Exercise Calories - to eat them, or not

mrron2u
mrron2u Posts: 919 Member
So I have been exercising a lot more than I did at one time. Those who follow me know I started cycling recently and I've ridden quite a bit lately. One thing I've noticed is that ever since I ramped up the exercise, the weight loss has ground to a halt. I know I could be building some muscle and that might cause this blip in weight loss. One thing I've noticed is that according to Endomondo I am burning upwards of 2000 calories per bike ride (60-90 minutes). I try to never eat my calorie burn, but am wondering if this is a mistake. I have heard of the starvation syndrome, and don't know if perhaps this is happening to me. I currently eat 2500 calories and that worked great for the first 100 days, but when I introduced the 30 minutes of exercise about 33 days ago, that is when I noticed the stall out in weight loss.

I'd welcome any thoughts/ideas. My diary is open if you think there are clues in there. Was thinking about getting some sort of heart rate monitor to more accurately measure my calorie burn.

Thanks for your help!

Replies

  • WhatMeRunning
    WhatMeRunning Posts: 3,538 Member
    I had never heard of "eating back exercise calories" before June of this year. I first heard about it here on MFP in fact.

    Back in late May/early June I was stuck at around 256 pounds, I could not shed another pound it seemed, despite my walking just as far as before, and even beginning to add some running during parts of my walk.

    This led me to question many things and start to track more things than simply the number of carbs I ate per day, and the number of minutes or miles that I walked. I got a heart rate monitor and synched it up with iCardio Digifit and MyFitnessPal. With this, I could track dang near everything. Calories in, calories out, speed, distance, heart rate and what zones I was in during exercise, yada, yada.

    I figured if I started tracking more closely I might be able to figure out what I was doing wrong.

    Well, after learning about eating back exercise calories, I began to understand why I was feeling hungry more often. I had simply ignored it thinking by binge eating habits were trying to surface again, and simply finding distractions and/or calming myself to bypass that.

    I figured I had nothing to lose by trying to eat back exercise calories for a bit, and within just a few days of trying that I was shedding pounds again.

    It works, in theory and practice. You just have to know your numbers and be honest of course. But if you burn too many calories, apparently over time your body will start slowing down the weight loss. I say over time because I had gone perhaps months over-exercising compared to calorie intake. But it did slow me down, and now that I am counting net calories with MFP I am back on track, losing about 2 lbs/week.
  • mrron2u
    mrron2u Posts: 919 Member
    Thanks for the great reply! Lots of info there and lofe experience to back it up.

    So would you recommend the products you purchased over any others? I think this level of monitoring is crucial so I don't over or under do it.

    It will be a real hard thing to wrap my head around eating back some of my calorie burn!
  • cwrig
    cwrig Posts: 190 Member
    If you reset your "Goals" in MFP and play with changing your activity level, you will see how many calories it assumes you will burn for each activity level; and how it adjusts the calories you need to eat accordingly. This helps give you a ballpark number for calorie intake for weight loss but it assumes a pretty consistent activity level. For 1 lb/week loss it sets you at a negative 500 calories.

    It seems like a pretty generous amount of calories for someone trying to loose weight, but the body is an amazing machine and remember its main objective is to stay alive, so if it thinks it is not getting enough energy to survive it will take action to assure survival (conserve fat).

    Congrats on upping your cardio training! I hope you find the balance of calorie intake that works for you. My weight loss has slowed down also so I am in a very similar situation, taking a look at my food. Ive been bad at logging recently, thats the first thing I want to correct.
  • WhatMeRunning
    WhatMeRunning Posts: 3,538 Member
    Ooh, that's a great point too. After losing quite a few pounds, you should definitely revisit your goals in MFP to reset your current weight and all that. It's not the most fun having to switch to fewer net calories, but then again I would rather continue losing.

    As for the products, I'm not really trying to push them at all, I was jsut trying to give my experience as perspective to show that it MIGHT be a need to eat back calories. Not guaranteed of course, but obviously that can happen, as it did for me.

    As for products, I picked up a Scosche Rhythm heart rate monitor from Amazon at a great price. I was a bit worried because there were some negative reviews, but I have not had the problems that the reviewers mentioned. Myabe I lucked out with a good one, or maybe the reviewers were biased against the product, I dunno.

    I have an Android phone so I use the Digifit iCardio app to synch up to my HRM using Bluetooth and that logs my exercise stats. The iCardio app will synch up with MFP to report on the number of calories I burned, so when I get back on MFP it adjusts my net calories for the day appropriately and I can tell right away how many calories I can still eat for the day.

    Since I still have about 50 pounds to lose to my ideal weight, I'm not scared to go as high as 2 lbs/week as my weight loss goal. I know that as I get closer to my target, I may need to reduce that. When I am only 20 pounds overweight for example, a 1000 calorie reduction to try and keep a 2 lb/week weight loss goal might simply be too much and the weight loss might stop because my body wants more fuel. I have not experienced this, so it is speculation, but it seems to make sense to me, so I pretty much expect at some point to switch down to a 1 lb/week loss eventually.

    Hope that helps!
  • mrron2u
    mrron2u Posts: 919 Member
    So I updated my goals and it dropped me to 2230 calories per day. I still want to get something to more accurately track the burn as on days that I ride my burn is seemingly over the top. I'll check out the products you use grimmeanor. The problem is there are so many to choose from that it gets to be overwhelming!

    Thanks for the information and personal experiences shared. Hoping to get things back on track. I know the scale is not the only measure of success, and from doing a month of increased exercise I really do feel better and think I've trimmed some inches too. I just know I still have around 70 pounds to go and am not ready to crawl yet. Plus if my body wants/needs more fuel I want to give it what it needs.
  • cwrig
    cwrig Posts: 190 Member
    I use endomondo also. It takes a guess, just like every other gadget on calories burned. No gadgets are 100% accurate. My gut tells me 2000 calories burned in 60-90 minutes is high, but maybe you are really kicking it!

    As a sanity check; here is an online calculator for biking. May be interesting to see how it compares to endomondo's calculation.

    http://www.bicycling.com/training-nutrition/training-fitness/cycling-calories-burned-calculator

    If you want to spend some money; DC Rainmaker is the best (IMHO) reviewer of fitness gadgets on the planet. He focuses on running and biking. He reviews all levels of gps's and heartrate monitors. Biking is one sport (a steady state cardio event) that HRM's do a pretty good job of calculating calories burned. They dont work so well for resitance training; but for steady state cardio like running and biking they will help fine tune your calorie burn. Check out DC Rainmaker reviews in biking watches/gadgets/HRMs...

    http://www.dcrainmaker.com/
  • amberj32
    amberj32 Posts: 663 Member
    My activity level is set to sedentary. At first I was eating only half my exercise calories back. I know MFP overestimates calorie burns. I don't know about endomondo. Since I've been lifting weights I've been hungrier and I've been eating almost all my exercise calories back. I'm still losing.... so I'm just going to go with it!
  • BigGuy47
    BigGuy47 Posts: 1,768 Member
    So I have been exercising a lot more than I did at one time. Those who follow me know I started cycling recently and I've ridden quite a bit lately. ...per bike ride (60-90 minutes).
    Depending on the intensity and frequency of your cycling you may be depleting your glycogen stores. When your body replenishes the glycogen it also holds onto water. This may account for the stall in weight loss. It's a normal process, it's beneficial for diabetics. It gives the glucose somewhere to go (liver & muscles) rather than meandering around the blood stream.

    I would give it a little more time (6-8 weeks) before making adjustments, I think you said you've been going at it for about 4 weeks so far. Give it a few more weeks, don't panic unless the scale starts trending upwards.
  • mrron2u
    mrron2u Posts: 919 Member
    Another thing to point out - that might relare to what BigGuy47 said....

    After nearly every bike ride I'm overcome with a smell of ammonia. I've done some research and have been trying to add extra carbs before riding as well as working on hydration.

    I think I will just try to be patient and wait it out. No harm can come from upping my hydration so I will put some effort in to that. I've rarely paid attention to it.

    Keep the info and data coming. It really helps!

    Another thing I'm looking at - BodyMeditFit armband - I've used one in the past, but was not committed back then like I am now. Anyone ever use one of those to guage your activity?
  • radiii
    radiii Posts: 422 Member
    I lost 45 pounds while staying 100% sedentary, and then decided to join a gym and start doing some of their group training 3 days a week. My weight loss slowed/stalled for about 6 weeks after starting, but I lost inches everywhere. Clearly water retention but I was still losing fat. I think this is a pretty common thing.

    As for the calories, I'm not doing anything close to 2000 calories, more like 400 for me when I work out I think. If I'm hungry I'll eat them back. If I'm not I won't. I did lower my calorie deficit slightly when I started working out in general, I was eating at a deficit that would probably have been hard to maintain with the added activity. So on the days where I don't eat all my exercise calories back then I end up with a big deficit for that on day. Or I can eat more and get my normal, comfortable 20% calorie deficit. So far just treating it fairly casually like this has worked well.

    When I do eat back calories if I'm especially hungry, I am careful not to overeat just because I worked hard and feel hungrier than usual. That kind of thing is definitely a risk for me if I'm not paying attention.
  • scubasuenc
    scubasuenc Posts: 626 Member
    When I started on MFP I did not eat back any of my exercise calories per the doctor's recommendation. The weight came off quickly and MFP kept dropping my daily calorie goal. By the time I got down to about 1200 calories I found my body could not recover from my workouts and I was tired a lot. I wasn't necessarily hungry, just no energy.

    So I calculated my TDEE using several of the calculators and didn't believe the numbers. According to them I was burning about 2800 calories and eating only 1200. No wonder my body was not happy. So I decided to double check the TDEE calculations by looking at my weight loss over a period and my calories consumed over the same period to calculate my actual TDEE. It was right in line with the various calculators.

    I decided to increase my calorie goal. I prefer to eat the same calories each day whether I exercise or not. I gradually increased my calories to about 1700 per day, and there I stayed. I continued to lose weight pretty steadily. So in the end I do eat back some of my exercise calories.
  • mrron2u
    mrron2u Posts: 919 Member
    Great responses and info from everyone! I really appreciate it. We all know that the plateau is the brick wall that can kill our momentum. I'm determined to not let it do that to me. I will go look at the TDEE calculators as part of this research to decide how many calories I should be eating.

    Additionally I found my old BodyMedia arm band collecting dust in a drawer and decided to fire it up for a while. I found a 3 month free trial so we'll see what the armband says about calorie burn daily and also see how many calories it says I burn during cycling. It will offer another data point I can use to decide what to do.

    That and I'll continue to push the water to a more appropriate level.
  • Lots of great suggestions, and it really shows that there isn't one plan that works for everyone. Tracking calorie intake, exercise intensity and minutes of exercise, and sometimes even sleep habits and stress levels can often shed light on areas to make a few changes. Let us know what you learn by using the BodyMedia armband. ~Lynn /Glucerna
  • kamaperry
    kamaperry Posts: 885 Member
    I have my calorie goal set at 1750. I don't usually reach that, but I'm ok with it if I do. That said, I usually don't eat back my calories.
  • mrron2u
    mrron2u Posts: 919 Member
    Ok - so here is my first data point.

    Tonight I went on a bike ride. I rode about 1 hour and 10 minutes and covered 11.9 miles.

    Endomondo says I burned 1484 calories
    My Samsung Gear watch says I burned 1123 calories
    My BodyMedia Armband says I burned 517 calories

    I'm inclined to believe BodyMedia, and by doing so I guess I keep myself in check. Who said you can never have enough data!!! Geez!
  • DenDweller
    DenDweller Posts: 1,438 Member
    Remember, everything you're doing is estimates.

    * Recording devices don't know your personal technique or movement efficiency.
    *As you tire, your form degrades, devices don't take that into account.
    *Even if you weigh food, individual "cuts" of food will vary in caloric value from piece to piece.
    *BMI, which was developed for actuarial applications, is notoriously inaccurate when applied individuals, yet many exercise calorie consumption estimates are still based on it.
    *The whole concept of calorie counting itself is an estimation of the accumulation term of the mass balance that governs weight loss. Regardless of what some would have you think, it is not a direct measurement of weight loss or gain.

    Don't worry overmuch about super accurate accounting. After a reasonable effort at accuracy, you'd just be wasting time. The accounting system you're using and the estimate data available are themselves not precise.

    Instead, truthfully record so you have data to evaluate later, measure results after a period of weeks, evaluate progress and make changes based on your record (feel free to tinker with your goal numbers, small changes), repeat until you're successful.

    We count calories to give us a "best guess" estimate so we're not completely flying blind, but in truth, it's a long, iterative process that requires patience and judgement.

    You already seem to be doing great. So keep on keeping on. :smokin:
  • mrron2u
    mrron2u Posts: 919 Member

    You already seem to be doing great. So keep on keeping on. :smokin:

    Thanks for all that! Exactly what I needed today! I'll just keep on keeping on because it keeps on working!