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Calories from exercising

rsdfashionhouse
rsdfashionhouse Posts: 1 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Does anyone has experience with colonies from exercising? When the program gives me more calories after exercise if use them I feel I am not losing any weigh. Please share

Replies

  • mallory_2014
    mallory_2014 Posts: 173 Member
    Why do you feel you aren't losing weight? Your deficit is already built in and you should be eating your exercise calories back.
  • Jruzer
    Jruzer Posts: 3,501 Member
    Eat them. It's how the tool is designed to be used. Just make sure you are estimating them correctly.
  • kramrn77
    kramrn77 Posts: 375 Member
    I've noticed that the calories calculated are optimistic at best. I understand that most of the fitness trackers can help adjust for that. If you aren't using one and you are eating back the calories that MFP tells you were used you might actually be consuming more then you should. I don't really eat my calories back for this reason and am considering getting one of the trackers.
  • Jruzer
    Jruzer Posts: 3,501 Member
    edited January 2015
    What may people do is eat half of their estimated exercise calories. That way they account for errors in the database and in their logging.

    But to be honest OP, you can't "feel" like you're not losing weight. You need to track some way. Give it a month of being as compliant to your goals as you can and see what happens. Weigh yourself as often as you feel comfortable, or take measurements if that works better for you.
  • JohnH71
    JohnH71 Posts: 123 Member
    ^^ this. As a rule of thumb, I try not to eat back more than half of the calories that MFP credits me for exercise, to allow a margin for error.
  • TheMannon
    TheMannon Posts: 36 Member
    Jruzer wrote: »
    What may people do is eat half of their estimated exercise calories. That way they account for errors in the database and in their logging.
    That can be dangerous. I heard a lot of talk from people that MFP was too generous on the calories so I went with a much more conservative figure. Via the scale and feeling weak as hell during and after workouts I figured out that MFP was pretty accurate and I hadn’t been eating near enough.

    Frankly, the only way to really tell is via the scale. Log your food and exercise diligently and weigh yourself weekly. You’ll figure it out pretty quickly how/whether the exercise estimates and ‘resting’ estimates are accurate.


  • Jruzer
    Jruzer Posts: 3,501 Member
    TheMannon wrote: »
    Jruzer wrote: »
    What may people do is eat half of their estimated exercise calories. That way they account for errors in the database and in their logging.
    That can be dangerous. I heard a lot of talk from people that MFP was too generous on the calories so I went with a much more conservative figure. Via the scale and feeling weak as hell during and after workouts I figured out that MFP was pretty accurate and I hadn’t been eating near enough.

    Actually my experience agrees with yours. MFP's numbers are close to the ones I get from my HRM and from other, what I consider to be reliable, sources of information. Plus my own experience with the scale.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    You "feel you are not losing weight"??

    What exactly does that mean? Has your weight loss stalled? How many weeks?
    What exercise are you doing?

    I eat all my 4000 - 6000 weekly exercise calories back, both when losing weight and when maintaining.
  • nolaebola
    nolaebola Posts: 1 Member
    I find eating back calories to be problematic. Instead I used a different (not MFP) TDEE calculator that incorporates weekly exercise (tried a few formulas actually to see how much variation there was). That way I don't worry about eating extra or not. It's the same calorie goal each day. Of course the proof is in the pudding. I knew I had it right when I was consistently loosing in the 1# per week range. It took a few weeks of adjusting to get it right.
  • willdl02
    willdl02 Posts: 6 Member
    so what is the overall recommendation, do you eat back your exercise calories?
  • _Terrapin_
    _Terrapin_ Posts: 4,301 Member
    willdl02 wrote: »
    so what is the overall recommendation, do you eat back your exercise calories?
    I try to avoid eating them back. Today with exercise I have 3.200 available and ate 2,200. My MACROS are good for me today and the deficit is mostly carbs on the MACROS side and if I 'under' consume a MACRO it will usually be this one. It depends what you are trying/attempting to do. People are bulking/cutting/maintaining so it depends on your personal goals.
  • she2cute
    she2cute Posts: 19 Member
    I don't eat my exercise calories back unless I'm absolutely starving and water isn't curbing my appetite. Even then, I'll only eat a fruit or veggie to tide me over.
  • natabermudez
    natabermudez Posts: 2
    Ok really :#
  • natabermudez
    natabermudez Posts: 2
    You are right, but your observations hungry meda
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    willdl02 wrote: »
    so what is the overall recommendation, do you eat back your exercise calories?

    Depends on how you set your deficit. If you base it on MFP's goal for 2 lbs/week while sedentary (as most seem to when they start), and especially if you are one of the majority of women for whom that means a goal of around 1200 or not too much more, then you absolutely should, at least in part. There's no virtue in trying to eat as little as possible, especially when the deficit that results is beyond what is recommended as safe for weight loss (1-2 lbs/week or 1% of total weight).

    If you have a higher maintenance or cut calories by only 500 (1 lb/week) or use the TDEE method that already includes exercise, then no need to (and for typical TDEE method you should not).

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