Exercise calorie question answered

SHBoss1673

someone recently asked me in a private email whether they should eat their exercise calories, I get about 5 or so emails a day asking this, but I'm busy today and really don't have a ton of time, but I liked my response to this person, so I'm gonna post this (without any names). Now, I'm not a doctor, nor have I any formal training or certifications in diet or nutrition, but I've done quite a bit of self study on the subject, and done a lot of observation on here, at home, and with friends. So take what I say for what it's worth. Anyway, here's what I wrote. And remember, everyone is different, your situation may or may not mirror it, it's a generalization based on accumulated study and research, bear in mind there's always the exception that lies outside the normal boundries.

So I was asked about whether to eat exercise calories, and this is what I wrote back:

exercise calories, ok. so couple things to know about exercise calories. First is, MyFitnessPal doesn't include them in anything until you actually enter them. So when MFP calculates your calorie deficit, that deficit is based on your TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure), your TDEE does NOT include exercise. In other words MFP makes a plan, the plan doesn't have anything to do with exercise. If you DON'T eat your exercise calories you are actually creating a larger calorie deficit than MFP created for you. Now, I don't know your weight or any other numbers so I can't say one way or another whether your body can support a calorie deficit greater than 2 lbs a week, but I'll say this, anything over 2 lbs a week is EXTREMELY aggressive, you essentially must be morbidly obese to support this.

Things happen when you create a calorie deficit that is too big. Things you don't see right away but catch up with you in a month or 2 months or 3 months...etc.
Here's what happens to someone who tries to lose too much too fast:
-they change their eating, and start logging food and exercising, for the first week or 3 everything is great, they are hungry, a little tired, but otherwise, loosing weight at a marvelous clip (maybe 3 or 4 or even 5 lbs a week).
-After a few weeks, the weight loss slows, the hunger doesn't, and if they continue, their mood and their will power start to fray.
-After 6 weeks or so, plateau's start to set in, because they were so aggressive in the beginning, after the really easy fat was gone, and the water weight was removed, the body started to eat it's own muscle, which lowered their metabolism, combine that with eating far too few calories in the first place and you have what's commonly known as starvation mode. People don't see this coming, it's not a drastic change, it's gradual. They are no longer hungry even though they only ate 1100 calories that day, they are tired, but they are ALWAYS tired so they don't notice, their mood is just plain bad, and they are weaker.
It doesn't matter how much weight training and cardio you do, if you don't eat enough, you're gonna regret it. At this point they are damaging organs, reducing muscle mass, encouraging fat storage, and weakening bones.

So I says this, I'm not telling you how to lose weight, but after 3 years on here, my own weight loss, countless hours of research, and watching people suffer and fail over and over and over, I say please, don't try to do it too fast. It's a path to failure. Take your time, learn your body, let your body adjust to the new food, give it fuel, don't try to lose too much too fast. Not only do the above things all happen, but if you lose too fast, things get saggy (all kinds of things), because the body doesn't have the time to shrink the extra skin.

JustAmy

Thank you taking the time to share that great information!:happy:

Carleybby

I was wondering about that.

I wasn't eating my exercise calories on purpose, but if I did it wasn't a big deal.

I don't want to eat all my exercise calories, since sometimes they're like 1000, but I think half would be good.

will4change

Thank you so much for the info an dthe tiem you put in this.

SHBoss1673

I was wondering about that.

I wasn't eating my exercise calories on purpose, but if I did it wasn't a big deal.

I don't want to eat all my exercise calories, since sometimes they're like 1000, but I think half would be good.

what is your current calorie deficit (I'm not talking about after exercise. I'm talking about if you didn't exercise at all today, what would be your current calorie deficit?)

sdirks

BUMP!

great info to have out there, especially with the New Years Resolution folks flooding in :bigsmile:

Ang8178

Thanks for the info and reminder. Makes me feel better about not dropping all 20 lbs in a week :laugh: Really when I first started out I ate under 1200 calories a day, yeah, that lasted about 2 days! I got moody, tired, and was starving! Now that I'm eatting the full 1200 pluss 1/2-3/4 of my exercise calories aday, I'm much more happy

missyjane

Thank you! I've been eating my exercise calories but feeling a little guilty about it. Guess I don't need to feel guilty anymore!

Hopey1994

Thanks for sharing that! I make sure to get around 1200 cal a day, and when I exercise, I just eat an extra snack. It's all about healthy food choices. I can eat healthy and have a struggle with getting enough calories in.

YoungJr42

Hey...good answer! I CONSTANTLY try to tell people why they shouldn't lose over 2lbs a week, I say it's unhealthy, etc, etc, and I know why, but I'm never able to fully explain it, so the people I'm telling don't think or care if I know what I'm talking about...lol. So, this post will kinda help me support the information I try to give other people. Thanks!
And for anybody who cares, I'd like to lose 1.5 - 2lbs a week (New Years Resolution is 1.5/week...short term and realistic goals), so what I did was set my MFP.com goals to 1.5lbs/week, therefore on the days I do have calories left over, it won't hurt too much and I won't short myself too much. Being that I also workout and burn calories there, I don't mind eating a few calories over.

SHBoss1673

even hearing people say "I eat half of mine" makes me cringe a little.

Being completely honest, I really want to know, what do you think when you say this? To me, this sounds like rationalizing trying to squeeze more weight loss out of a shorter time, which (as my above response clearly shows) is a dangerous path to walk.

MercuryBlue

Thank you for this well-timed post. I've been thinking a lot about exercise calories lately.

I know I'm supposed to eat most (if not all) of them, and I completely understand why. To be honest, though, I have a hard time bringing myself to eat all of them because I'm still not 100% sure of my TDEE and how many calories I'm burning in a workout. According to the online calculators, my TDEE is 2140. MFP has set me up eating 1200 calories per day, in order to lose (around) one and a half to two pounds per week. When I enter in my exercise, MFP automatically calculates how many calories it THINKS I've burned, and tells me to eat them. However, without knowing for SURE what my TDEE is, and without knowing for SURE how many calories I've actually burned through exercise, I'm a little hesitant to eat all of my exercise calories because I'm worried that MFP will have over-calculated how many calories I'm burning in a day. So while I may THINK I'm only eating exercise calories, I may actually be eating too many calories.

Because I don't want to undo all my hard work, I have only been eating about half my exercise calories. But that worries me, too, because what if I'm not eating enough?

Honestly, I've gotten so sick of questioning how many calories I'm burning that I went online and ordered the Polar F6 yesterday. I think that this is the only way I'm going to know for sure that I'm eating (and burning) enough.

niky1215

bump!

SHBoss1673

Thank you for this well-timed post. I've been thinking a lot about exercise calories lately.

I know I'm supposed to eat most (if not all) of them, and I completely understand why. To be honest, though, I have a hard time bringing myself to eat all of them because I'm still not 100% sure of my TDEE and how many calories I'm burning in a workout. According to the online calculators, my TDEE is 2140. MFP has set me up eating 1200 calories per day, in order to lose (around) one and a half to two pounds per week. When I enter in my exercise, MFP automatically calculates how many calories it THINKS I've burned, and tells me to eat them. However, without knowing for SURE what my TDEE is, and without knowing for SURE how many calories I've actually burned through exercise, I'm a little hesitant to eat all of my exercise calories because I'm worried that MFP will have over-calculated how many calories I'm burning in a day. So while I may THINK I'm only eating exercise calories, I may actually be eating too many calories.

Because I don't want to undo all my hard work, I have only been eating about half my exercise calories. But that worries me, too, because what if I'm not eating enough?

Honestly, I've gotten so sick of questioning how many calories I'm burning that I went online and ordered the Polar F6 yesterday. I think that this is the only way I'm going to know for sure that I'm eating (and burning) enough.

good stuff. You can even figure out your TDEE with one. Once you set it up, you'll see that it's very comfy. You can wear one for a full 24 hours and check how many calories you burn. Now granted it may not be exact, but I'll bet it comes within 50 to 100 calories of accurate. As long as the day you wear it is a typical day. Of course, for assurance, you can wear it for like 3 days and average the three together, then you can be accurate to within a very small margin for error. Oh, and you can't workout on a day you do this, that would screw it up. I can tell you that MFP was within 50 calories of my TDEE, so I'm sure it's pretty close to accurate, as long as you don't have a metabolic condition.

FYI, the exercise calories on MFP are wildly inaccurate, simply because everyone burns calories at a different rate, and all the exercises are user entered. It would be better to use perceived rate of exertion to calculate your calories burned (well, now that you have a decent HRM that's not an issue but...)

leeslim4life

Thank you for taking the time to post this! It really helps us all!

I am in the same boat as MercuryBlue,I have been having trouble eating all of my calories let alone my workout calories. I am always over in my sugars & protein but, not only that, I am just not feeling hungry. Should I still eat to fit in more of my calories even though I'm not hungry?

I to ordered the Polar F6 yesterday to track my calories burned b/c I'm going nut trying to figure if I actually burned the calories the MFP said I did. I to don't want my body going into starvation mode. I'm definitely going to try what you suggested about wearing the HRM 3 days to get an average.

Thank you for the help!

SHBoss1673

so, yeah, after a while the body will stop telling you if it's hungry, what I say is (and take this for what it's worth, I'm no registered dietitian), figure out what you should be eating (for maintenance), compare that to what you average eating now, if there is a big difference and you don't feel hungry, then slowly (maybe like 50 to 100 calories a week) raise your calories, this will give your body enough time to adjust without you gaining a few pounds of fat. Then when you do get to the amount of calories you should be at, give it a few weeks to let your body get comfortable with maintenance again. Then, start with the deficit again in a similar manner (although you probably can go a bit faster now), maybe 200 cals a week less, until you are hungry.

Will this take a while? Sadly yes, it will, but if you are serious about becoming healthy and you don't just want another quick fix, then this is a lifetime thing anyway, so what's the difference? So what if it takes an extra six weeks. If it allows you to do it the right way, and stick with it, then it has to be done. If you are't willing to put in the time to do it right, then you will NEVER have a real solution.

mumsanutter

Thank you, I have been having this conversation with my husband. So I will now show him this post.

amontiel69

Hi, I was just looking for an answer to explain to me why MFP was adding my exercise calories to my daily total. But after reading through this thread, I have a question:

I am currently very overweight, having to lose close to 200 pounds to be where I know I will eventually be. However, MFP tells me that my daily caloric intake should be 2590 calories. So, just to clarify my question, these are my numbers for today:

MFP's suggested calorie intake: 2590 calories
Calories burned during exercise: 1255 (according to my Polar FT60)

Total calories for the day: 3845.

So, does this mean that according to what I have read on this thread, I am supposed to eat those 1255 calories back? Or at least 1/2 of them? If this is true, then I would be eating huge meals five times a day to accomplish this. Just to clarify: back in March of 2009 I became a vegetarian for personal reasons, so there is no way I am going to eat animal protein or animal products.

Even if I eat half of those exercise calories, just today I should have eaten 3200 calories, which is a LOT of food, an average of 640 calories per meal.

Am I understanding this correctly? Please help.

Thanks

SHBoss1673

OK, amontiel, I hope you don't mind, but I'll use you as an example to prove a point I've been making on MFP for a long time.

The point I'm trying to make is how important it is to know your own body and what's right for you. Now besides the fact that you are a 40 year old male that is about 190 lbs away from their goal weight, I don't know much about you. So I really can't comment on how many calories you should be eating.

Here's the thing though, for someone with so much weight to lose, you're probably not going to fall into the same averages as the rest of us. MFP sets up limits based on the average numbers around the world. So when MFP gives you a maximum calorie deficit you can keep, they are making assumptions that probably aren't true for you.

This is why it's so important to know your body, understand how health professionals come to the conclusions they do, and to know WHY certain guidelines are in place and who those guidelines help.

This is only my opinion, so take it for what it's worth, but for you amontiel, with the situation you are in, and the amount of weight you are looking to lose, it is SO much different than someone with 20 or 30 or 40 lbs to lose that you guys almost aren't even trying to do the same thing. You certainly shouldn't be following the same procedures, as there are many things that apply to you that don't apply to someone who is only overweight or just slightly into the obese category. If you would like my advice, or help, I'd rather give it to you over email as things become distorted when you give specific information not intended for the public over a forum like this. I'd be more than happy to help you, I just don't really want to do it in a public forum, shoot me an email on here and I'd be glad to do some spitballing with you.