Eating Exercise Calories???

jacksonpt

There is no 1 right answer as it depends on a lot of things. But here is the cliff notes version... should give you enough of an understanding to decided whether or not you should be eating back your cals.

To lose weight you need to be in a healthy caloric deficit. There are 2 ways to accomplish that:

1) Set your daily caloric intake at a deficit
This is what most people do, and is how MFP is designed to work. You figure out your daily caloric need (TDEE, or total daily energy expenditure), then set your calorie goal lower than that. For example.. if your TDEE is 1800, you might set your daily calorie goal to 1400. That puts you in a caloric deficit and you will start to lose weight*. When you exercise you burn additional calories. These burned calories are not accounted for in your TDEE or the calorie goal you set based on your TDEE. So exercising increases that caloric deficit. The thing to watch here is how big that deficit gets. Every body responds differently, but the larger the deficit the worse it is for your body (the assumption is that the larger the deficit gets the harder it is to properly fuel your body). And this is why people recommend eating back exercise calories.

2) Use exercise to create the deficit
With this method you set your daily caloric intake to equal your TDEE. Then you exercise and burn calories. Those burned calories are not accounted for when you set your daily goal equal to your TDEE, and thus you end up in a deficit. The size of that deficit is dependent on your workouts. You burn 75cals walking the dog and your deficit is 75 cals. You burn 500 cals running and the deficit is 500.



*This is VERY simiplified and makes A LOT of assumptions, but is good enough for this conversation.



As with everything, there is some variance here. Every body resonds differently to diet, exercise, nutrition, etc. so there is some trial and error required to find your body's "sweet spot". Pick one of the above methods, do it for a couple of months and see what happens. Then you can make a couple of subtle changes here and there, do that for a month or two and see if you body responds better or worse. But always start with one of the above methods, then go from there.

One of the biggest problems I see in threads like this is people mixing elements/strategies from different programs. They want to use MFP's calorie calculations with weight watcher's zero point foods combined with what they heard from their coworker's brother's personal trainer. It doesn't work that way. Unless you really understand the ins and outs of nutrition and exercise (and if you did we wouldn't be having this conversation), you need to pick ONE method and do it. Don't mix them up, don't do a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Pick one, commit to one.

77tes

Eating back my exercise calories is my secret to success on this site, but I try to be careful to "lowball" burn numbers. Part of the reason this works for me is because I could never stick to a 1200 calorie diet especially if I exercised.

Good Luck

psuLemon

www.shouldieatmyexercisecalories.com


http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/495178-eat-back-your-calories

heybales

You have to find what works for you. Everybody is different so it's different strokes for different folks. Personally, I'm one that can't eat back my exercise calories. I've tried it and it doesn't work for me.

If this is the case then either:
You are under estimating how much you are eating (not weighing solids or measuring liquids)
You are over estimating your calories burned (not using a HRM, or fitbit device to calculate)
You have a low amount of lean muscle (lower BMR then MFP predicts)
You have a thyroid or other hormone issue,
Or you have a combination of any of the above.

If you are doing, and everything above checks out, then you should be losing on average exactly what MFP predicts as the only thing left is the math.

Excellent list.
Three other possibilities to add.

They selected an activity level that made their maintenance calories higher and more accurate, and then with the deficit taken off, still decently high, and they are lucking out.

Whenever they have eaten enough back their glucose stores finally recovered, and muscle finally repaired itself properly, and they didn't do it long enough after the initial 3lb gain for fat to start being burned again.

Their system was underfed for so long and they tried eating back 500 cal or more of exercise a day, and body held on to it initially instead of raising the metabolism back up.

jcstanton

This is what I posted on a recent thread with a similar subject line:

This is where people are not understanding the point of eating back exercise cals. You're not burning calories ONLY during your workouts. You're burning calories ALL day long, 24/7...even while sleeping. The average amount of calories you burn while completely sedentary is called your Base Metabolic Rate. Your BMR is how many calories you'd burn if you did nothing but lay around 24/7. That's the MINIMUM amount of calories you should be taking in without exercising. On an average day, even without a workout, you're burning more than your BMR just by your regular daily activity. When you add to that your workout calories, and the fact that workouts boost metabolism so you're burning at a higher rate for the next several hours, your calorie deficit is enormous if you don't eat back your workout calories. You need calories for energy. If you don't have enough, your body won't function efficiently and your metabolism will slow way down, thus, decreasing the amount of calories you are burning. That being said, however, the standard BMR calculations do not take into account medical conditions like insulin resistance and hypothyroidism. People with such conditions burn calories at a much slower rate, so they need fewer calories to begin with. I don't know of any way to accurately account for these conditions. Personally, I have both IR and HT, so I set my base calories about 200 under what MFP says it should be, then I only eat back about 2/3's of my exercise calories rather than the full amount. I've been doing this for about six months now, and it seems to be working pretty well so far. I'm not an expert by any means, I'm just going by personal experience and what the health/fitness professionals at my gym have taught me.

meldickman

Everyone is different, just because it works for some people does not mean its will work the same for all. I do not think you should eat back all or your exercise calories. I tried this for 4 months and lost 0 lbs, got discouraged and quit logging. I'm back and not eating my exercise calories back and finally seeing some results. It probable depends on how meny you have to eat back. I was burning 600-1000 a day in exercise so that was alot to eat back.

entropy83

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/10589-for-those-confused-or-questioning-eating-your-exercise-calo

BUMP! Thanks for sharing. Couldn't bump the original as the thread is locked

reedkaus

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/10589-for-those-confused-or-questioning-eating-your-exercise-calo

everyone should read this. i definitely try to eat my calories back

susannamarie

I lowball my exercise calories and then eat them back. I don't really have an accurate way to check them (can't wear hrm during martial arts class), so I guess and try to guess low, based on perceived exertion. So far, so good.

Maddi_InBetweenDays

I've read mixed things on this as well. What works for me is eating a percent of my exercise back, not the full amount that I've burned. On days I do weight training and cardio I eat about 50% back, on days that are just cardio, I eat 30% back. But I always try to keep my net calories on or under what I have MFP set at.

JustWantToBeBetter

I'm new to this site, my friend highly recomended it, but i think the reason is they're getting you to be more modivated ( did i spell that wrong? haha) to exercise. Because we automatically think 'ohh i already ate my calories for the day the only way i can eat more is if i exercise '. I think its a great thing because thats our reward for exercising daily.:laugh:

bfbooty

You have to find what works for you. Everybody is different so it's different strokes for different folks. Personally, I'm one that can't eat back my exercise calories. I've tried it and it doesn't work for me.

100% agree I think it's different for everyone, I never eat all my exercise cals but they are there for a day where I want to relax a bit more and have a treat but I honestly could not eat them all every day no way I def would not lose weight, I always though eat my min allowance and sometimes up to half my exercise cals, I have been losing weight but slowly - but that's the best way it's more likely to stay off - each week is different last week I lost 3lb the week before 1.5lb but so long as it's coming off and I'm getting fitter and healthier I'm happy

bottom line is find what works for you maybe try a couple of weeks eating them all and see how you if it seems to work then great it not try eating maybe just half and so forth

best of luck either way xx

TrailRunner61

I eat them if I'm hungry but if I ate all of them back every single day I wouldn't lose weight. Every person is different and you will have to experiment and find out what works for YOU.
The biggest suggestion I would have is if you have exercise calories earned and you're hungry, eat but don't go over what you've earned and eat something healthy like a smoothie, fruit, etc., not a huge piece of chocolate cake.
What works for me is to mix it up some by eating most of them once or twice a week and keeping about 200 leftover the rest of the week just in case I want a snack in the evening after I've already logged everything for the day. I need to have that option because I do it often. A habit I need to break for sure.
Good luck!

susannamarie

I'm new to this site, my friend highly recomended it, but i think the reason is they're getting you to be more modivated ( did i spell that wrong? haha) to exercise. Because we automatically think 'ohh i already ate my calories for the day the only way i can eat more is if i exercise '. I think its a great thing because thats our reward for exercising daily.:laugh:

Yes, definitely. Yeah, I know the "I'm not a dog" thing. Well, I might not be a dog, but I'm definitely a mammal, and food is a reward for me :P

watboy

Same here I net about 500-600 a day I eat about 1300 before excercise. I go to the gym every day. I dont have any health issues i feel great. Lots of people dont even know what eating their calories back even mean lol and they are perfectly fine. It's up to you. Different things work for different people.l

You have to find what works for you. Everybody is different so it's different strokes for different folks. Personally, I'm one that can't eat back my exercise calories. I've tried it and it doesn't work for me.

100% agree I think it's different for everyone, I never eat all my exercise cals but they are there for a day where I want to relax a bit more and have a treat but I honestly could not eat them all every day no way I def would not lose weight, I always though eat my min allowance and sometimes up to half my exercise cals, I have been losing weight but slowly - but that's the best way it's more likely to stay off - each week is different last week I lost 3lb the week before 1.5lb but so long as it's coming off and I'm getting fitter and healthier I'm happy

bottom line is find what works for you maybe try a couple of weeks eating them all and see how you if it seems to work then great it not try eating maybe just half and so forth

best of luck either way xx

watboy

This is how much I eat and Im not starving myself this is how much i can eat. Kinda rude and judgemental. Someone could say to you have fun pigging out. I'm sure you wouldn't like that, I wouldnt say that to you but just think some people may think the amount you eat is way to much.

I never eat back my calories I earn by working out. I try to eat around 1200cals a day. My workouts usually yield around 400cals, so my total net calorie is around 800cals. This gives me the best results. I feel healthy and happy. If I eat back those 400cals then my intake is around 1600cals a day…way too many for my body type. I’ve heard from many doctors and many healthcare specialists and the always say that your total calorie intake (your net calories after food and workout) should be lower than your initial food calorie allowance for the day. As long as I get all my proper food groups and nutrients in my 1200cals it would be counterproductive for me to eat pointless calories just to make my journal balance. I tried both ways (eating my calories back and not eating them back) and I had the best results with not eating back my workout calories. I just stay focused on getting my 1200cals and within that, all the nutrients that I need in order to feel healthy and strong before and during my work outs. I see the calories I burn in a work as extra bonuses towards my weight loss goal!

Have fun starving yourself.