You HAVE to eat your exercise calories....
Replies
-
I think that everyone finds what works for them. Saying one way is the ABSOLUTE RIGHT WAY ALWAYS and everyone else is wrong is just pointless. There will always be people who disagree and say it doesn't work for them. But if it works for you, then great.
I wish the best of luck in your weight loss journey. But, it's best not to just stir up an argument like this.0 -
For an obese person who will have to be losing weight for a considerable length of time there is very little if any link between eating habits at the start or middle of the weight loss and eating habits whilst on maintenance. I am using an obese person in their weight loss to make the point clearer.
The difference in BMR between a 400lb person and a 270lb person is approximately 1,500 plus the amount they burn doing the same amount of exercise is dramatically different.
If you are sticking to a 1,000 calorie deficit during a weight loss programme your diet will change over time regardless of eating back calories or not due to the change in BMR. Therefore I strongly doubt that eating back your calories or not will change the chance that you maintain weight loss.
As with many things on diets the nutritional intake (excluding calorific value) of the food you eat is more important that the calories. There will be a natural minimum amount of calories you have to eat to hit the nutritional values. If eating back your calories lets you stick on a diet then that is best for you. If seeing the reward in faster moving scales is best then not eating back the calories is best for you.0 -
PS. same thing with "muscle tone" which I think you mean "muscle gain". It is incredibly difficult to gain muscle. If you lift weights hard and regularly, you can count on 1lb a month or so, so again, unless you are a serious resistance trainer, quit worrying about that/using it as an excuse.,0
-
Do they keep it off? uh, nope.0
-
If it is on TV it has to be true.0
-
Along with eating junk, drinking alcohol, having treats or not being honest about what you're eating will cause most people to fail miserably and the amount of threads on here pay testament to this.
Bad eating habits and an unhealthy lifestyle are the reason why a lot of people are out of shape and overweight. You start a health plan and continue snack eating, consuming chocolate, cakes and alcohol and ask why the diet isn't working.
Really? I drink alcohol and I eat chocolate, yet I still have lost weight just fine and am maintaining just fine. I am not going to deprive myself of the things I like so I can "diet" according to what someone else thinks I should or should not indulge in.
agree 100%0 -
I seriously do NOT believe that losing weight quickly is unhealthy - fast, slow, whatever - as long as it comes off. I work in the medical field and have never once heard a doctor tell someone to lose their weight "nice and slow" - they do surgeries to make it come off FAST all the time.
It's all a matter of what the person does with their HABITS after the weight is off.0 -
u,,,,nope. biggest loser? Do you think they eat back their exercise calories???? Nope. they lose tremendous amounts of weight as we all know.
And they also have the worlds best personal trainers, a staff preparing special meals for them and cameras watching their every move in case they try and cheat. You got any of that?
Most importantly they never keep it off any damn way. Stop comparing your situation to a tv show.0 -
I've been doing MFP since January and I started out losing weight regularly, then, after reading all the 'hype' about eating exercise calories, I decided to try it. I stopped losing weight for 2 months! I got fed up and started eating only 100-300 (sometimes 0 but not always) of my earned exercise calories and now I'm losing weight like I did before. I just eat them if I'm hungry, but it's healthy food to nourish me, not junk. I refuse to STUFF myself, when I'm not even hungry just because I have exercise calories! I have tons of energy, I walk anywhere from 4-10 miles a day and I've started running too. I garden, camp, hike, fish and do anything I've ever wanted to. If I get to where I think I need to eat more exercise calories because I hit a plateau, I'll experiment with eating more. Or not... What works for me may not work for everyone so find your own lifestyle happy spot.
Point is, try different things and find out what works for YOUR body. Don't let people get you down if what is supposedly 'right' doesn't work for you and you have to try something else. Your body will tell you if you aren't eating enough but the scale will tell you if you're eating too much, including those exercise calories.0 -
If eating back your calories works for you then do it, if you gain when you do then don't. It doesn't work for everyone.0
-
It makes me sad that the Biggest Loser was used as an example of a good way to lose weight.0
-
That is so true, they don't emphasize being healthy. They just focus on results. sad...0
-
When I was eating my 'normal' daily intake plus the workout calories (with a start of 1200 which I thought was absolutely ridiculous and left me moody, hungry and pissed off at the world) I barely lost anything and all I wanted to do was stuff my face with chocolate..so instead I upped my daily intake based on my BMR to 1700 or so and stopped eating my workout cals.
I sometimes go over sure..sometimes I consume them if I feel particularly hungry that day. Though I have noticed I don't find myself feeling hungry, stressed or rummaging the fridge anymore. Those extra cals per day are keeping me sane..if I work out I see it as a bonus. After doing this I am finally seeing a movement on the scale and body size. Not to mention I am not thinking about food 24/7. Point of this is..you just never know what works and what doesn't based on other people's opinions or what they themselves did..you have to experiment and find what works for your own body. Who knows..maybe in a few months I will need to reevaluate this all over again. For now..this is working for me.0 -
Along with eating junk, drinking alcohol, having treats or not being honest about what you're eating will cause most people to fail miserably and the amount of threads on here pay testament to this.
Bad eating habits and an unhealthy lifestyle are the reason why a lot of people are out of shape and overweight. You start a health plan and continue snack eating, consuming chocolate, cakes and alcohol and ask why the diet isn't working.
Really? I drink alcohol and I eat chocolate, yet I still have lost weight just fine and am maintaining just fine. I am not going to deprive myself of the things I like so I can "diet" according to what someone else thinks I should or should not indulge in.
You can lose weight eating ANYTHING as long as your calories in are less than your calories out. Is it healthy do eat much of your calories in McDonalds fries and chocolate and beer? no..but you can certainly still lose weight.
But...most people who indulge frequently in those things are not mindful to have the small fries, or count the calories and STOP EATING once their count goes over their max.
If you can do that..then that's really really great!
How do you know people don't have the small fry or count calories and stop eating?
Are you suddenly some sort of mind reader?
Stop assuming.. all you are doing is making an *kitten* out of yourself.0 -
The same thing doesn't work for every body, anyway.... I don't eat mine. I'm losing about 3 lbs a week, or about 40 lbs in 11 weeks. I eat 1500-2000 calories a day, and I burn at the gym about 1500-2000 calories a day. Whatever works...0
-
I view it all in the long haul. I have been at this for a little over 5 months. I expect to get to my goal weight by the end of the year. I know that my weight loss will slow as I get closer. The heavier you are, the less eating back calories matters. I use the exercise calories as my way to keep my motivation up if I am having a calorie loose day and I can still come in at budget and a motivator if I am able to hit my actual calorie budget without exercise. It is tough to do when I travel as much as I do for my job.0
-
Read this. A woman stayed obese on 700 calories a day. Its NOT the right way to lose weight.
Living With Obesity At 700 Calories Per Day!
By: David Greenwalt
I want you to consider a common female client. She's a woman about 5'5" and 185 pounds. A combination of a mostly sedentary lifestyle, quick-fix, processed foods and consistent excessively low calories has resulted in an incredibly stubborn fat loss scenario. Not only has it created a stubborn fat loss scenario but her ability to add body fat is remarkably strong.
Most would believe there is simply no possible way she could be 185 pounds eating mostly low calories. While it's true the average obese American created their own obesity by being a huge over consumer, a sedentary glutton if you will, many are able to maintain their level of obesity with the following formula in very precise ratios: starvation + binges + sedentary lifestyle.
An initial review of this woman's calories indicates she is just above starvation level in the 400-700 per day range. The food choices are mostly protein in this case (low-carb is all the rage you know) and there are virtually no vegetables or fruits to speak of.
Five or six days per week the calories remain low in this range, however, there are nighttime binges from time to time and weekend binges where carbs loaded with fat (doughnuts, rolls, cookies, pizza etc.) are consumed.
So while the calories are very low the majority of the time, there are one to two days per week where this isn't always the case. Even so, the nighttime binges and weekend slack offs don't amount to what you might presume would be thousands of extra calories, thus explaining the 185-pound body weight.
Very few foods are prepared from home. There are lots of fast foods being consumed. Convenience and taste rule.
I must say. Early on in my coaching and teaching career this woman was a real head scratcher for me. Isn't it calories in and calories out? Even if she's not active she's starving!
How in the heck does she stay at 185 eating an average, including all binges, of maybe 750 calories per day? She's frustrated beyond belief. She sees her friends and coworkers eating more and weighing less. Is she simply unlucky? Is everyone else blessed? And what in the world is she supposed to do to fix this, if it can be fixed?
Why Is She Not Losing Weight?
First, let me tell you why she's not losing weight. Then I'll tell you what she has to do to fix the situation. With a chronic (months and months) intake of less than 1000 calories per day and a 185-pound body weight her metabolism is suffering greatly. It's running cool, not hot. It's basically running at a snail's pace.
Think of it this way. Her metabolism has matched itself to her intake. She could, indeed, lose body fat but she's in that gray area where she is eating too few calories but not quite at the concentration-camp level yet.
If she were to consume 100-300 calories per day her body would have virtually no choice but to begin liberating stored body fat. This is NOT the solution. It's unhealthy and, in fact, quite stupid.
The Practical Way To Lose Fat!
Today's society is about speed. We no longer have to wait for the oven to warm our food because we have microwaves ready to do the work in less time. The same is not true when it comes to fat loss.
[ Click here to learn more. ]
Not only has her metabolism matched her intake, her body has maximized production of enzymes that are designed to help store any additional calories as fat. Anytime additional, immediately-unnecessary calories are consumed the enzymes are there and waiting to store the additional calories as fat. Her body is starved nutritionally and it has one thing on its mind - survival.
Being mostly sedentary, her metabolism (hormones play a large role here) can do a pretty good job of keeping things slow enough so that the pathetically low calories she's consuming are just enough to maintain.
But since certain enzymes are elevated, waiting for more calories so more bodyfat can be stored, every nighttime binge or weekend mini-feast will contribute to fat stores.
So on the days she's not bingeing her body does not lose fat, or if it does, it's very little. And on the few days or times she does binge a bit her body is quite efficient at storing fat. So, while she may lose a smidge of fat from starving it is quickly replaced with every binge.
Remember, these binges aren't a gluttonous 4000-calorie feast. Oh no, a binge might be 4-5 cookies worth about 500-700 calories. Nevertheless, since the binge foods are mostly carbs and fat it's very easy for the enzymes to shuttle the dietary fat into stored body fat. It's what they were designed to do.
So, What's The Solution?
Well then, now that we presumably know some valid reasons why she's not seeing a scale change and definitely no body fat change how do we fix her? We have to do something she's going to freak out over.
We have to get her eating more. Not only do we have to get her eating more but more of the right, whole foods need to be eaten. Foods lower in fat that aren't as easily STORED as body fat have to be consumed. And we have to warn her.
A Discouraging Start
We have to warn her that since she's been sedentarily living on protein with binges of carbs and fats she is likely to see a weight gain right away. It's true.
Once we begin really feeding her body with nutritious carbohydrates so she can become more active, her glycogen-depleted body will hang on to some of those carbohydrates (in skeletal muscle and liver) so she has stored energy for activity.
When her body hangs on to those carbohydrates it has no choice but to hang on to more water too. For every gram of glycogen (stored carbs) she stores she'll hang on to three grams of water.
This is not a negative response by the body but it will be interpreted by her as quite negative when she steps on the scale.
It's quite likely she'll see a five to seven pound weight gain when she really starts eating properly again. This weight gain will remain for one to three weeks before it starts moving in the other direction.
For argument's sake let's assume my Calorie Calculator and Goal Setter at Club Lifestyle suggests a 1500-calorie per day average in week one for a one-pound loss per week. First, she is going to freak out about this many calories.
For months she's been eating less than 1000 and usually around 400-700 in one to three feedings total per day. To her 1500 calories is a ton of food. And if she even begins to eat less fast and packaged-foods it will be a ton of food.
There is no doubt whatsoever that she will resist the increase. This resistance may take one to three weeks to overcome. During this period no weight loss will occur. She is too fat already in her mind and believes it will only hurt her to increase her food intake.
I mean, after all, isn't that how she got fat to begin with? In her early stages of fat gain this was probably true. She overconsumed. But as I've said already, that's not why she's staying heavy.
In addition to a freaked-out mindset about adding more food to her already overfat body she will simply find that it's all but impossible to eat four or more times per day.
She's just not hungry at first. Makes sense when you think about it. Why would she be hungry three hours after eating a 300-calorie, balanced breakfast? Her body is used to 400-700 calories per day!
So, even though she gets a plan and begins using my nutrition analyzer to log foods and meals she finds after having a balanced breakfast of 250 calories she couldn't force herself to eat meal number two on time.
It'll take several more days of realizing what is going on and being one-hundred percent honest and diligent with her logging and planning before she begins to eat her meals as planned no matter what - even if she's not hungry.
By now two to four weeks have passed and the only thing she's seen on the scale is it going up--not very encouraging if I say so myself.
Raising The Grade
After the first two to four weeks have passed she's probably beginning to consume her meals as planned although not quite like an "A" student yet. That is coming. She feels better because she's working out and is more active.
And she feels like she has more energy throughout the day because she's feeding her body more calories and the right kinds of calories.
She has finally begun eating the right kinds of fast foods (low in fat, moderate in protein) and less packaged food overall. She is making more meals from home and taking them to work for lunch rather than always grabbing something quick from a vending machine or the break room that always has some treat another employee brought in.
After another two weeks or so she's moved from a "B" grade to more consistent "A"s. She's planning her days one day ahead in the Nutrition Analyzer; she's consuming fresh veggies and fruits on a daily basis.
Her calories are almost ALWAYS in line with what is recommended by my Lean Account and she has seen her first signs of the scale moving in the right direction.
She is now dropping from 190 pounds (her high after reintroducing food and carbohydrates again) to 189.3! "Progress at last!" she says. In actuality, the entire process was progress. But that's not how she saw it in the beginning.
With a total of two to four weeks of increased caloric intake behind her and eating more consistently the right kinds of foods her metabolism has truly begun to rebound.
She didn't kill it as she thought. She only wounded it. And since our metabolisms are like kids (they are quite resilient) and she doesn't have thyroid issues or diabetes or any known wrench that could be thrown into the spokes of fat loss, she will begin, for the first time in months or years, to see results that make sense and that one would expect of someone who is active (30-60 minutes five or more days per week) and consuming a caloric intake of 1300-1500 calories per day.
Butterfly Effect: The Basics Of The Thyroid - Part 1.
Avoiding Sabotage
This process is in no way easy. I think you can see a plethora of ways it could be screwed up, sabotaged, given up on too early and so forth.
A key to success for this very common woman (men too) is not giving up too soon, having faith in the fix, and moving sooner rather than later to the increased, quality food intake.
It's going to take effort to overcome the mental hurdles of eating more food as well as the increase in scale weight that is going to occur in weeks one to three or so. It's disheartening, however, to charge hard down the weight-loss field only to get to the one-yard line and decide it's time to quit.
Don't Let Your Metabolism Fall.
These are the top ten ways you can boost your metabolism and keep it high - even through Fall.
[ Click here to learn more. ]
Many don't realize they only had one more yard to go and they'd have had a touchdown. You gotta hang in there with this plan. It's going to take some time for the glycogen levels to be replenished and level out. It's going to take some time for mental adjustments to occur.
It's going to take some time before hunger signals are restored to anything close to normal. It's going to take time for the metabolism to rebound and not be in its protective mode.
Giving A Stubborn Body The Message
In certain, very stubborn cases, it may be necessary to eat at a eucaloric (maintenance) or hypercaloric (over maintenance) level for a few weeks to ensure the metabolism does get the signal that everything is alright and you aren't going to kill the body.
Remember, your body could care less about your desire for fat loss. It just wants to survive.
Some Take-Home Points
The most common cause of obesity is Americans are sedentary overeaters/drinkers. Nothing in this article should be construed as to say that under eating is the root cause of obesity. It's not.
It IS common for many men and women to be under eating with sporadic binges as I described here. This creates a perfect environment for continued obesity even if total caloric intake is quite low on average.
Low-carb followers or "starvers" WILL see the scale go up when calories are consumed at reasonable levels again and carbohydrates are reintroduced. Live with it. Deal with it. It's going to happen. 98% of the gain will be water.
The time it takes for mental acceptance and other adjustments to occur will vary but one should expect a two to four week window for these things to take place. Being forewarned with an article like this may speed this process up some.
Once the right types of foods are consumed and the right caloric intake is consumed and the right ratios of carbohydrates, proteins and fats are consumed on a consistent basis, then, and only then, will metabolism begin to be restored and the key to fat loss be inserted into the lock with a noticeable drop in the scale resulting.
This may take an additional two to four weeks to occur. Your metabolism is never dead or broken for good. But it may take several weeks of proper eating and activity for it to be restored.
From day one, until the first, noticeable drop in the scale occurs may be four to six weeks--maybe one to two weeks longer. Those who give up on the one-yard line will never see the scale drop as will occur when intelligent persistence and consistency over time are adhered to.
David Greenwalt0 -
Not eating your exercise calories is a probably a way to lose weight faster. That being said, the faster you lose weight the faster you will put it all back on once you go back to eating normally.
The best bet is to eat back most of your calories, and lose weight the slow and steady way. This way makes it easier to keep the weight off in the long term.0 -
i never eat all my exercise calories..i try to stick to 1300-1500 calories a day..sometimes i go over but thats ok because i do exercise alot. i listen to my body though..if im hungry i add something .i had a pretty intense workout day yesterday..last night before i went to bed i was actually hungry for once ..im rarely feeling hungry any more..i had a whey and casein shake and it did the trick for me .0
-
You don't have to eat your exercise calories to be healthy. You can lose weight if you do eat your exercise calories. It's all just personal choice.
If you don't eat them, you will probably lose faster, especially at first, but it will likely be tougher when you get to goal to then add calories back for maintenance without going over and gaining. But again, that is a personal thing. Some will find it difficult, perhaps too difficult, and some will not.
If you eat them you may lose a little slower but the transition to maintenance will likely be smoother becasue there will be less adjustment needed. You may also be able workout more or more intensly because you have more energy, thus speeding up your weight loss and retaining more muscle.
Personally, if I had a lot of weight to lose, at first I'd eat as few of them as possible without making myself miserable, then as I lost gradually add more. This seems to me the most natural progression from losing to maintenance.0
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 392.9K Introduce Yourself
- 43.7K Getting Started
- 260.1K Health and Weight Loss
- 175.8K Food and Nutrition
- 47.4K Recipes
- 232.5K Fitness and Exercise
- 415 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.5K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.5K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 152.9K Motivation and Support
- 8K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.3K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.6K MyFitnessPal Information
- 23 News and Announcements
- 1.1K Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.5K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions