Eating back exercise calories.

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Replies

  • jacksonpt
    jacksonpt Posts: 10,413 Member
    Posts like this gets me confused. Eat them back or not? Waaaah.

    There is no 1 right answer. You start off with the basics: eat them back or don't (determined by how you calculated your calorie goal). Then adjust as necessary after a few weeks based on how your expected results line up with your actual results.
  • joleenl
    joleenl Posts: 739 Member
    I was told in one of my recent threads to make sure I net 1200 calories so eat back enough of your exercise calories to make sure you don't net under 1200. Having said that I have found no research that supports this theory. There has been some studies/research that suggests that netting low calories and/or consuming at a calorie restriction can cause metabolism damage. How much damage and what the safe zone is unclear.
  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,431 MFP Moderator
    Threads like this make me sad... There are 3 options that you can set up your account with.

    1. MFP way - eat back exercise calories
    2. Modified MFP (include exercise in your calculators - do not eat back exercise calories
    3. Custom TDEE method


    All of them will have to be adapted based on results.
  • susannamarie
    susannamarie Posts: 2,148 Member
    Might be a better idea to phrase it as "If you're not losing/you've stopped losing weight, and you don't understand why, investigate inaccuracies in exercise calories."

    My loss is pretty consistent with what MFP says it should be. I do martial arts but I don't enter the full time I spent in class, because I figure that the figures in the database are for someone going flat-out for the full time. I enter 1/4 to 1/2 of the time spent depending on perceived exertion level. I do enter the full time for biking, because I keep track of both the time and distance. If I stopped losing weight or slowed to significantly less than MFP predicts, I would re-evaluate what I'm doing.

    For me, my schedule is so variable day by day and week by week that a model based on weekly TDEE just wouldn't make sense.
  • laurenz2501
    laurenz2501 Posts: 839 Member
    Yay... more absolutes. This HAS to be right.

    :laugh: :heart:
  • haleylehane
    haleylehane Posts: 15 Member
    i find that for me personally, i lose weight more if i don't eat back my exercise calories. i have tried eating them back but just seem to stall. when i reach my goal though i know then that i will be just fine eating them back to stay stable :)
  • dta4ever
    dta4ever Posts: 27 Member
    I think this post shows that everyone is different. For some people, eating the calories back DOES work. For some people, it DOES NOT work. For some people, eating back half of the calories DOES work. It just depends on each individual person. Do what works for you. If you are steadily losing weight by NOT adding back the calories, keep doing what you're doing. If you're not losing weight steadily and have hit a plateau, change it up and try something different.
  • emilycarr71404
    emilycarr71404 Posts: 176 Member
    I half agree with this statement. I exercise 6 days a week and some days I use a few exercise calories and some days I don't touch them. Most often I don't touch them for fear I have overestimated my exercise burn. But some days I know I killed it in the gym and do need to eat a little more. That said, most days I don't touch them. This works for me now but may change down the road.
  • WaterBunnie
    WaterBunnie Posts: 1,371 Member
    I'd be too weak to keep up with the exercise if I didn't touch mine. I've burned more than 1,000 this morning (using HRM for gym & FitBit's lower calculations for swimming) and would be really depressed if I couldn't have a decent sized meal tonight.

    Eating back is also retraining us for when we hit maintenance when we will have to eat more on active days to ensure we don't carry on losing weight! It's good to learn your body's needs.
  • jacksonpt
    jacksonpt Posts: 10,413 Member
    While I generally agree with the point of your post, I don't agree with the way you made it.

    When people talk about different things working for them... it's not because the method works or doesn't, it's how they do it.

    For some people, eating back exercise cals doesn't work because the overestimate how many cals they burn and thus eat back too many cals. Or because they underestimate how many cals they eat.

    It's not that certain methods don't work for some, it's that they don't do them correctly, and thus they need to tweak things to work with how they count calories, estimate daily goals, etc.

    .

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