eating back cal?

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Replies

  • LorinaLynn
    LorinaLynn Posts: 13,247 Member
    Is it bad that I've seen so many of these topics that the title just blurred together and I read it as "eating black cats?"

    No, I don't think you should eat kitties. That's not nice.

    Whew. It wasn't just me. I have a special place in my heart for black cats, and do not want to eat them.
  • taso42
    taso42 Posts: 8,980 Member
    Is it bad that I've seen so many of these topics that the title just blurred together and I read it as "eating black cats?"

    Odd that you mentioned this because the same exact thing happened to me today!
    I don't eat back my calories though, but that's just because I'm assuming food contains more calories than it says it contains and I burn less than the machine says I burn.

    In that case, you sort of are then, aren't you?
  • Phrak
    Phrak Posts: 353 Member
    People need to be aware you cannot determine exercise calories with any sort of accuracy. Most machines over estimate by a massive margin. So if you are "burning" 1000 cal on a treadmill, you are most likely actually burning much less probably less then 700. This is why i do not like people eating calories back based on machine readings.

    There's a really easy way to determine if your calorie burn is accurate... and that's by the results you get. :wink: The estimates I get from MFP, Runkeeper and the treadmill are all very close to each other, and while eating my calories, I got the results I wanted when I wanted to lose, and I'm maintaining while maintaining.

    So that would be my advice. Try it. If it doesn't work, tweak it.

    Also could be your NEAT is higher offsetting the inaccuracies of the machines.
  • funkycamper
    funkycamper Posts: 998 Member
    Eating BACK calories is not the way to look at it. You don't say oh i just burned 500 calories i'll go eat it. You need to NET the calories in the day. your net is what you burn (living a healthy life you need at least 1200 calories, and work out) - what you eat = 0 ... CALORIES IN EQUALS CALORIES OUT. all you have to remember. and plan ahead. If i know I have a hard work out that burns 500 calories I never wait till 8pm to consume those even if its when I just burned that.

    Here is someone who gets it. :drinker:

    This. Or you could try zig-zagging your calories throughout the week. I tend to go for a weekly net calorie target. This allows for some great splurges without going over my calories for the week. Your body isn't set on a 24-hour time clock. While you definitely need extra calories for nutrition and energy if you're working out intensely, you don't necessarily need to eat them all in the same day.
  • LorinaLynn
    LorinaLynn Posts: 13,247 Member
    Also could be your NEAT is higher offsetting the inaccuracies of the machines.

    Does it matter? If the estimates are working for any given individual, they're close enough to accurate. If they're not working for that individual, they're not close enough to accurate.

    At the end of the day, if I'm exercising the way I do, I can eat around 2100 calories a day to maintain my weight. It doesn't matter to me if my estimate of 1700-ish to maintain plus 400 exercise calories burned is right, or if I actually require 1900 to maintain and only burned 200 via exercise. It would just be a different math to get to the same result.

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