SAY WHAT!? DO I NEED TO EAT MY EXERCISE CALORIES?

waldo56

I always ate all my exercise calories. I don't see why I wouldn't. More food and still lose weight? F yeah.

I also reached my goal in April and have been maintaining since then.

x2

I aim to zero out my calories weekly including exercise, which usually means close to zeroing my calories every day.

Except that after a period of maintaining for a couple weeks, I've been bulking since then and have gained about 15 lbs; mostly muscle though (contrary to popular belief, controlled bulking is actually harder than losing IMHO, having done both). Going to cut the extra fat off here in a bit.

I would recommend NOT EATING THEM BACK.

Here's why: All of the diet logging places I have seen, have been vastly over-estimating the caloric burns of exercises. If you want to slightly increase your caloric intake to refuel yourself after a long workout, that is one thing. But I DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT think it is a good idea to eat back the whole deficit. I was actually losing, quite easily, about 2 lbs a week.

Did you actually have your calorie goals set for 2 lbs/wk, and did you actually try somewhat when exercising?

The goal for anyone should not simply be to "lose weight". You should be learning new habits and autoregulating the system, getting better and better at it. Instead of hoping you are losing weight when you step on the scale, you should be verifying that you are losing at the rate you are supposed to be losing at. If you're not, there is a problem and things need to be adjusted to increase the accuracy of the system, whether altering your goals or fixing systemmic errors in your counting.

The importance of this is greatly magnified as you go through periods of increasing/decreasing activity, and as you approach the BF levels where you have to reduce your defict in order to avoid stalling out (you can't just come into ab BF% levels hot losing 2 lb/wk, that doesn't work at all). And then furthermore once you reach your goals and you move toward maintenence.

Maintenence is the key to it all, once past the initial loss phases and into the phase where losing is just an easy habit and the weight melts away (for all noobs reading this, it should occur about 3-6 weeks after you start, once losing is a habit willpower isn't a big part of the equation), your primary concern should switch to maintenece and preparing for that time. Learning to maintain is far, far, far more important and difficult than figuring out how to lose (which is for the most part pretty basic).

lilanniefarnum

Ouch!!! That was my first reaction to your answer.....but after reading your post, I have to agree with you, that people should Not take advice from a newcomer, and though I Am new at this, I can assure you I'm Not a "yoyo".......I'm 64, and have never had to diet until now.... ..I guess I was just over-enthused, and wanted to share what worked for me, so far....... and I Must say, I was very impressed with all of the info you shared!!! God's Richest Blessings to you...

bronnyd

This thread has been extremely helpful! I always figured I shouldn't eat back my exercise calories because I thought the bigger the deficit the better. Knowing that I can and probably SHOULD be eating back my exercise calories? Well, that's just plain great news! More foods!

lilanniefarnum

This is in response to "sleepytexan"...
Ouch!!! That was my first reaction to your answer.....but after reading your post, I have to agree with you, that people should Not take advice from a newcomer, and though I Am new at this, I can assure you I'm Not a "yoyo".......I'm 64, and have never had to diet until now.... ..I guess I was just over-enthused, and wanted to share what worked for me, so far....... and I Must say, I was very impressed with all of the info you shared!!! God's Richest Blessings to you...

lilanniefarnum

The post above was in response to "sleepytexan"

lilanniefarnum

This is in response to "sleepytexan...
Ouch!!! That was my first reaction to your answer.....but after reading your post, I have to agree with you, that people should Not take advice from a newcomer, and though I Am new at this, I can assure you I'm Not a "yoyo".......I'm 64, and have never had to diet until now.... ..I guess I was just over-enthused, and wanted to share what worked for me, so far....... and I Must say, I was very impressed with all of the info you shared!!! God's Richest Blessings to you...