For those confused or questioning "Eating your exercise calo

where do you read the answer to the questions?

you mean the original post?

go to page 1, you'll see a link at the top that says contiued from here or something like that.

or just click this http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/10589-for-those-confused-or-questioning-eating-your-exercise-calo

Bump.

Question:

My wife and I, about a week ago today actually, had bought a groupon for Herbal magic. Somehow... because of a groupon, it triggered us changing everything. Like bag of Jube Jubes and Gumdrops a night to a Vitamix on the counter, religiously tracking everything, and leaping into the pool of lifestyle change. (I honestly think its cause I distinctly disliked the HM schtick, and decided via an app and my own stubbornness, I didn't need them and their $100 / wk program. I digress.)

In this week, I have lost 8lbs already. I was in no way consistent with exercise before, and still find that an issue. Fat % is like 28% ish from the hm scale, i was 222 lbs and am 5'5" tall... so way over BMI.

Ok finally the question. this past week, i've dragged my wife out for walks 90min (7-9km), moderate for me higher intensity for her... and then mid week I just upped and biked my 32km roundtrip to town as i sometimes do. So with our normal exercise cals at about 6-700 (seems high, but tracked with endomondo and gps), i go and toss a 1400 exercise cal day in their. Seeing as how we just started, I am petrified on the inside that trying to eat that, while my wife watches me salivating and hating... That a) I'll slip back to our old ways b) that she will c) that my body will stop its initial almost cleanse, and start craving the calories again...

See, just a week ago, I hardly ate during the day, and binged (hurts to admit it) most nights. Hardcore binges I think. Like the OMG... I should way 270lbs type. But I would burn so many through exercise that I could take in 3-4000 plus at night and steady state 220ish, and drop if I really went to town cycling (200km a week).

Long story short, and i'll add you so that you can see my food diary... we are shell shocked a bit by changing everything night and day, overnight (except my coffee with a bit of cream and brown sugar habit) and after the hm stuff are paranoid about caloric intake. So we've been averaging 1300- 1600 (her 200-300 less - Half and half and brown sugar in my coffees) a day, and most days exercising for that 600 - 700 range. ( Rechecked and Net cals for me is anywhere between 285 and 1500ish)

I am down 8, she's down a few as well, we feel better, although. and want to nail this level of eating down before we start adding a lot of cals so that we have more then a week of 'change' to set our new path in stone rather then the sand of good intentions.

Are we eating too little? I more then max our protein and nutrient intakes, its lots of food, caloric count is low though. (if the food db is accurate, not always - wish we could police that some)

Will wild swings in my exercise screw my weight loss up / eat into my muscle mass if i am always sure to max protein? Is it more harmful to swing calorie intake up by 1400 cals the odd day a week, then to keep my nutrient intake more steady, so my body doesn't go back to craving it all again.

p.s inadvertently, we are essentially avoiding many carbs as per HM and their food plan suggestions. so aside from coffee sugar in my case, we're talking 1/2 cup rice per day, or maybe a piece of toast. or the potatoes in a soup I made Oh, and the vitamix is absolutely incredible, btw! Sorry for the jumbled post, went from nonchalantly devouring a big bag of candy or chips a night to fretting over an extra potato split two ways... weird huh?

BF% could be maybe 25-28%, in retrospect my wifes couldve been 30%...but def in that range. Thanks again.

Just recalculated here : http://www.bmi-calculator.net/body-fat-calculator/ and its telling me 32% BF...

while I'd love to say there's an absolute yes or no answer to your question, in reality there really isn't. generally I caution people to be a little conservative at first because what might work immediately will probably end up being too much over the long term. And while you may drop a ton of weight at the beginning, that'll taper off as you progress. the idea though, is set a reasonable goal for your current condition.

this quick and dirty guide may help. It's far from a perfect tool, but it should give you an idea at least.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/61706-guide-to-calorie-deficits

-Banks

calipers aren't the best method. Especially if you do them yourself. they require a lot of experience to do accurately. I would suggest finding a place that does hydrostatic, or air displacement (bod pod in the US), or better yet, an MRI or dexa scan (although these are prohibitively expensive at most sites).

You can find bio-electrical impedance if you have it done professionally, they have a higher margin for error (but still better than calipers) but if you use the professional method that puts contacts on the feet and hands, it's relatively accurate. The home scale bio-electrical devices are very inaccurate as they don't even take into account the upper body because the contacts are both in the feet.

just got back from the Herbal Magic place, might as well use there scale and bf tester for the rest of the groupon. 34%. That ties in with the wrist waist hips and forearm method... It says down half a percent, but not quite reliable enough to know if its meaningful. Down 3lbs since they last weighed me, and half a percent is like 1.05lbs, so probably still clearing my system of wastes from the before.

Thanks for the help, I'll see what I can find around here for hydrostatic, or nexxa scans.

Bump

bump

I'm sorry to be a bit of a pain but I'm still not convinced, which means I must be missing something... My question is: if I eat my exercise calories, I'll be effectively eating only about 100 calories a day UNDER what I've burnt (allowing for BMR) so how, realistically does this equate to enough of a calorie deficit to see a weight loss?

I have understood the basic rule that if you have a calorie deficit of 500 calories a day this equals about1/2kg of weight loss in a week, which is a nice steady sustainable rate. The only way for me to get to a 500 calorie a day deficit is by not eating the calories that I exercise, so can someone clarify this for me??

Sounds like you are confusing BMR with TDEE. BMR is about 20 to 30% below TDEE. TDEE is the amount of energy you burn in a day (Total Daily Energy Expenditure).

To make a really long, really complicated story short;

To maintain, you eat your TDEE.
To lose weight you eat below your TDEE.
If you're obese, the amount below TDEE you can eat and lose weight is greater (I.E. the more overweight you are, the more of a calorie deficit you can safely maintain).

This website allows you to set a deficit. When you exercise, the TDEE goes up, but the deficit size should stay the same. So if you exercise, you should eat more in order to maintain the deficit size.

bump... great explanation and knowledge of metabolism!