Eat exercise calories or nah?

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DuckiesorDie
DuckiesorDie Posts: 23 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Hello everyone,

I'm hearing different answers of whether or not I should eat the exercise calories I burn during the day, so would like any feedback people have. My ultimate goal is to keep losing the weight, but I'm also training for a half marathon as well, so wasn't sure if that would matter or not. Any feedback is much appreciated!

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  • Carrieendar
    Carrieendar Posts: 493 Member
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    I would first make sure you know you are calculating the burn correctly either by using a HRM or subtracting some calories from the numbers you get using a watch without the HRM or even more calories by using the numbers MFP gives you.

    I would eat back most of the accurately burned number because you don't want huge deficits and long distance running, you would be losing a lot of lean muscle instead of just body fat.
  • DuckiesorDie
    DuckiesorDie Posts: 23 Member
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    I would first make sure you know you are calculating the burn correctly either by using a HRM or subtracting some calories from the numbers you get using a watch without the HRM or even more calories by using the numbers MFP gives you.

    I would eat back most of the accurately burned number because you don't want huge deficits and long distance running, you would be losing a lot of lean muscle instead of just body fat.

    Yeah, I've been using the Nike Running app for my exercise calorie burn numbers, so you think those are way elevated on how much is actually getting burnt?
  • Carrieendar
    Carrieendar Posts: 493 Member
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    I am not really sure. For me, I need to subtract about 100 calories from the numbers my watch gives me per hour running when I am not using the HRM and about 150 from MFP per hour to match the approx numbers I get running the same time/ effort with my HRM on.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,868 Member
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    It is the way this tool is designed so if you're getting your calorie goals from MFP and properly setting your activity level to only include day to day type of stuff then exercise becomes an extra activity. Here's what the math looks like.

    Let's say you maintain on 2300 calories WITHOUT exercise...just your day to day living. To lose 1 Lb per week I would eat 1800 calories per day and I would lose weight WITHOUT exercise. Now I decide to exercise and let's say I burn 300 calories for my workout. My maintenance number just jumped to 2600 calories...so if I ate those 300 calories back my gross intake would be 2100 calories and 2600 - 2100 = 500 calorie deficit still.

    It is the way this tool and other NEAT method calculators work...problem is nobody reads the stickies which explains all of this...so they don't really know what the hell they are doing but they go around offering advice on how to use a tool that they themselves don't know how to use....

    Biggest issue people have is overestimating burn. I always compared what my HRM or machine or whatever I was using to a factor of 5-10 with 5 calories per minute being a moderately paced walk and 10 calories per minute being a sustained level of effort for which I could not hold a conversation....most activities fall somewhere in between. I never logged anything in excess of 10 calories per minute. You want to be conservative as possible.
  • Odinisgod
    Odinisgod Posts: 46 Member
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    First make sure you are calculating calorie burn correctly. Apps will usually overestimate because they don't subtract out the calories you would have burned had you not exercised during that time. My HRM seems to grossly overestimate my calorie burn (I think because I have a high max heart rate, and my cardio zone is much higher than other people on average).

    Second, don't think about it as "eating back" exercise calories, just focus on your daily or weekly net calorie goals. If you exercised that day, and are short on net calories, but aren't hungry, just bank the deficit. Other days you may feel hungry and want to eat more, and if not, you'll just lose a little more weight than planned, which is perfectly fine.
  • bltrexler
    bltrexler Posts: 180 Member
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    I set my activity to sedentary, and then use my fitbit to add back my activity. When I do my runs and work out I also wear my Polar HRM to see what my burn is, also my running app also keeps track. In the end the fitbit does a pretty good job and for me, I just let the fitbit do the adjustment since I wear the fitbit all day and after I workout I take off my HRM. Do I eat back all my adjusted calories for the day? Most of the time no, but there are those times when I am really hungry so then I do. But if I am full then I don’t. I’d say listen to your body, if you are hitting your macro’s and still hungry and have some calories left over then fuel your body.
  • alathIN
    alathIN Posts: 142 Member
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    Everyone has a different take on this.

    My experience has been that if I eat exercise kCal according to what MFP says I should, I gain weight.
    For whatever reason, MFP seems to be overestimating what I burn.

    What works for me is to eat what MFP tells me to eat on a rest day when there is no exercise.
    On a big exercise day, I eat about half of the "bonus" kCal.

    This works for me, but everyone has to figure out what works for themselves.

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