Should I eat back the calories I burn exercising?

briantwigley

Hey all

Basically I have a BMR of 1977 cals, and with my 5 day a week exercise routine and semi active job apparently I multiply that by 1.5 which gives 2965, then to lose weight I take 25% off which leaves me at 2200 which I rounded down to 2050.

At the gym I run a lot and burn around 5-700 calories a day which would leave me on 13-1500 after.

Should I eat these calories back to avoid 'starvation mode'? I have been and still lost some weight but I seemed to have stopped again so I wonder if I'm doing the right thing. There's a lot of conflicting advice out there!

Cheers,

Ryan

susannamarie

Basically I have a BMR of 1977 cals, and with my 5 day a week exercise routine and semi active job apparently I multiply that by 1.5 which gives 2965, then to lose weight I take 25% off which leaves me at 2200 which I rounded down to 2050.

If you've counted your exercise towards your activity multiplier, you shouldn't eat the calories back. The reasoning is that you've already increased your calories with the activity multiplier, so when you add the exercise separately you've accounted for it twice. Choose one or the other -- either count it in your activity multiplier or add it separately.

(It's sort of like adding a cake and then adding all the ingredients separately would make you look as if you'd eaten two cakes.)

em9371

^^^^ good advice.
if you have chosen a higher activity level to include your workouts, then you dont need to eat back exercise as its already accounted for.

If you have chosen activity level that just reflects your work / daily life excluding workouts then you should eat back your exercise cals.

You dont say what you weigh or how much you have to lose, but whichever way you work it you shouldnt have a deficit of over 1000 cals per day (2lb / week), or eat much below your bmr (net)

I find it easier to just go for the higher activity level and eat more overall rather than worrying about how much extra i should eat back each day, seems to be working for me so far :-)

sweet110

I am so not a calorie counter who generally does math to figure out what to eat BUT, I can pretty much tell you, with absolute certainty, if you're asking if you, a man who is exercising 5 days a week, should limit yourself to 2050 calories on days when you exercise? [I'm assuming you're male based solely on your name.]

NOPE.

Since I don't do calorie math, I can't tell you how much more to eat. But you should certainly eat more than 2000 on days when you exercise. Based solely on a "gut" level of comparison to how much I eat as a sedentary (when not exercising), 4'11" woman. And yeah...I'm fat now. But I've lost weight previously eating 1600 to 1700 calories when I exercised. Something seems amiss here with the math.

briantwigley

I've lost around 18lb and still have about 25 to go.

Technically if I ate 2000 cals and my BMR is 1977 then I exercised and lost another 500 I would be below my BMR which isn't good..

I'll have a look some more into the numbers.

I walk around all day at work walking around 2-3 miles (work in a supermarket). I should try wearing my nike plus sensor all day sometime..

susannamarie

I just checked the math. Why did you round 2224 down to 2050? That means you actually took 30% off your TDEE. You're trying to build muscle (to join the military, right?) so you probably don't want a 30% deficit.

Yeah, if you have a sensor telling you how far you walked you can get a better average number.

LorinaLynn

If you were using MFP generated calorie goal that doesn't include exercise, yes.

Using a calorie goal that already includes your exercise, no.

But since you rounded down to 2050 from 2200, and you gave yourself a 30% deficit instead of a 25% deficit, you have plenty of wiggle room if you're feeling hungry or not happy with your results..

myak623

Hey all

Basically I have a BMR of 1977 cals, and with my 5 day a week exercise routine and semi active job apparently I multiply that by 1.5 which gives 2965, then to lose weight I take 25% off which leaves me at 2200 which I rounded down to 2050.

At the gym I run a lot and burn around 5-700 calories a day which would leave me on 13-1500 after.

Should I eat these calories back to avoid 'starvation mode'? I have been and still lost some weight but I seemed to have stopped again so I wonder if I'm doing the right thing. There's a lot of conflicting advice out there!

Cheers,

Ryan

I would actually take it back up to 2200. You are already giving yourself 25% cut from TDEE. No need to cut it further.

You wouldn't need to eat back your exercise calories with this calculation, but make sure to not eat below BMR.

briantwigley

Ok thanks for the advice!

Ryan