Why Eating Exercise Calories is so important.

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  • gehlerc
    gehlerc Posts: 651 Member
    bump
  • mem1086
    mem1086 Posts: 136 Member
    Great explanation and example!
  • RoxyLDN
    RoxyLDN Posts: 96 Member
    Excellent explanation!
  • misscase
    misscase Posts: 36
    I really want to try eating back my calories because I feel like I've stalled a bit...but I am terribly afraid it will backfire for me.

    Anyone else?
  • mariposa224
    mariposa224 Posts: 1,241 Member
    Bump! Good info here written in a way that I think most of us can 'get' it. :)
  • Matt_Wild
    Matt_Wild Posts: 2,673 Member
    I really want to try eating back my calories because I feel like I've stalled a bit...but I am terribly afraid it will backfire for me.

    Anyone else?

    Well you have two choices. Potentionally stay stalled or try something new. The body will either gain, stall or lose. Nothing to lose bar a week or two, which you'll soon forget!
  • COSBlondie
    COSBlondie Posts: 1
    I find at most days i still have 300-500 calories let to eat and i cant I'm not hungry and I'm not going to force myself to eat when my body I'snt Hungry I still hit my 1350 recommended intake on most days but it still can say i have those calories left. Is that oke or do i have to force myself to eat?
  • Rlflight
    Rlflight Posts: 2 Member
    Thank you, thank you, thank you! I started off great with MFP (lost 7 pounds in 2 weeks) then got stuck. I think I will try to get as close to my calorie goal as I can (without going over) and see if that helps.
  • doonesbury
    doonesbury Posts: 281 Member
    Bump
  • auroranflash
    auroranflash Posts: 3,569 Member
    I usually eat most of the exercise calories back but still have some left over. Therefore I build a stockpile of reserve for the weekend in case I want to hang loose and booze or eat out at a restaurant and leave my halo at home. I gain a little come Monday, but after exercising Monday and Tuesday, with my weigh-in on Wednesday, I almost always lose.

    I "stock-pile" a little through the week so I can have more wiggle room on the weekends, where I still try to eat healthy and reasonable, but I can have that 2nd beer with no regrets.

    Huzzah.
  • designerel
    designerel Posts: 28 Member
    Great explanation, thanks!
  • auroranflash
    auroranflash Posts: 3,569 Member
    I really want to try eating back my calories because I feel like I've stalled a bit...but I am terribly afraid it will backfire for me.

    Anyone else?

    Well you have two choices. Potentionally stay stalled or try something new. The body will either gain, stall or lose. Nothing to lose bar a week or two, which you'll soon forget!

    And don't forget, you have to give your body about three or four weeks to adjust. You may initially gain a little the first two weeks, but when your body figures it out, a lot of my friends can attest, you will get over that plateau you've been stuck at in the next two weeks.
  • LisaHughes127
    LisaHughes127 Posts: 1
    Thanks for a great post!
  • Shawnie_B
    Shawnie_B Posts: 17
    If the body's default is to burn muscle rather than fat then it wouldn't store fat to start with. It would store muscle.

    Nobody is going to burn off their muscle until they are in the advanced stages of starvation.

    Touche
  • stephensmith0929
    stephensmith0929 Posts: 160
    bump
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
    Meet Jane. She weighs 200lbs, and wants to lose 50lbs.
    Jane has a metabolism of 1500. She leads a sedentary lifestyle, so she burns about 2000 calories per day.
    Jane wants to lose 1lbs/week

    MFP calculates Jane's calorie intake and deducts 500 calories. She will require 1500 calories to lose 1lbs/week.

    But Jane decides she will start running.
    Jane burns 400 calories when she runs for 30 minutes.

    Because of the extra activity, 400/1500 of the calories consumed have been burnt by Jane. That means the body must function on only 1100 calories per day to allow natural processes like hair/nail growth, skin replenishment, organ function to continue.

    THUS, Jane's metabolism drops* to meet her NET calories (1100).

    the last statement is a wild leap into imagination. Stick Jane in a lab and see what her metabolic rate is and I'll lay odds it's the same as it was before the exercise.

    Wouldn't it be a magical coincidence if her metabolic rate fell to equal (food intake - exercise) as is proposed here ? It just doesn't happen, does it. Starving Africans or concentration camp victims are painful evidence of this, their metabolism keeps going and consumes their body fat reserves and ultimately muscle too.

    There will be some slow down of metabolic rate with declining weight and muscle, for sure, but the above hypothesis that metabolic rate matches food intake minus exercise is a completely unproven and novel one.

    Taken a step further, it means that a sedentary individual's metabolic rate matches their food intake. Now that would be an instant cure for obesity. Doesn't happen though, does it.

    Jane's 50lb target weight loss would be 204,300 calories if it were all fat. That's going to take some using up. It's enough to keep her alive for 100 days without eating ! That's where the energy to sustain the metabolic processes is going to come from.
  • coltrax
    coltrax Posts: 36 Member
    This was an excellent explaination and I truly buy into all of it, but where I struggle is can we say a calorie is a calorie, no matter where it comes from? I would like to increase my calorie intake, but I eat 90% clean foods and very, very little processed foods. I have a wheat intolerance, thus have my carbs come from veggies and fruit. And I just don't know how I can eat more? Since clean foods contain lower calories vs. processed foods, I find that I am not hungry with the amount of food I eat. I would like to eat more since I have been trying to build muscle and have been lifting heavy weights, but since I don't workout till afternoon, I struggle to get all my calories in before bed. What are you thoughts about calorie cycling if I can't get in all my calories in the day? I have no problem eating all my calories on the weekends. :smile:
  • rschmmidt
    rschmmidt Posts: 296
    bump
  • Katemarie34
    Katemarie34 Posts: 144 Member
    BUMP
  • mgero212
    mgero212 Posts: 96
    BUMP
  • brenott
    brenott Posts: 117 Member
    bump
  • LauraKije
    LauraKije Posts: 9
    replying to subscribe, so that I can read this in my spare time. Thanks for the post :-)

    How does this work? /|\
  • Peta22
    Peta22 Posts: 377 Member
    Bump... I want to continue following this thread - thanks
  • tiggergrrl23
    tiggergrrl23 Posts: 98 Member
    This is so true and it works! When I first started MFP I rarely ate back my exercise calories, but then I hit a major plateau that lasted about a month. I decided to switch things up and start eating back ALL my exercise calories and the weight finally started coming off again! I was finally able to reach a huge goal of getting under 200 pounds and it seems like every week the scale keeps on moving in the right direction. I encourage anyone who is struggling or going through a plateau to do this because it really works. Thanks for posting! :flowerforyou:
  • stang_girl88
    stang_girl88 Posts: 234 Member
    bump! Thanks!
  • aagnew01
    aagnew01 Posts: 33 Member
    Bump! Thanks I totalllly needed this!
  • paulyarwooduk
    paulyarwooduk Posts: 109
    Bump
  • kbendert
    kbendert Posts: 74 Member
    Bump to read later!
  • finz96
    finz96 Posts: 102
    Best explanation I have heard of this so far! :)
  • ball858
    ball858 Posts: 395 Member
    Bump:

    This is true, recently I have been losing weight without losing inches!
    But since I have been eating my exercise calories I have dropped in both areas.

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