The math error with eating calories back

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Replies

  • Granville_Cocteau
    Granville_Cocteau Posts: 209 Member
    EPOC - Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption, aka, The Afterburn Effect:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/19/health/nutrition/19best.html?_r=0

    " Dr. Knab and her colleagues recruited 10 men, ages 22 to 33, who agreed to spend two periods of 24 hours each in a metabolic chamber, a small room that measures the calories people burn while they are inside. The men were not all athletes, but they did have to be able to ride a bike vigorously. On the first visit to the chamber, the subjects had to stay perfectly still, sitting in a chair and moving only to eat meals, which were sent in through an air lock. In the afternoon, they were permitted a two-minute stretch every hour. Bedtime was 10:30 p.m. At 6:30 the next morning, the subjects were awakened and allowed to leave. They burned, on average, 2,400 calories on this totally sedentary day.

    The second visit to the chamber came two days later. Everything was the same, with one exception. At 11 a.m., the subjects rode a stationary bicycle at a high intensity for 45 minutes. The exercise itself burned about 420 calories, Dr. Knab and her colleagues reported. But what was most interesting was the calories burned afterward. Over the next 14 hours, the men burned an extra 190 calories, increasing the total calories burned by 37 percent.

    “We were surprised,” Dr. Knab said. She thought there might be extra calories burned, but she did not expect so many, nor did she expect the effect to last so long. She suspects one reason she saw such a pronounced effect was that the exercise was so intense. The subjects had had to cycle at 70 percent of their so-called VO2 max, the maximum amount of oxygen a person’s body can take in during exercise — an effort that made them breathe too heavily to carry on a conversation. And they had to keep it up for 45 minutes.

    and,

    http://greatist.com/fitness/afterburn-effect-keep-burning-calories-after-workout

    Exactly.
  • CoderGal
    CoderGal Posts: 6,800 Member
    That thought hit me before. But in all honesty, these are all estimations. They can vary by allot even when being precise. Moral of the story, I eat it all back and it works so they must be taking that somewhat into account.
  • Crankstr
    Crankstr Posts: 3,958 Member
    I don't see the point fo "eating back" the calories you burned doing exercise. Isn't the point to lose weight? and from what I understand the way to lose weight is to decrease the input and increase the output. If you are "eating back" the calories burned aren't you defeating the purpose of exercising?

    That's 'cuz you don't understand how this tool works...probably because you didn't read the directions or anything...you know, the stickies they tell you to read when you sign up. Don't feel bad, pretty typical...just too much work I'm sure to find out how a particular tool works.

    I like tools.
  • Cp731
    Cp731 Posts: 3,195 Member
    None of this is going to be spot on. Just like the estimation of calorie intake isn't 100% accurate, the estimation of calories burned isn't 100% accurate, your estimated tdee isn't 100% accurate. There's a margin of error in the whole process. It's just meant to be a guideline, a starting point. If you find that eating back every last calorie burned isn't working that well then you need to adjust. One hundred years ago or so people didn't have these kind of tools to lose weight - HRM's, calorie tracking websites, pedometers, and other techy gadgets- they still lost weight. Eat less, move more, use commonsense and don't take things so literally.
    :love: :love: :love: :love: :love:

    I just want to read this over and over and over again all day all day all day. And then read it again. AND THEN MAKE OTHER PEOPLE READ IT GRR RAWR! And then read it over and over and over all day all day all day.

    It's great to think about all this stuff because it means we're engaged in it, but that is really it, bottom line.

    Ferocous Clapping, Jump Clapping, Loud Roars, Lol's, More Clapping, Bravo, Bravo
  • seif0068
    seif0068 Posts: 193 Member
    So, let's say you normally burn 2400 calories. That's 100 calories an hour doing nothing, right? So you exercise for one hour for 400 calories... and you eat back those 400 calories. You ate 100 extra calories, that you would have burned anyway even if you were not exercising.

    So... I'm guessing MFP isn't right when just adding exercise calories to your goal...

    THANK YOU! I have been saying this for weeks. I only enter my NET calories burned (calories burned via HRM minus what I would've burned doing nothing in that time) so I am still shooting for my calorie goal.
  • ami5000psu
    ami5000psu Posts: 391 Member
    I was told there would be no math.
  • Granville_Cocteau
    Granville_Cocteau Posts: 209 Member
    I was told there would be no math.

    Ditto!

    "I was unaware there would be math in this debate." -Chevy Chase as Gerald Ford
  • michellekicks
    michellekicks Posts: 3,624 Member
    I now use TDEE method, but I lost all the weight eating back exercise calories... but then my Garmin uses a calculation that factors out my BMR burn anyway.
  • mathera26
    mathera26 Posts: 90 Member
    I hadn't thought of this, I have my bmr and calories burned during exercise down very close, but this could explain some of the error at the end of the day.
  • mathera26
    mathera26 Posts: 90 Member
    Ha ha! That is what it all boils down to!
  • mustgetmuscles1
    mustgetmuscles1 Posts: 3,346 Member
    WTF? Next they will want the thermic effect of food removed from calories on everything they eat. Why do people need to make this crap harder than it is?

    Fill in the info and eat the calories it tells you. It's pretty friggin simple. My guess is that is the problem.
  • mad923
    mad923 Posts: 42 Member
    I was told there would be no math.


    BWHAHAHAHAHA!

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