Why you shouldn't eat back excercise calories.

amandainez08

You're right about the whole weight loss thing, but I think you misundertand eating back your calories. My goal is 1390 in order to lose one pound a week. My activity level is sedentary, mainly because I work in an office at a desk, so I'm not up always moving around. Say I eat only 1390, but I burn 200 calories by working out. My body would be at a deficit. Technically I'd only have 1190 to spare. Women (I don't know about men) need at least 1200 calories per day in order for the body to carry out its every day functions. So if I burned 200 calories during a workout, I need to eat those 200 calories back just to meet my daily goal of 1390. If I do that, I'm still losing weight. I've lost weight so far!

Enigmatica

Not according to my experience - I eat back exercise calories and have lost or maintained my weight quite well. When I did NOT eat them back weight loss stalled, I felt lousy, and after weeks of that realized that wasn't working out too well, lol.

clintbritt3

From what I can work out there are two basic ways to do it:

1. Set your activity level to what it normally is without "extra" exercise (taking into account whether you have an active job or not, etc.). Then add in any exercise above and beyond that. Then eat back those exercise calories.

2. Set your activity level to include your average amount of "extra" exercise. (For instance, if you have sedentary job, but cycle to work and go to the gym in the evenings you might count yourself as active). You don't need to log any exercise and you don't need to eat back any extra calories because they are included in your daily calorie allowance.

In both cases YOU ARE EATING BACK YOUR EXERCISE CALORIES. The difference is whether you're logging them individually or going by an estimate of daily activity.

Now, the activity descriptions imply that you should do the first option, as they are about the type of work you do, rather than how much physical activity you do outside of work. I'm not saying that the first option is the correct way to do it, but it's the one that seems most obvious, and the one that I have chosen. I have described myself as sedentary, so I log my exercise and add those calories to the allowance for a sedentary person. I eat back those calories (not necessarily within the same 24 hours as the exercise).

If we really weren't supposed to eat back exercise calories then that would mean that EVERYBODY should set their activity at sedentary. Those calories that are added for being active are exercise calories.

Exactly ^^^^^^

sfgonzales

Me too!

runfatmanrun

This is why you shouldn't post stupid sh** on here. I hope you learned your lesson about putting out personal opinions as some sort of dietary guideline. Let people like me eat there calories back and lose weight. You don't and lose weight too. It's not exactly the same for everyone.

moniluv23

I have also wondered about this. When I started this program I was not exercising at all, and was losing 2 pounds a week. Once I started working out I noticed that although I was eating 1200 calories (and not eating back burned calories), I was barely losing a pound a week. I thought it this was happening because I wasn't eating enough calories, so I began to eat back the calories I burned off. At this point I'm not sure what to do. Should I eat them back or not?????

WaterBunnie

I think eating back exercise calories is what makes this site actually work for most people where other regimes have not. We all tend to get more active when we start a diet and can quickly burn out from lack of energy due to further increasing our planned deficits leading to binging and diet failure. This site is more sensible and provides a method that is more sustainable in the long term.

NatalieWinning

Ditto. I lost all my pounds eating back logged exercise, setting my activity level low, only logging out of the ordinary exercise and workout exercise. So did my husband. It's built in to work that way, it works. I built lady muscles and lost flabby fat. Not in a month. In a year. The next year as I continued to follow "the plan" maintence also worked as it's laid out. I have many MFP friends that follow exactly this as well. All lose weight over the year and many are at maintence and doing well. Still eating back exercise calories.

Except it asks you both activity level AND how often you plan on excerising, meaning it wants to know how active you are just in your dailty life. And it's also BUILT INTO MyFitnessPal to eat back your exercise calories.

:drinker: Bingo!

(and FWIW, those pounds lost in my ticker? all lost while eating my exercise calories back. BAM! on flawed logic!)

InnerFatGirl

I don't use MFP's recommended calories. I was losing fine on 1650. Now I decided to drop it 1450.

InnerFatGirl

What if you picked "sedentary" as your exercise option?

BAM!

Also, OP I didn't read a word you said, I was distracted by the guy in the background of your picture photo-bombing the sh&t out of it. HAHA< I can't stop looking at him.

OMG, I'M DYING :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

Papillon22

Let me offer you an explanation as to why you should not eat back excercise calories, and hopefully this will put the topic to a rest.

:laugh: you sweet, innocent thing! I've been here for more than a year and this topic pops up every.single.freaking.day!

iLoveMyPitbull1225

But your explanation is the reason to eat them back. MFP creates the deficit for you in the activity level you have chosen. It is so important to fuel the body so that it will metabolize and burn the fat.

This was my understanding.

The deficit is already entered....like you said....So if you eat back your excersise calories, you have not eaten more. LIke I had mine set at 1200, I burn about 500 at the gym, and if I were to eat back the 500 i burned on top of my 1200, I STILL have the 500 deficit.

EmilyOfTheSun

I ate (or drank) back all my exercise calories in the beginning and still lost one pound per week. I haven't been eating them all back anymore (sometimes not any), and I have been losing more quickly. BUT I did definitely still lose even when I was eating them all back.

Chipmaniac

I'm sure that you can argue that this approach has worked for 2 weeks, but your body will very quickly adapt and you will start struggling and weight will start going up.

I don't have to argue anything. I've lost 60 pounds in five months eating back exercise calories. Your reasoning is way off as others have pointed out.

AlsDonkBoxSquat

And to answer the "sedentary" questions, change it from sedentary to what closer resembles your workout routine. If you choose sedentary and then eat extra only on days you workout, you would still be priming your body for fat storage mode.

Let's say you are eating 1200 on non workout days (as an example only), and then eating 2200 calories on workout days. The message your body is getting is that on non-workout days you are starving and should store fat and cut energy expenditure. I'm sure that you can argue that this approach has worked for 2 weeks, but your body will very quickly adapt and you will start struggling and weight will start going up.

I think that this has been sufficiently covered, but this is exactly the opposite of the recommendation set up by mfp. MFP tells you to set up your daily activity without considering exercise and then eating back the exercise calories. Why you ask? Because I consistently sit at my desk for work every day, this is my normal routine. Now, getting into the gym is a part of my routine, but which days I go and what I do there is not the same from one day to the next . . . it is a variable which eating at net instead of gross accomodates.

JoniBologna

I think my favorite part of this entire thread is that the OP has been a member for 2 months and claims he has solved a debate, which has been going on for years, and has come up with the right answer for all of us. Hear that everyone? We can all stop debating this issue now. That's pretty adorable.

moniluv23

Thanks! Now that I have made exercise a part of my daily routine, I will follow the plan and eat back my calories. I figured that's what I should be doing since they are recalualted, but I wasn't 100% sure.

castroje

This is completely false. You explained it correctly, but your conclusion is wrong.

MFP says I need to eat 1500 calories a day to lose 1lb. That is my "TDEE-500" for lightly active. If I work out and burn 500 calories. That means after all is said and done by body is getting 1000 calories to live on for the day. My body needs atleast 1300 for my BMR. That is NOT healthy to have 1000 calorie deficit for most people. now if I eat back those 500 calories I am consuming 2000 calories, but my body burn 2500 that day, If my math is correct (and it is) I would still lose 1lb in a week.

Thanks.

I like your explanation much better, and I am sticking to it. It has worked for me in the last 105 days!!!

Thanks!!!

Articeluvsmemphis

Here's why you don't have to put gas in your car after your first fill up:

You'll spend less money if you don't ever put more gas in the tank.

Of course, you'll be walking because said car will be dead and can't work without REFUELING properly, but hey... you didn't waste your time and/or money on more gas, right?

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :drinker: :happy:

ArroganceInStep

It all comes down to understanding how the calculations are used and what they mean. MFP is designed as an 'eat your exercise calories' paradigm. That's why it automatically adds exercise cals to your daily totals. You can certainly use it differently (I do), but that's not the way it was intended to be used. The activity multiplier has to do with your lifestyle. Maybe you bike to and from work 10 miles a day. Maybe you're a martial arts or pilates instructor. Maybe you walk dogs on the side. All of these things would increase your activity multiplier. The thing is they are things that you *have* to do or the calculation is off. In general it is much more likely for someone to miss a gym session than miss work. For that reason it behooves you to setup your routine such that your activity level is truly the base level of what you do every day. For me, because I'm a professional computer nerd, that's sedentary. For the 8 hour per day pilates instructor who walks dogs and coaches a paddling team on the side that's probably more in the range of extra active.

If you factor your weekly workouts into the activity multiplier, you'd need to consciously eat fewer calories if you missed your workout to keep the same target. MFP isn't setup for that so you'd have to do it yourself manually.

I personally calculated my TDEE at a sedentary level, eat at maintenance (for me that's 3000 cals per day), and let my exercise generate the calorie deficit for weight loss. To do that I had to manually set my target intake (and adjust my macros accordingly) and also had to recognize that to keep the display accurate I cannot log exercise into MFP (I use a different tool for workout logs).

To each their own. There's no 'wrong' way to do it as long as you fully understand the implications of the paradigm you adopt.

half_moon

I eat ~1200 calories a day, exercise 6 days a week, and do not eat back my calories. I do not get the "You are eating too few calories!" warning, and I am losing a steady 2 pounds a week. Maybe this is just different for everybody? I'm 5'4", and I've read height can affect things such as this. I went from ~185 to ~165 in about three months-- two of those wherein I was exercising. I haven't felt a negative effect yet, but maybe if I plateau or start gaining weight I will begin slowly eating back my exercise calories. We'll see?

EvanKeel

TLDR version:

Don't account for your activity twice.

Noted.

jkestens63

bump

SRH7

TLDR version:

Don't account for your activity twice.

Noted.

Easy peasy!

MSepp

There's alot of debate among people here as to whether you should or shoul not eat bac excercise calories. Let me offer you an explanation as to why you should not eat back excercise calories, and hopefully this will put the topic to a rest.

When you set up your goals for myfitnesspal it asks you what your activity level is, based on your activity level it roughly calculates what your daily energy (calorie) expenditure is. From this you select what your weight loss goal is, let's say you want to lose 1 pound of fat a week. It then subtracts 500 calories (500 calories x 7 days = 3500 calories (1 pound of fat is equivalent to 3500 calories)) daily. So at this point the amount of calories that you consume already takes into account your activity level because you would have had to choose it when setting up your profile. So if you are now consuming an extra 700 calories that you "earned" from excercise you are in fact just consuming an extra 700 calories, and are consuming 200 calories above your goal so you will very slowly gain weight instead of losing weight.

Now if you are planning on gaining weight as some do, for weightlifting, powerlifting or even body building purposes then it would be ok to eat back calories as your goals differ from simply cutting fat. For everybody else, eating back excercise calories is counter-intuitive to your weight loss efforts and should be avoided.

You may say, I feel sapped after a workout... well plan your daily calories in such a way that you can afford a protein shake after your workout and you'll feel 100% better.

I hope this helps people understand and clarifies the "excercise calories" fiasco.

I am both enlightened and confused...why is it giving me the option to log my exercise if it's already taking these calories into account?

This would make sense as far as my fitness goes...rats.

leodru

Man people are just bitter. Its an opinion - he is entitled to it! There are people who eat like crap on some crazy version of Atkins and lose tonnes of weight - then there are people starving themselves (1200 calories a day) and they lose weight - there are lots of versions that work. It fine to disagree but the personal attacks are brutal. I think he is giving advice that has worked for him - nothing wrong with it. He's on my friend list - i however set myself to seditary and eat back my calories after i work out (which is similar to what he is saying - MFP is taking it into account when you say you work out). I'd rather earn it - honestly i over eat the calories by over 500 calories a day according to MFP and am losing as well so my version works for me. I disregard some of MFP as well because if i eat 1500 calories i binge and lose progress so i eat more and do it for longer. (Eat more to weigh less). But then people get bitter about others eating food versus the starvation technique they've choosen. Its just advice - take it or leave it. Go have a sandwich or something to eat people - it might help with some of that starvation crankiness you haters have going on.

dziningme

Well said.

rhe280

http://www.barbellsandbeakers.com/2012/07/04/people-tend-to-overestimate-the-amount-of-calories-they-burn/

I personally dont eat back my exercise calories but i know that it works for some people and not others. Try both for a week and see what works best for your body. However this article above was very interesting and is probably why eating back calories doesnt work for me

samntha14

You are correct, if you put that you exercise 4-5 times a week, don't add them. I sit at work all day so I selected Sedentary and I eat some of my exercise calories, especially if it is a high burn and I am hungry.

That : ) Exactly the same.

The original post doesn't take into consideration that many of us use the sedentary lifestyle setting.

Bingo. I am set to lightly active which doesn't take into account 3 days a week of hardcore strength training or cardio days. That's why it resets when you enter exercise. I'm already set at a deficit so If I increase that deficit I won't be eating enough. Now if you are set to very active, then no you shouldn't eat them back.

MSepp

Well I've been maintaining and it was getting really frustrating. If this is the case then I'll be sure to try this...I'm willing to try it since what I'm doing isn't working.