actually.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2405717
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10837292
In addition, the widely reported "people who eat breakfast are more healthy than people who don't" broscience is based on highly flawed studies. I have never been able to dig up a single study done on the effects of breakfast skipping in one's diet if done in a *planned, conscious manner* as opposed to a lazy slob who just wakes up, can't be bothered to take the time to make breakfast, and then binges on donuts or fast food in the early afternoon. Most evidence on breakfast skippers is done out of context with a deliberate fasting plan.
If you are serious about expanding your knowledge base in the field of nutrition, I highly recommend that you look into the science behind Intermittent Fasting programs like Leangains and Eat Stop Eat. Both of them cite research pretty consistently throughout the explanation of their programs that is very informative.0 -
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@Huffdogg - I'm glad I could provide you with a laugh, at least! On a serious note, I reviewed the studies you cited (both of which were done with only 11 participants that were all "lean, young and healthy") and don't see these as supporting your case for starvation to aid weight-loss, as the metabolic increase noted was due to injections of adrenaline.
As a side note, I find minimalist eating very fascinating, as well as its long-term effects on metabolism and longevity. Minimalists may eat only one or two meals or may eat many 'snacks', keeping overall daily calories extremely low. However, they also typically practice a disciplined lifestyle that includes meditation and things like low-impact exercises like tai chi. They're not leading the typical American lifestyle or hitting the weight-room on a daily basis.
While every BODY is different, that's not to say we don't all share many similarities! One of those, I personally believe, is that a healthy body (free of any hormonal imbalances, food allergies, diseases, disorders, etc.) functions best when fueled regularly. That same healthy body can most often stand bouts of "poor diet" (whether that's no food, junk food, carbo loading, etc.) without many noticeable ill-effects for a short time. (But that doesn't mean it's "healthy"!)
As there are so many opinions out there (and plenty of "studies" and statistics to support everyone's theories), I'm certainly not trying to ask that you drop yours. I'm merely trying to share my own personal experience, as well as the first-hand experiences I've had with literally hundreds of clients...in hopes that it helps someone else.
Thanks for the great discussion!0 -
[You could eat a lot of cheeseburger calories before you felt full...as opposed to a healthy meal of lean protein, fresh veg, and whole grains that fills you up quickly - not b/c of the bulk, but the quality of the calories your body was able to process and uptake. ]
this is simply wrong,you feel full when your brain recieves the signal from your stomach that it is physically full-ie because of the bulk,regardless of what fills it.
this takes at least 20 mins which is why you shouls eat slowly and also why drinking a couple of large glasses of water before a meal helps you to feel full sooner.
the type of food you eat will affect how long it is before you feel hungry again.0 -
Here's a meta-analysis of the research on meal frequency: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9155494
From that article:Finally, with the exception of a single study, there is no evidence that weight loss on hypoenergetic regimens is altered by meal frequency. We conclude that any effects of meal pattern on the regulation of body weight are likely to be mediated through effects on the food intake side of the energy balance equation.0 -
Actually, I did understand what you were trying to say. I work with a registered dietician and she has many times told people about the same thing. Thanks for your input. Hope to keep hearing from you. 0
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