Eat back exercise calories or not....

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Replies

  • eayockey
    eayockey Posts: 8
    MFP assumes a constant deficit from TDEE. with this method, you exercise so that you can eat more. so eating back your calories doesn't put you in a surplus... it simply ensures that you maintain a constant deficit from day to day.

    I think we're actually on the same page here. Where my advice differs is that, if you decide to eat back calories to maintain your constant deficit, you might as well not exercise at all because you would achieve the same constant result.

    500kcal deficit through no exercise = 500 kcal deficit with exercise - exercise + calories eaten back. Again, with the minor metabolic boost added through having exercised.
  • knra_grl
    knra_grl Posts: 1,566 Member
    On the contrary; you should only NOT eat back exercise calories if you are happy to lose muscle.

    You're assuming that the dieter is working on a protein deficit, which isn't necessarily the case.
    You don't understand how to use this tool...yet you are giving advice on how to use said tool. You aren't trying to create a calorie deficit with exercise with MFP...maybe brush up on you knowledge a bit before you run your mouth.

    If you eat back calories, you are only gaining the metabolic advantage of exercise and not the initial expenditure. You're also assuming MFP's estimate of calories burned (based on a broad description of what you do in a week) is completely accurate.

    You also seem quite angry, to have called me out twice before my (admittedly sarcastic) response. Relax.

    A lot of us (admittedly not a knowledgeable as say a personal trainer?) have figured out the MFP's exercise calculations are high - also we know that we have a built in deficit with our calorie goals so that we can lose weight without exercise just through dieting - we also realize the benefits of exercise and becoming more active

    This is not an attack but I am guessing you are on maintenance so your goals are going to be different than those of us trying to lose weight and after viewing your diary you don't really use the food logging tool on MFP as much as we would - you are probably know exactly what you are eating and how much fuel your body needs to maintain - but the rest of us need to track and log and figure out what works for us as individuals and sometimes it means seeking advice in the forums.

    If the program on MFP is set up to allow individuals to eat back exercise calories then why would you advise people not to? If they have their accounts set to lose weight they are already set at a deficit. MFP is set up for a healthy weightloss. It has been clearly posted by many that eating back at least some of the exercise calories does help with the whole weight loss process and excessive energy expenditure without re-fueling your body is not healthy as far as I can tell.

    Not in for a heated debate just my thoughts - I don't claim to be an expert :drinker:
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    if you eat back calories, you are only gaining the metabolic advantage of exercise and not the initial expenditure. You're also assuming MFP's estimate of calories burned (based on a broad description of what you do in a week) is completely accurate.

    You also seem quite angry, to have called me out twice before my (admittedly sarcastic) response. Relax.

    If my MFP goal without exercise to maintain is 2,350 calories and it gives me a 1,850 calorie goal to lose weight...but I burn say 400 in exercise so eat 2,250 calories...what is the difference between that and using the TDEE method (which I use and advocate) whereby my maintenance number including exercise is between 2700 and 2800 calories daily and I eat 2,250 calories to lose about 1 Lb per week?

    There is no difference. I'm also not assuming anything...I don't use MFP's database for calorie burn and never have. For the brief time I actually used the MFP method, I used my HRM in combination with other formulas that are pretty tried and true for various exercises and ate back a portion of those calories to make sure I was giving my body adequate fuel for repair and recovery.

    I use the TDEE method now and did for most of my weight loss and I find it far superior for someone who does regular exercise...and yes, the descriptors are generic...which is where brains come in and you make adjustments as per real world results. Regardless of method, you are eating some estimate of your exercise calories...either deliberately with MFP or including some estimate of those in your activity level.

    I don't know what you do for exercise, but I get in around 100 miles per week on my bike and I hit the weight room pretty hard...there's no way I'm not accounting for that activity somewhere...neglecting to account for that activity would be incredibly destructive and counterproductive to achieving anything remotely awesome from a fitness standpoint.

    I'm not angry at all...I am sarcastic, I am blunt, I am to the point, and I've been somewhat of an *kitten* hole most of my life...but angry I am not.
  • BrainyBurro
    BrainyBurro Posts: 6,129 Member
    MFP assumes a constant deficit from TDEE. with this method, you exercise so that you can eat more. so eating back your calories doesn't put you in a surplus... it simply ensures that you maintain a constant deficit from day to day.

    I think we're actually on the same page here. Where my advice differs is that, if you decide to eat back calories to maintain your constant deficit, you might as well not exercise at all because you would achieve the same constant result.

    500kcal deficit through no exercise = 500 kcal deficit with exercise - exercise + calories eaten back. Again, with the minor metabolic boost added through having exercised.

    except for this very important benefit... sometimes you need those extra calories to meet your macros and sometimes you need them because you wanted to eat more calories that day.
  • WaterBunnie
    WaterBunnie Posts: 1,371 Member
    I wear a fitbit too. You should eat back your calorie adjustment to maintain the correct deficit because it's primary purpose is to correct the activity level you have set for yourself here. e.g from sedentary to very active on some days. If you want to keep your muscle and end this strong you don't want to have days when you're effectively eating at a 4lbs deficit. In my experience that just leads to hunger and bingeing!
  • geebusuk
    geebusuk Posts: 3,348 Member
    You're always going to lose muscle mass on a cut (unless you're running controlled substances), but maintaining 1g/#LBM will reduce muscle loss. The larger the deficit, the more muscle that will be lost, so I suppose it's technically correct that you will lose more muscle mass if you don't eat back calories, but the effect should be negligible.
    And that being the case, why don't we just eat less, making sure protein levels are ok?
    Why is it that it's generally accepted it's bad to be on too high a deficit if the difference is 'negligible'?

    From what I've seen (don't have citations to hand again, I'm afraid), lots of protein but calories being down will tend to lead to more catabolism. Do you have anything to back up that the effect is negligible?
  • eayockey
    eayockey Posts: 8
    And that being the case, why don't we just eat less, making sure protein levels are ok?
    Why is it that it's generally accepted it's bad to be on too high a deficit if the difference is 'negligible'?

    Maintaining protein targets and minimizing every other macro is the logic behind every PSMF (protein-sparing modified fast), and in my (anecdotal) experience, it works. You will always be in a catabolic state when eating at a deficit, but this can be minimized with strength training and protein consumption (and if you're new to strength training, you can actually build muscle on a deficit if protein targets are hit). Other theories are "generally accepted" by whom?

    Advanced Nutrition March 2012
    http://advances.nutrition.org/content/3/2/119.full
    "...the extent of muscle loss in response to negative energy balance was proportional to dietary protein intake. Specifically, all volunteers lost FFM (−1.4 kg and −4.3 kg in the high- and low-protein groups, respectively). However, the percentage of total weight loss due to decreases in FFM was significantly lower for those women consuming high- (17.3%) versus low- (37.5%) protein diets."

    Lyle McDonald (nutrition expert of some renown)
    http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/muscle-gain/muscle-growth-and-pos-workout-nutrition.html
    "First and foremost I should point out that if you train and don’t eat anything afterwards (and this assumes you haven’t eaten a few hours before), the body will actually remain in a net catabolic state. That is, protein breakdown will be greater than protein synthesis. That’s bad. But only really applies if you’re training first thing in the morning after a fast (how many studies are done) and haven’t eaten anything."
  • ingraha
    ingraha Posts: 99 Member
    Eat them back. Be honest in logging . The mantra.
  • colorfulcupcakes
    colorfulcupcakes Posts: 122 Member
    The reason you get conflicting advice is because there are numerous methods for doing this and you have to understand which one you are using.

    With MFP, your activity level is to include only your day to day type of stuff...no exercise. So MFP calculates a calorie goal based on your stats and desired rate of loss that includes your weight loss deficit WITHOUT any exercise whatsoever. If you just hit your calorie goal without doing any deliberate exercise you would lose weight. So exercise then becomes an extra activity that is unaccounted for in your calorie goal until you log it...then MFP gives you those calories to eat back.

    Other methods include some estimate of your exercise burn upfront in your activity level and others try to use some combination of diet and exercise to create your energy deficit. Like I said...you need to understand what method you are using and whoever you're talking to has to have the same understanding (and I doubt they do because most people are pretty ignorant about this stuff as noted by poster number 2 on this very thread).

    Common pitfalls of MFP method (NEAT method) is overestimating calorie burn. A lot of people just workout and go to the database and put "vigorous" effort or whatever and get like a gazillion calories burned for 30 minutes of swimming or something completely unreasonable. You should always have some kind of reasonableness check on your burn and you should do a bit of research on burning calories and what exercises burn what...there are a lot of formulas out there that are far more accurate that some data base of online calculator. I personally never logged more than 10 calories per minute, and that was an intense workout...around 5 calories per minute for a nice walk.

    For this to work, you also have to be as precise as possible with intake which means you should be weighing pretty much anything that has weight as a serving suggestion and measuring cups/spoons for just about everything else. If you eat out a lot, you can have issues in that restaurants are given a lot of leeway in there calorie estimations. This is also an issue if you eat a lot of prepackaged type of meals...I believe they are allowed something like 20% error or something.

    omg, THANK YOU! I'm saving this..
  • Steffani911
    Steffani911 Posts: 196 Member
    I didn't read all the responses but personally I don't most of the time. When I do 2 workouts in one day, I will aim for half. Just my personal choice and it is working.
  • Steffani911
    Steffani911 Posts: 196 Member
    Common pitfalls of MFP method (NEAT method) is overestimating calorie burn. A lot of people just workout and go to the database and put "vigorous" effort or whatever and get like a gazillion calories burned for 30 minutes of swimming or something completely unreasonable. You should always have some kind of reasonableness check on your burn and you should do a bit of research on burning calories and what exercises burn what...there are a lot of formulas out there that are far more accurate that some data base of online calculator. I personally never logged more than 10 calories per minute, and that was an intense workout...around 5 calories per minute for a nice walk.

    For this to work, you also have to be as precise as possible with intake which means you should be weighing pretty much anything that has weight as a serving suggestion and measuring cups/spoons for just about everything else. If you eat out a lot, you can have issues in that restaurants are given a lot of leeway in there calorie estimations. This is also an issue if you eat a lot of prepackaged type of meals...I believe they are allowed something like 20% error or something.

    ^Yes, yes, and yes! Food intake being more that thought and burn being less that thought. Weight everything you put in your mouth.
  • geebusuk
    geebusuk Posts: 3,348 Member
    . Other theories are "generally accepted" by whom?
    That a higher deficit means more muscle loss.
    Haven't got the time this second to dig through studies, but a quick google got me this:
    https://www.pacifichealthlabs.com/blog/could-you-be-losing-muscle-instead-of-fat-heres-how-not-to-do-that/
    n individuals who moderately reduced their daily caloric intake, 91% of the loss was fat and only 9% was muscle. But in subjects who severely reduced their daily caloric intake, fat represented 48% of the total weight loss and muscle 42%.
    Not sure of protein levels in that study.


    From Lyle's article.
    Now, what happens to your muscle mass ultimately depends on the balance between these two competing processes. I’ve tried to illustrate this below with three possible scenarios.

    Protein synthesis > Protein breakdown = Muscle mass increases
    Protein synthesis = Protein breakdown = No change in muscle mass
    Protein synthesis < Protein breakdown = Muscle mass decreases

    Assuming your goal is bigger muscles, clearly 1 is the goal. But this also means that there are two primary ways that we can potentially impact on muscle growth. We can either increase protein synthesis, decrease protein breakdown or do both at the same time. And doing both at the same time would be expected to have the biggest impact.

    There’s one more factoid you need to know which is this: heavy resistance training increases the rates of both protein synthesis AND breakdown. That is, training doesn’t just turn on one or another, it turns on both. This is probably a mechanism to help with the previously mentioned remodeling process. But both happen following training.
    I would suggest that cardio while not eating much should also increase protein breakdown.
    On that basis, an obvious way to prevent it is to offer another fuel - more calories from carbs.
  • eayockey
    eayockey Posts: 8
    I would suggest that cardio while not eating much should also increase protein breakdown.
    On that basis, an obvious way to prevent it is to offer another fuel - more calories from carbs.

    You are correct that cardio on a deficit will catabolize muscle more quickly than resistance training. This is because anerobic energy systems (Phosphagen and Glycolytic) produce energy (ATP) by breaking down carbs. The aerobic system (Oxidative) breaks down proteins and fats to produce energy (ATP). I should mention that you don't need a tremendous amount of carbs in your system to prevent catabolism during anaerobic exercise--about 30g (a gatorade or banana) prior will do.

    Protein breakdown can refer to dietary protein as well--this is why eating more protein spares muscle loss, and why it's especially important to eat more protein if you intend to do a lot of cardio on a deficit.
  • alexuh
    alexuh Posts: 108 Member
    I eat back some/most/all. It depends if I'm hungry or not. If I want them, I know they're there. I don't go out of my way to eat them I just listen to my body. Sometimes that will mean I eat more the next day - but who cares. I didn't want the calories on the day so it would have been pointless to eat when I wasn't hungry. Basically I do what I feel. :bigsmile:

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