Work Out to Pig Out

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vinroch94
vinroch94 Posts: 2 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I find myself working out daily to loose weight and I typically track my activities and intake. I think my problem is once I see the positive calories adding up I eat what I want and all my days are a wash. I workout about 5 days a week with at least an hour of cardio (1.2k calories burned) but I haven't lost much. I know what my problem is. Have to make better eating choices and not "waist" all my workouts. #JustThinkingOutLoad :-)

Replies

  • malibu927
    malibu927 Posts: 17,565 Member
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    What are you doing that claims you burn 1200 calories? That's an incredibly high amount. If you're following MFP's calories or an exercise machine's, it's generally suggested to only eat back 50% of your exercise calories due to overestimations.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
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    Yeah, 1200 for 1 hour is unrealistic.

    I think it's best to think of exercise as something valuable in itself and great for fitness and other goals (and mental health, IME), even apart from weight loss and food, but it's actually not terrible to see it as a way to be able to eat more also, IMO.

    MFP gives you a goal based on what you could eat to lose a particular amount WITHOUT exercise. If you want to lose that much while eating more (as I would), then exercise and just don't go beyond the calories actually burned by the exercise. That's fine, that's even the way MFP expects you to do it, and a sensible way to lose (combination of increased exercise and calorie cutting).

    You just have to be careful not to overestimate the calories burned as MFP and the machines do for some kinds of activities (like the elliptical for one big offender).

    I think a nice conservative estimate is 100 calories/10 minutes for hard effort, including running at a level that has your heart rate up pretty high, and then scale down for less hard effort (like biking at a moderate pace or walking). Beats me how to accurately judge a lot of stuff, though, so I used to just cut the MFP estimate some depending on what it was.
  • baileyang33
    baileyang33 Posts: 131 Member
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    No one I REPEAT NO ONE can work off a bad diet! Research your TDEE and maybe go by those calories so your not working out to have bad stuff.
  • caracrawford1
    caracrawford1 Posts: 657 Member
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    If you havnt learned this yet please read and repeat out loud:
    YOU CANNOT OUT EXERCISE A BAD DIET.
    I slowly gained forty pounds over a few years with your kind of behavior/thinking whilst running marathons!!!!
  • RGv2
    RGv2 Posts: 5,789 Member
    edited November 2014
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    If we're talking strictly weightloss, no matter what you eat you'd lose weight if you were in a deficit.

    The issue I see is you're getting a calorie burn estimate of 1200 calories, and if I'm reading that right, you're eating most of those calories back.

    Dependent upon where you're getting that reading from, it sounds overestimated and you're probably eating much closer to maintenance than you think.

    Start by eating back ~50% of your exercise calories and adjust from there.

    Making your diary public could also be helpful.
  • BZAH10
    BZAH10 Posts: 5,709 Member
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    caracrawford1 wrote: »
    If you havnt learned this yet please read and repeat out loud:
    YOU CANNOT OUT EXERCISE A BAD DIET.
    I slowly gained forty pounds over a few years with your kind of behavior/thinking whilst running marathons!!!!

    Agreed. I've been "working out" since high school, when I first started putting on weight. I say "working out" because not only was I not doing it vigorously enough I was also negating the results by not tracking what I was eating. I look back now and cringe when I think of all that wasted time.

    OP, be careful when estimating calories burned. Generally it is a number that is greatly overstated.
  • chunkytfg
    chunkytfg Posts: 339 Member
    edited November 2014
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    As has been suggested 2 ways of looking at it. Either assume an over estimation and only eat back 50%, or if it the fact you see these extra cals listed on MFP and you struggle to then resist eating them, do as others do and manually input the exercise and calorie count as something either more realistic or just 1cal and don't eat them back at all.

    Personally i'm of the belief that the average person who just does a mixed gym work out 3/4 times a week will suffer no ill effects by just not eating back a single cal burned for that time in the gym. It's only when you start training for specific goals or for longer times that things change. Marathon training for example you will need to eat a good few of those cals back as you can't expect to be running 30+ miles a week on a basic 10-15k cals a week intake.
  • caracrawford1
    caracrawford1 Posts: 657 Member
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    chunkytfg wrote: »
    As has been suggested 2 ways of looking at it. Either assume an over estimation and only eat back 50%, or if it the fact you see these extra cals listed on MFP and you struggle to then resist eating them, do as others do and manually input the exercise and calorie count as something either more realistic or just 1cal and don't eat them back at all.

    Personally i'm of the belief that the average person who just does a mixed gym work out 3/4 times a week will suffer no ill effects by just not eating back a single cal burned for that time in the gym. It's only when you start training for specific goals or for longer times that things change. Marathon training for example you will need to eat a good few of those cals back as you can't expect to be running 30+ miles a week on a basic 10-15k cals a week intake.

    Agreed--until you eat too many of them back like I did. There is a limit. Lesson learned.

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