Eating back the calories you burn excercising??
chubbysmama1212
Posts: 3
I typically workout at night and I burn around 500 calories a day excericising which typically puts me under my limit for calories. I'm confused about whether or not i'm supposed to eat again until I am back at 1200 calories or not. I don't understand the point of working out if I turn around and eat again. Also I work out late so am I supposed to eat at midnight???
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Replies
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I wish someone could answer this because I, too, have this question. Hopefully someone with knowledge will see this soon
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MFP already sets you up with a calorie deficit based on your personal info and the amount of weight you chose to lose per week. Therfore, in order to properly fuel you activities and get enough nutrients, you need to eat at least some of those calories back. Make sure your NET calories don't go lower than 1200.
No need to wait until after you workout. If you know you're going to go to the gym, have an extra healthy snack or two during the day and then maybe have another small snack after (protein is great post workout). If you have trouble getting enough calories in, search for lists of calorie dense foods or avoid any of the "diet" foods and just stick with normal whole foods.
Good luck!0 -
I asked my trainer about this and he said only eat them back if you are hungry. Until your body gets use to the exercise routine eating them will not help your weight loss. Once you are really into the exercise routine you should only eat 25-50% of them back.
Me personally I only eat them if I am hungry.0 -
I typically workout at night and I burn around 500 calories a day excericising which typically puts me under my limit for calories. I'm confused about whether or not i'm supposed to eat again until I am back at 1200 calories or not. I don't understand the point of working out if I turn around and eat again. Also I work out late so am I supposed to eat at midnight???
If you know you are going to workout later and typically burn 500 cals, why not eat 400 or so more during the day and a little bit after your workout.0 -
NayShel summarized it well.
The whole point is to make sure that, at the END of the day, your "calories remaining" number is as close to zero as possible. If you work out, you really want to be eating those calories. There's already a deficit because that's built in to your daily "budget" based on how many pounds a week you said you wanted to lose.
So if you work out really late in the day, try to plan approximately how much you'll be working out and eat accordingly.
You can also log your workouts the NEXT day if that makes it easier - the human body does not follow a strict 24-hour clock and you don't have to, either. So you work out one night, and log it under the following day, and eat back the calories the next day.
You can skip eating those calories if you want, but you'll probably find that you start getting less energetic, which means you aren't burning as many calories at rest, and your workouts can't be as vigorous or enjoyable. I'd try sticking with the plan as designed at first, then experiment later.0 -
I asked my trainer about this and he said only eat them back if you are hungry. Until your body gets use to the exercise routine eating them will not help your weight loss. Once you are really into the exercise routine you should only eat 25-50% of them back.
Me personally I only eat them if I am hungry.
Bad advice, unless you calculated planned exercise into your initial caloric intake. MFP ignores exercise when assigning cals, which is why you should eat them back if you follow MFPs caloric intake.
As an example say MFP gives you 1450 calories to lose 1 lb/week, and you plan on exercising 5x/week for an average of 400 cals per workout. well MFP will tell you to eat 1450 on the days you don't workout and 1850 on the days you do whereas a "professional" may tell you to eat 1700 everyday regardless if you workout.
So for the week MFP will have you eat 12,150 (1450*2+1850*5) whereas doing it the other way will have you eat 11,900 (1700*7) almost the same number of cals for the week (250 dif). The issue in not following MFP is if you don't workout the full 5 days or burn more or less than planned. If that is the case you may lose more or less than your goal, whereas MFP will have you lose your goal amount regardless how much you actually workout.
What many MFPers do is take the low 1450 and not eat back exercise calories which is wrong, if you are not eating them back then your daily activity level should reflect the higher burn with would be covered in the 1700/day above.0 -
I asked my trainer about this and he said only eat them back if you are hungry. Until your body gets use to the exercise routine eating them will not help your weight loss. Once you are really into the exercise routine you should only eat 25-50% of them back.
Me personally I only eat them if I am hungry.
Practical and reasonable.
:drinker:0 -
You need to eat back your calories because your body needs to fuel your activity. Exercising shapes and strengthens your body, proper nutrition fuels it so it can let go of the stored fat. You don't fuel it enough your body will continue to hold on to the stored fat.0
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I asked my trainer about this and he said only eat them back if you are hungry. Until your body gets use to the exercise routine eating them will not help your weight loss. Once you are really into the exercise routine you should only eat 25-50% of them back.
Me personally I only eat them if I am hungry.
Practical and reasonable.
:drinker:
But not at all logical0 -
I asked my trainer about this and he said only eat them back if you are hungry. Until your body gets use to the exercise routine eating them will not help your weight loss. Once you are really into the exercise routine you should only eat 25-50% of them back.
Me personally I only eat them if I am hungry.
Practical and reasonable.
:drinker:
No its not. If you don't fuel your body properly and you are in a caloric deficit the risk of losing muscle is high.0 -
I have found that working out helps me feel better too. I eat back most of my exercise calories only because I am not trying to lose any more weight. Even before I felt that I wanted to lose weight in a controlled healthy manner. Working out is part of the healthy stuff and it gets that metabolism back up from the depths that most fatter people put it, myself included. This will also help you lose weight easier on those days where you don't workout and eat your normal calorie deficit. It is true that you could lose weight without working out but I chose to eat what I wanted in controlled portions and workout. It is what worked for me.0
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3 NHS dietitians have now told me NOT to eat mine back unless I'm hungry. I eat 1500 and burn around 6-700 cals. Its worked well for me so far! X0
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I only eat about half of mine back, usually leaving 500 calories uneaten at the end of the day. This gives me a 1500 calorie per day deficit and a 3lb/week weight loss. It's been working. I've been losing 3 pounds per week consistently for a little over three months.
Just remember, everything is an estimate. You have to dial everything in manually based on results. Before I started using MFP to seriously count, I was under-eating and my weight loss stalled for a week. I started tracking my food, bumped up my intake and began losing again. I found the sweet spot for me.0 -
To lose weight you need to consume fewer calories than your body burns over the course of the day. There is a healthy range for how far under you can be. You eat back your exercise cals to keep your total daily intake in that healthy range.
That's the basic concept. Whether or not you need to eat back cals to stay in that healthy range depends on what your daily caloric goal is, how much you are exercising, and personal variable (genetics, hormones, etc).0 -
You're making a lot of assumptions. Who says she isn't fueling her body properly? Why is it assumed that the first 1000 calories of deficit will come from fat stores, but suddenly your body will stop using fat stores beyond that even if you are obese? The reality is not as absolute as the evangelicals on this site would like us to believe.I asked my trainer about this and he said only eat them back if you are hungry. Until your body gets use to the exercise routine eating them will not help your weight loss. Once you are really into the exercise routine you should only eat 25-50% of them back.
Me personally I only eat them if I am hungry.
Practical and reasonable.
:drinker:
No its not. If you don't fuel your body properly and you are in a caloric deficit the risk of losing muscle is high.0 -
Exactly. It's not black and white. There are many variables and individuals have to really pay attention to their bodies to know what's optimal.To lose weight you need to consume fewer calories than your body burns over the course of the day. There is a healthy range for how far under you can be. You eat back your exercise cals to keep your total daily intake in that healthy range.
That's the basic concept. Whether or not you need to eat back cals to stay in that healthy range depends on what your daily caloric goal is, how much you are exercising, and personal variable (genetics, hormones, etc).0 -
You're making a lot of assumptions. Who says she isn't fueling her body properly? Why is it assumed that the first 1000 calories of deficit will come from fat stores, but suddenly your body will stop using fat stores beyond that even if you are obese? The reality is not as absolute as the evangelicals on this site would like us to believe.I asked my trainer about this and he said only eat them back if you are hungry. Until your body gets use to the exercise routine eating them will not help your weight loss. Once you are really into the exercise routine you should only eat 25-50% of them back.
Me personally I only eat them if I am hungry.
Practical and reasonable.
:drinker:
No its not. If you don't fuel your body properly and you are in a caloric deficit the risk of losing muscle is high.
The bottom line is that hunger is a terrible basis for how much we should be eating.
And yes, this site is based on assumptions. People ask questions and post responses with virtually no context/background information, so we have to make some basic assumptions.
No one is saying she absolutely isn't fueling her body correctly, but based on her response (again, with no context)... someone taking that advice and applying it to their routine stands a much greater chance of under fueling than they would if they ate back the cals, especially giving the way this site is setup and how most people use it.0 -
You're making a lot of assumptions. Who says she isn't fueling her body properly? Why is it assumed that the first 1000 calories of deficit will come from fat stores, but suddenly your body will stop using fat stores beyond that even if you are obese? The reality is not as absolute as the evangelicals on this site would like us to believe.I asked my trainer about this and he said only eat them back if you are hungry. Until your body gets use to the exercise routine eating them will not help your weight loss. Once you are really into the exercise routine you should only eat 25-50% of them back.
Me personally I only eat them if I am hungry.
Practical and reasonable.
:drinker:
No its not. If you don't fuel your body properly and you are in a caloric deficit the risk of losing muscle is high.
actually I never stated that. 1000 cal deficit is too large for most people. Some loss in a deficit will be from muscle and fat. The larger your deficit and the less you have to lose the larger the % will come from lean muscle. In your case you are probably losing 0.5 to 2lbs of muscle per week given your stats and caloric deficit.0 -
I tend to workout late at night too, and at first it was a challenge to make sure I was eating enough. It's all about planning for me. I know I am going to burn ~400 cals in a workout, so I eat a little more throughout the day. The nice thing about this is that it ensures that I do in fact workout, since I HATE to see those red numbers!0
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Thanks NayShel, I wondered this same thing. Very helpful info! :0)0
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Note to MFP creaters: The eating back your calories question is a constant on the message boards. Please consider a mandatory "Eating excercise calories back, yay or nay" disclaimer and test for all people signing up for MFP (the test is to insure they're read the who, what, where and why concerning eating excercise calories back, not just hitting yes to finish the sign up). All beginning MFP will have to read and test on the information they read prior to their MFP account being set up...LOL
Please don't mistake my sarcasm for negativity because I too asked the same question in the beginning. I just think that if one question/confusion comes up over and over...it should be addressed for the masses :yawn:0 -
Sweet! I never wanted to be a muscle man anyway. It's strange though. I must have had a lot of muscles in my face and around my waist that I didn't know about as both are shrinking a lot. Who knew?
You're making a lot of assumptions. Who says she isn't fueling her body properly? Why is it assumed that the first 1000 calories of deficit will come from fat stores, but suddenly your body will stop using fat stores beyond that even if you are obese? The reality is not as absolute as the evangelicals on this site would like us to believe.I asked my trainer about this and he said only eat them back if you are hungry. Until your body gets use to the exercise routine eating them will not help your weight loss. Once you are really into the exercise routine you should only eat 25-50% of them back.
Me personally I only eat them if I am hungry.
Practical and reasonable.
:drinker:
No its not. If you don't fuel your body properly and you are in a caloric deficit the risk of losing muscle is high.
actually I never stated that. 1000 cal deficit is too large for most people. Some loss in a deficit will be from muscle and fat. The larger your deficit and the less you have to lose the larger the % will come from lean muscle. In your case you are probably losing 0.5 to 2lbs of muscle per week given your stats and caloric deficit.0 -
Sweet! I never wanted to be a muscle man anyway. It's strange though. I must have had a lot of muscles in my face and around my waist that I didn't know about as they've both are shrinking a lot. Who knew?
You're making a lot of assumptions. Who says she isn't fueling her body properly? Why is it assumed that the first 1000 calories of deficit will come from fat stores, but suddenly your body will stop using fat stores beyond that even if you are obese? The reality is not as absolute as the evangelicals on this site would like us to believe.I asked my trainer about this and he said only eat them back if you are hungry. Until your body gets use to the exercise routine eating them will not help your weight loss. Once you are really into the exercise routine you should only eat 25-50% of them back.
Me personally I only eat them if I am hungry.
Practical and reasonable.
:drinker:
No its not. If you don't fuel your body properly and you are in a caloric deficit the risk of losing muscle is high.
actually I never stated that. 1000 cal deficit is too large for most people. Some loss in a deficit will be from muscle and fat. The larger your deficit and the less you have to lose the larger the % will come from lean muscle. In your case you are probably losing 0.5 to 2lbs of muscle per week given your stats and caloric deficit.
You will be losing both as I stated, not just muscle of the 3 lbs I am saying most likely anywhere in the range of 0.5 to 2lbs would be lean muscle, meaning that 1-2.5 would be fat.0 -
I posted about this two days ago a posting entitled 'point of exercise?' Some people didn't get what I actually meant, maybe I wasn't very clear, but I had some really helpful comments so maybe check them out. I get it now!!!0
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All without seeing me or knowing my body composition, genetics, build or even what weight I started at. You must be psychic!
Sweet! I never wanted to be a muscle man anyway. It's strange though. I must have had a lot of muscles in my face and around my waist that I didn't know about as they've both are shrinking a lot. Who knew?
You're making a lot of assumptions. Who says she isn't fueling her body properly? Why is it assumed that the first 1000 calories of deficit will come from fat stores, but suddenly your body will stop using fat stores beyond that even if you are obese? The reality is not as absolute as the evangelicals on this site would like us to believe.I asked my trainer about this and he said only eat them back if you are hungry. Until your body gets use to the exercise routine eating them will not help your weight loss. Once you are really into the exercise routine you should only eat 25-50% of them back.
Me personally I only eat them if I am hungry.
Practical and reasonable.
:drinker:
No its not. If you don't fuel your body properly and you are in a caloric deficit the risk of losing muscle is high.
actually I never stated that. 1000 cal deficit is too large for most people. Some loss in a deficit will be from muscle and fat. The larger your deficit and the less you have to lose the larger the % will come from lean muscle. In your case you are probably losing 0.5 to 2lbs of muscle per week given your stats and caloric deficit.
You will be losing both as I stated, not just muscle of the 3 lbs I am saying most likely anywhere in the range of 0.5 to 2lbs would be lean muscle, meaning that 1-2.5 would be fat.0 -
Sometimes I eat back my calories and sometimes I don't. It all depends on whether or not I'm really hungry. I won't eat just to eat.0
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All without seeing me or knowing my body composition, genetics, build or even what weight I started at. You must be psychic!
Sweet! I never wanted to be a muscle man anyway. It's strange though. I must have had a lot of muscles in my face and around my waist that I didn't know about as they've both are shrinking a lot. Who knew?
You're making a lot of assumptions. Who says she isn't fueling her body properly? Why is it assumed that the first 1000 calories of deficit will come from fat stores, but suddenly your body will stop using fat stores beyond that even if you are obese? The reality is not as absolute as the evangelicals on this site would like us to believe.I asked my trainer about this and he said only eat them back if you are hungry. Until your body gets use to the exercise routine eating them will not help your weight loss. Once you are really into the exercise routine you should only eat 25-50% of them back.
Me personally I only eat them if I am hungry.
Practical and reasonable.
:drinker:
No its not. If you don't fuel your body properly and you are in a caloric deficit the risk of losing muscle is high.
actually I never stated that. 1000 cal deficit is too large for most people. Some loss in a deficit will be from muscle and fat. The larger your deficit and the less you have to lose the larger the % will come from lean muscle. In your case you are probably losing 0.5 to 2lbs of muscle per week given your stats and caloric deficit.
You will be losing both as I stated, not just muscle of the 3 lbs I am saying most likely anywhere in the range of 0.5 to 2lbs would be lean muscle, meaning that 1-2.5 would be fat.
I am basing it off your profile pic (your face looks quite thin already) the fact you only have 7 lbs to go, tells me you don't have a large amount of fat to lose, and my knowledge of how the body works with fat/muscle loss and gain. Then base the rest off of what you told us about your deficit and how much you have been losing that is why I gave such a large range of lean muscle loss of 0.5-2.0, if I had more info I'm sure it could be nailed down to a smaller range.
Next thing you will tell us that if you had a 1500 caloric surplus you would gain 3lbs of muscle/week with no fat.0 -
I think that perhaps your calorie intake could be too low anyway. Boys aged 1 - 3 years intake is 1300 calories per day. It may be better to eat more during the day and less at night after you have done your exercise regime. You may start feeling tired if you do not have the correct calorie intake, Perhaps discuss this with your trainer at gym.0
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I typically workout at night and I burn around 500 calories a day excericising which typically puts me under my limit for calories. I'm confused about whether or not i'm supposed to eat again until I am back at 1200 calories or not. I don't understand the point of working out if I turn around and eat again. Also I work out late so am I supposed to eat at midnight???
Has it been cleared up for you yet?:grumble:0 -
Thank You for asking this question, I was wondering the same thing. Not going to eat them back...by the way, I like to work out at night also.0
This discussion has been closed.
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