Eating back exercise cals does not wok for me
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Seems stupid and surely defeats the point if you burn off 300 cals then these are added back to your allowance to eat?!?!?:huh:
Another poster who clearly has no understanding of how MFP is designed ........ :ohwell:
This! It boggles my mind when I see people calling something stupid when they have no clue what they are talking about. If you are going to join a site for weightloss at least educate yourself as to how the site works. Good googly kamoogly! I guess ignorance is bliss.0 -
Once again, the MFP site give you a goal already based on a deficit. Finding what works for changing a number on a scale isn't necessarily what works for doing it in a healthy and safe way.I don't use my calories burned for eating...my theory is I exercise to lose weight not to win back calories to eat more. This is what works for me...my workouts at the gym and keeping my food diary every day and keeping it around 1300 calories. Once you find what works you stick with it and tweak it when necessry!
ETA: read the two posts above mine. Please.0 -
I don't use my calories burned for eating...my theory is I exercise to lose weight not to win back calories to eat more. This is what works for me...my workouts at the gym and keeping my food diary every day and keeping it around 1300 calories. Once you find what works you stick with it and tweak it when necessry!
Yet another person who has no clue how MFP is set up.0 -
Sorry, but you need a strong dose of reality.
"I've put on five pounds and it's NOT muscle" - your profile says you met your 10 pound weight loss goal on 5/10. That means you have NOT been trying long enough to determine you have "gained" 5 pounds. You eat at least twice as much sodium as you should most days, which = water retention which = "weight gain." You also started doing some new physical activity. Adding a new exercise to your routine = water retention which = "weight gain." Plus, you upped your calories overnight - you should be adding calories gradually if you're moving up to a higher level. Don't jump from 1,200/day to 2,000/day overnight or you are going to see a short-term "weight gain" because your body hasn't had time to adjust.
You are completely underestimating your calorie intake and WAY overestimating your calories burned. As others have said - measure/weigh portions and get a heart rate monitor.
Example: I see one day where you ate three hot dogs with three buns - yet you had one tablespoon of ketchup and one TEASPOON of mustard for all three hot dogs? Sorry, but I highly doubt it.
And even if you are at a high weight currently, I highly doubt you are burning 2,000 calories/day with your swimming.
The formula works if you do it correctly and are brutally honest about your calories in and calories out. Saying it just "doesn't work for you" doesn't hold water. Figure out your TDEE, figure out your BMR. Never eat less NET calories than your BMR. Eat 20% less than your TDEE. Do it for a month CONSISTENTLY before you decide you are the exception to the rule. Consistently means a month of actually hitting your daily calorie goal with accurate food and exercise logs.
Good luck to you!0 -
I never understood WHY they want you to eat back those Cal you burned? Doesnt that defeat the purpose of burning them?? I mean in order to LOSE the weight, you have to burn more calories than you consume in a day! Just sounds so silly to me to eat them back, i never do!!
I never understand WHY people don't get how MFP works .........
What is "just silly" is to workout to KEEP MUSCLE mass .... but then not eating enough to fuel it. Too large a deficit promotes muscle loss.
Too large a deficit promotes muscle loss
Too large a deficit promotes muscle loss
Too large a deficit promotes muscle loss
There ..... rant complete0 -
Seems stupid and surely defeats the point if you burn off 300 cals then these are added back to your allowance to eat?!?!?:huh:
Another poster who clearly has no understanding of how MFP is designed ........ :ohwell:
This! It boggles my mind when I see people calling something stupid when they have no clue what they are talking about. If you are going to join a site for weightloss at least educate yourself as to how the site works. Good googly kamoogly! I guess ignorance is bliss.
Thought people posted for help, advice and support??0 -
My scales didn't move for a solid month because I ate back my calories which is important to do. I would ride a stationary bike (minimum 30 minutes) most every day. I had my settings for a healthy loss of 2 pounds per week. I did what I was suppose to, but no change on the scales. Then I did 3 things that have made the scales move: 1) I give myself half the calories of what mfp says I burned for any activity i.e. if it says I burned 658 calories, I credit only 329. 2) I added variety in my exercise I may cycle, go for a walk or do Leslie Sansone's Walk Away the Pounds Video and 3) increased my water intake. I dropped 6 pounds in one week just making these 3 simple changes. Eventually I plan to purchase a nice HRM like a Polar FT7. I hope you find this helpful. Best wishes for every success on your journey to health!0
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Seems stupid and surely defeats the point if you burn off 300 cals then these are added back to your allowance to eat?!?!?:huh:
Another poster who clearly has no understanding of how MFP is designed ........ :ohwell:
This! It boggles my mind when I see people calling something stupid when they have no clue what they are talking about. If you are going to join a site for weightloss at least educate yourself as to how the site works. Good googly kamoogly! I guess ignorance is bliss.
Thought people posted for help, advice and support??
Help, advice and support mean different things to different people.0 -
1. You are overestimating calorie burns. If you can't get a HRM to work underwater, eat only half your exercise cals.
2. Use a scale.
3. Holy sodium levels!
4. If you keep undereating to the extent you are, your LBM will end up shockingly low and if you ever do hit your target weight, you will have to live on low calories or you will just gain. Everyone knows VLCD don't work - this is a VLCD.
5. You haven't given it enough time. Up slowly, and be patient. An initial gain is normal.
6. Read this. http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/912920-in-place-of-a-road-map-3-2013?hl=road+map+20130 -
I agree with you totally! I never ate back my burned calories, just stuck with a calorie range and it worked! 90 lb down! I now eat more calories, but am not losing much, which is fine since I am right at where I want to be and I am trying to navigate into what will be my way of life from here on in. Good for you and best of luck! Just keep it up, it really does work! :flowerforyou:0
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Seems stupid and surely defeats the point if you burn off 300 cals then these are added back to your allowance to eat?!?!?:huh:
Another poster who clearly has no understanding of how MFP is designed ........ :ohwell:
This! It boggles my mind when I see people calling something stupid when they have no clue what they are talking about. If you are going to join a site for weightloss at least educate yourself as to how the site works. Good googly kamoogly! I guess ignorance is bliss.
Thought people posted for help, advice and support??
They do. I support people by giving them advice on how to use the website as it is designed. It's helpful to know how to drive a car, not just getting in and pushing all the buttons on the radio... and expecting the car to drive itself.0 -
bodymedia is, if I'm thinking correctly, part of what you're burning through the course of the day.. just by existing. IF that's the case, how are you not feeding your body those calories to keep the base functions of your body working? Those aren't EXTRA calories.. those are "HI Colleen, I'm your spleen and I'm working. I'll need you to pay me 200 calories to keep on going, mkay?" calories. You're paying your guts to keep working.I wear a body media on my left leg at all time. It has really given me an accurate picture of what I am burning. But could I eat all them back no way. But I do eat some back.
Hello, Spleen....I'm too busy running like a hamster on a wheel, must cardio...... no time for you. Go get the energy you need from my muscles, so then I'll be skinnier.0 -
Seems stupid and surely defeats the point if you burn off 300 cals then these are added back to your allowance to eat?!?!?:huh:
Another poster who clearly has no understanding of how MFP is designed ........ :ohwell:
This! It boggles my mind when I see people calling something stupid when they have no clue what they are talking about. If you are going to join a site for weightloss at least educate yourself as to how the site works. Good googly kamoogly! I guess ignorance is bliss.
Thought people posted for help, advice and support??
"help" sometimes means helping people overcome their delusions0 -
I want to live in a world where swimming 2 miles burns upwards of 2000 calories.
OP, take me with you to Bizarro World the next time you visit.0 -
do your thing! whatever works..you will make the needed adjustments when it arrives0
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This is one of those reasons I usually tell people to up their calories in 100 to 200 calorie increments.
The truth is, most folks simply refuse to give their bodies the acclimation time it needs before they make a mental assertion that something works/doesn't work.
If you are accurate in your logging (This is super important), and you up calories by a large amount, and add in new exercise...expect 4-6 weeks for your body to acclimate. Some acclimate faster, some slower. But if you base your success/failure on a small sample size (Timeframe), you end up spinning your wheels.
And then again, it may not work for you. I'm not saying it will.
It takes a fair amount of time if you really want to "dial" in your body and figure out what your true maintenance is, and remove the fluctuation your body takes because of changes.0 -
I just think you need to be brutally honest here. I'm just starting out myself, so I'm certainly no expert, but I think the fact that you are eating two entire containers of Ben and Jerry's in one day on top of stuff like pizza and chips and all that else is to blame, not eating back any calories you might have burned. I don't know your weight, but I looked at your pics and I don't think you're much bigger than I am and yet your calorie allowance says 3500 a day? If you're 'allowed' 3500 calories and then on top of that you are 'eating back' the supposed 200 calories you are logging for exercise, that's 5500 calories a day. You can't honestly think that's correct, that you ought to lose weight that way?
Time to be honest, is all. You can't have 'dinners' like you had on Monday of a container of Ben & Jerry's, some rice cakes and two cups of salsa and expect you'll lose weight. You just can't, that's not how it works. I won't even touch that astonishing 7100 grams of sodium in one day thing. That's, like, a whole week's worth in one day.0 -
I've read the topics here on eating back exercise cals and had some comments that said I needed to eat more. But I'm here to say that eating back the cals is making me gain. I've put on five pounds and it's NOT muscle.
I'm going back to what was working, 1200-1400 cals a day and keeping my workout cals burned to boost my fat loss.
The theory sounds good, eat more and lose, but it's not happening for me.
I also think that MFP way inflates the cals earned during exercise.
A few notes:
-Yes, the MFP calorie burn numbers are often greatly exaggerated, and if you follow their "eat back your exercise calories" system going off of their estimated calorie burn amounts you may be setting yourself up for failure. A HRM is basically a must if you want to use their system.
-The MFP system is based on NOT factoring your exercise into your daily activity level when initially determining your calorie goals. Most other systems DO have you factoring that in. If the exercise you are doing is anything more than light to moderate in intensity, it is better to go with one of these systems instead. Use a calculator such as the one found at scoobysworkshop.com to determine what your daily calorie goals are after factoring this in and manually edit the MFP numbers.
-Be careful the weight you're losing is all fat. When eating that low of a calorie allowance it's possible you're eating under BMR, which may be seeing fat loss, but is also detrimental to organ health.0 -
I just think you need to be brutally honest here. I'm just starting out myself, so I'm certainly no expert, but I think the fact that you are eating two entire containers of Ben and Jerry's in one day on top of stuff like pizza and chips and all that else is to blame, not eating back any calories you might have burned. I don't know your weight, but I looked at your pics and I don't think you're much bigger than I am and yet your calorie allowance says 3500 a day? If you're 'allowed' 3500 calories and then on top of that you are 'eating back' the supposed 200 calories you are logging for exercise, that's 5500 calories a day. You can't honestly think that's correct, that you ought to lose weight that way?
Time to be honest, is all. You can't have 'dinners' like you had on Monday of a container of Ben & Jerry's, some rice cakes and two cups of salsa and expect you'll lose weight. You just can't, that's not how it works. I won't even touch that astonishing 7100 grams of sodium in one day thing. That's, like, a whole week's worth in one day.
She brings up a very strong point here.0 -
I never understood WHY they want you to eat back those Cal you burned? Doesnt that defeat the purpose of burning them?? I mean in order to LOSE the weight, you have to burn more calories than you consume in a day! Just sounds so silly to me to eat them back, i never do!!
I'm going to assume by this response that you didn't read a lot of the answers already provided, so I'll say it once again.
MFP (myfitnesspal) calculates your deficit when you set up your account. Let's say you want to lose 1 lb per week. You calorie deficit is calculated at 500 a day. What this means is, according to the information you entered into MFP, you burn lets say 2000 calories a day doing your normal activity, so MFP will give you a calorie goal of 1500. Now MFP is already doing the math for you to make it easy. When you exercise, lets say you burn 300 calories. So now your goal is 1800. If you look at the way the MFP lays it out, you have Goal = Food - Exercise = Net. Basically 1500 (Goal) 1800 (Food) - 300 (Exercise) = 1500 (NET). In essence, you are NETTING 1500 calories, which is the same goal you had without exercising, which gives you a deficit of 500 calories, which is 3500 calories a week, which is = to 1 lb of fat a week.
This works ONLY if you are properly logging food and exercise. This has worked for 1000's of people and continues to work. There isn't enough difference in the human body between individuals to negate the fact that a calorie deficit creates weight loss. How you create that deficit is up to you....but facts are facts, and the facts remain that only a calorie deficit will generate weight loss and exercise will aid in that deficit and will create a more pleasing body composition and help maintain lean body mass.
The primary problems people run into can be boiled down to:
A) Setting the goal too small, creating a much larger deficit than is healthy. This creates an environment for the body to change the way it processes. It kicks into a "survival mode" if you will, and decreases metabolism so that it can make what you give it last. This will slow results and is often the cause of the yo-yo dieter.
2) Incorrectly logging exercise burned. While one of the better ways to calculate calories burned is a HRM (Heart Rate Monitor), these aren't 100% accurate either. They are often times more accurate than the numbers taken from the exercise machines or the amount provided by MFP, but they are still anywhere from 10% - 25% higher than what is actually burned. HRM's are not designed to accurately measure calories burned from weight lifting, but more for cardio type exercises. Research and customer reviews are often a good way to find out if there is a common % your particular brand of HRM is inaccurate then make the adjustments necessary. Also, make sure that you are updating your user data every 5 lbs of weight loss. Otherwise you will get much higher calorie burns.
III) Incorrectly logging calories. A food scale is a non-emotional lie detector. Weigh as much food as you possibly can. Take peanut butter for instance. 2 tbsp = 200 calories in general. Too many people eyeball this and in reality are using 2 1/2 to 3 tbsp of peanut butter but logging 2. 50-100 calorie difference adds up, especially when you are repeating this same thing over all of the food you eat.
Bottom line, the numbers given on MFP, or any weight loss website for that matter, are a guide. Try it for about 30-45 days, let your body adjust to the new way of eating and exercise, and if there is no change tweak it. If you are gaining and not losing, decrease your calories by a couple hundred. If you are losing at a rate that is too fast to be healthy (this is NOT a good thing depending on how much you have to lose) then dial the calorie goal up a hundred or two. Keep within your goals, both calorie and macro goals as much as possible. I personally shoot for about 90% of the time, allowing for weddings, office parties, birthdays, holidays, and those "I really wanna eat EVERYTHING" moments.
Also, understand that this isn't a fly by night, get skinny quick scheme. This is something you will need to be at least sub-conscious about for the rest of your life. Take the time you need to properly lose weight and it will become second nature and you will be more likely to keep the weight off by developing good habits. It's going to take time, understand that, accept that, and you will already be halfway to your goal.
TL;DR version: Understand how MFP is supposed to be used, log food and exercise as correctly as possible (HRM and food scale), don't starve yourself, and be patient.0
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