Naggin Question: how much do I eat? how do I log ___?

chuisle

I, and a lot of other people, have struggled to figure out what they should be eating. More, less? How much? How do I log things? After doing a lot of reading and being on here about a year and half here are my reflections which *could* be useful to others. Keep in mind I am relatively fit young female trying to lose the 10 and do body recomposition, so my answer is from that point of view. Things we need to consider in figuring our daily intake:

1. People tend to do one of two things:

- over account for exercise by overestimating their burn and/or compensating mentally (see here just thinking about exercise makes us eat more http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21185895 plus studies that say you are more likely to eat a donut if you just ran 6 miles etc)

- under account - don't eat exercise calories or eat low levels that don't actually fuel their bodies for the amount of physical activity they undertake (see the girls who eat barely BMR and exercise 50 minutes, netting well under 1000). The idea that more exericse+less food = better.

2. None of this account for that tricky BMR thing. When you log an exericse it doesn't account for what you would have already burned. If I burn 61 an hour (estimate) and I weightlift for 1, burning ~350 calories then really my additional burn is only 290 calories. But that's not what I log. This is a small different but one that can bother me. Further, it is near impossible to account for metabolic spikes associated with some activities (like lifting again).

3. NEAT - non exercise associated thermogenesis. Several things here.

- Some people have higher NEAT than others. Some work a desk job. Some stand at a desk job (like me with a captain's desk) some people are nurses). Some people just move a lot! Your calories need to reflect this.

- Trading exercise for NEAT. When you do concerted exercise like going for a run etc. you probably do less other things usually - cook for an hour, walk the dog, run errands. You body compensates for the extra effort. So when exercise time goes up, NEAT tends to go down, especially over time. So logging that exercise seems great until you realize it's still one big trade off.

The conclusion: Your daily burn is a complicated combination of factors not able to easily reflected in neat categories like BMR + exercise.

So using MFP's BMR estimations based on your job and logging exercise works for some but it seems the better way, especially for those of us with very small margins of error (women who are already fit for instance) would beto get a really good estimation of TDEE (which includes exercise, NEAT, BMR like the Leigh Peele Fat Loss Troubleshooter) and then build your maintenance or deficit from that. It's way to account better for all these complicated phenomena and makes more sense to me.

I would be happy to hear what other people who in dabble in the literature on this stuff think and hope this might help people who are wondering the same thing or feel stuck. Disclaimer: I'm not an expert. **I'm not saying this is the right or only to do thing** Just one that, to me, seems superior.

amysj303

I think you are right. And it is very difficult to accurately measure calorie burn from exercise.
I find it easier to lose "weight" by diet alone, when I exercise I am hungrier, want to fuel myself and want to reward myself too but I end up overdoing it, most likely.
I remember something JJ Virgin said about "calories in, calories out" and she said "Your body is not a bank account. It's a chemistry lab and a history book."
more here:
http://www.edmontonsun.com/life/columnists/cary_castagna/2011/02/25/17405911.html

chuisle

bump

Better_Balance_2011

This all seems to make sense. As usual, you have done your research!