Exercise calories - how much of it to eat back?

wllwsmmr
wllwsmmr Posts: 391 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I use the TDEE - 20% method at sedentary, and then eat back some of my exercise calories.

Thing is, when you exercise you burn a certain amount of calories (say 500), but if you weren't exercising you would still burn some just by living and breathing (say 100). So technically you've only earned 400 calories to eat back right? And that is assuming how much you burned was calculated accurately!

So do you take the net burn for TDEE and/or mfp method? Does the mfp calculations already take this into account?

Thanks :)

Replies

  • wllwsmmr
    wllwsmmr Posts: 391 Member
    Anyone??
  • kellehbeans
    kellehbeans Posts: 838 Member
    You don't account of everyday living burned calories to eat back. Your TDEE will take account of that. Your BMR is what is you would need if you were comatose and had no ability to move or do anything.

    I make sure my net is at least my bmr.
  • wllwsmmr
    wllwsmmr Posts: 391 Member
    Hey! Thanks for replying :)

    Yeah I know so since TDEE already takes into account your daily activity, so shouldn't you only eat back the net calories burned from exercise?
  • auddii
    auddii Posts: 15,357 Member
    TDEE is total daily energy expenditure. That includes the calories you burn blinking, breathing, digesting food, walking to your car, and exercise. So, for a true TDEE you should be including exercise in your TDEE. If you do that, you log your exercise in MFP as only burning one calorie (I don't even bother logging exercise). Some people do not exercise regularly though and they do different workouts that may be hard to account for since they aren't consistent. So, they calculated a "TDEE" without exercise and then eat back the calories. It's not actually a TDEE that they're using, but at the end of the day, you get about to the same place.

    Personally, I never ate back all of my calories because I was going off estimates from MFP or machines at the gym, both of which are notorious for being inaccurate. I only ate back two-thirds of my calories. If you're using a HRM, it's probably more accurate, and I see a lot of people tossing around eating back anywhere from 50%-100% of their exercise calories.

    ETA: I used to eat back my calories. Now I do the TDEE and eat the same amount everyday because I find it less confusing eating the same amount every day. Then, if I do an extra workout not accounted for in my TDEE, I just add an extra 200 calories.
  • wllwsmmr
    wllwsmmr Posts: 391 Member
    TDEE is total daily energy expenditure. That includes the calories you burn blinking, breathing, digesting food, walking to your car, and exercise. Some people do not exercise regularly though and they do different workouts that may be hard to account for since they aren't consistent. So, they calculated a "TDEE" without exercise and then eat back the calories. It's not actually a TDEE that they're using, but at the end of the day, you get about to the same place.

    Hey thanks for replying!

    But if TDEE already accounts for all else, and if you choose to calculate TDEE at sedentary, then you should eat back the net calories burned right?
  • joe7880
    joe7880 Posts: 92 Member
    [/quote]

    But if TDEE already accounts for all else, and if you choose to calculate TDEE at sedentary, then you should eat back the net calories burned right?
    [/quote]

    If you calculate TDEE at sedentary and then workout, that number is not your true TDEE. You would have to account for that calorie burn to maintain the -20% calorie deficit or simple live with a greater deficit that day.

    I think one way to do this would be to deduct your BMR for the time period you worked out from the calories you burned according to your heart rate monitor or whatever else you are using to figure out the calories burned. Find the BMR number by dividing the amount of time you worked out into 24hours.

    Take the adjusted BMR number and deduct it from the calories burned during the workout to find out the "true" calories burned.

    The equation would look like this: calories burned working out - (time in hours working out/24 hours) = net calories burned working out
  • rduhlir
    rduhlir Posts: 3,550 Member
    If you are going to do TDEE/BMR at sedentary then yes you will eat back your exercise calories. Take into account though, you will have to subtract your BMR from the exercise you do. So if your BMR is 1500, and you burn 600 calories running for an hour you would subtract 63 calories from the total burned and eat back 537.

    Also, keep in mind that if you decide to do it that way you need to be brutally honest with the calories burnt. I wouldn't do any cardio without a HRM and I would only eat 200-300 over my BMR on weight lifting days (I don't use HRM for weight lifting).

    If you are deciding to do it that way because you aren't able to tell your activity level, average the two out that you are stuck on. Eating at a consistant number every day makes it super easy when tracking food eaten, and it makes learning how to mold your diet easier too. I actually averaged lightly active and moderately together to come up with my number.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    Hope I've got this right - you are asking if the calculated calories burned during exercise have been adjusted to take into account that you are burning calories anyway on account of your BMR?

    So if your BMR is 1440 (as an example) and you burn 600 calories in an hour should you eat back 600 calories or 540?
    (1440 divided by 24 = 60 )

    To be honest it's such as small difference it really isn't worth worrying about!!
    With all the inaccuracies involved in logging food, estimating (or measuring) calories burned you are better off just eating back the exercise calories as given and seeing what results you get over a period of time (like a month).
  • ficbot
    ficbot Posts: 3 Member
    The first time I tried this website, I put in a more active activity level (I am a teacher) and barely lost anything, even when I didn't log the exercise. I think it attributed more activity to me than I deserved, especially because it did not take into account weekend days where I might be less active. So this time, I put in the lowest most sedentary choices possible and have been eating back the calories from exercise and activity (I log anything at the 20-minute walk or above duration). I am in my third week and averaging a 2 pound loss per week. I am much happier with this method.
  • wllwsmmr
    wllwsmmr Posts: 391 Member
    Hey thanks for the replies!

    I should have specified that I was more of putting this out there than asking for advice!

    I am more than wary of overestimating exercise calories burned and well I am now more focussed on reducing my binges and calories are still a major problem so... haha sorry for the sidetrack!

    Anyways @sijomial thanks for the calculations! Yeah it does seem pretty insignificant haha, but for some people who are really overweight, their BMR could be pretty high and hence 1hour of exercise could amount to about 100+cals difference! And then the overestimating could add another 100 or more, and hence people who eat everything back could face problems losing weight!

    Just wanted to point out the whole net calories thing because it seems to not be mentioned much!
  • llkilgore
    llkilgore Posts: 1,169 Member
    If you're interested, this site calculates both gross and net exercise calories.

    http://www.shapesense.com/fitness-exercise/calculators/activity-based-calorie-burn-calculator.aspx
  • wllwsmmr
    wllwsmmr Posts: 391 Member
    If you're interested, this site calculates both gross and net exercise calories.

    http://www.shapesense.com/fitness-exercise/calculators/activity-based-calorie-burn-calculator.aspx

    Thank you for the site, checking it out now :)

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