Is better to not "eat back" your exercised calories?

lulabell12345
lulabell12345 Posts: 6 Member
edited November 16 in Health and Weight Loss
I would like to know if in general people have found it more helpful when losing weight to not log their exercise so that they're not invalidating the exercise they did with eating. Calculating of calories burned during various exercises seems so imprecise.

Replies

  • losingrae
    losingrae Posts: 260 Member
    Actually, since I started eating a portion of my exercise calories, I started feeling better because I could eat more, and the weight seems to come off easier. Probably because I'm happier.
  • mattjft
    mattjft Posts: 114 Member
    I don't unless I'm hungry.
  • Camo_xxx
    Camo_xxx Posts: 1,082 Member
    In general I find it most effective to eat 500 fewer calories per day then I burn to lose 1 pound of fat per week.
  • cosmo_momo
    cosmo_momo Posts: 173 Member
    Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. If I'm hungry afterwards I eat. I usually workout in the evening before dinner and I use a heart rate monitor to more accurately measure my calorie burn. Not that it's fool proof, but it's as accurate as I can get.
  • Rocketqueeen
    Rocketqueeen Posts: 96 Member
    cosmo_momo wrote: »
    Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. If I'm hungry afterwards I eat. I usually workout in the evening before dinner and I use a heart rate monitor to more accurately measure my calorie burn. Not that it's fool proof, but it's as accurate as I can get.

    Which HRM do you use? I'm in the market for a good one.
  • cosmo_momo
    cosmo_momo Posts: 173 Member
    lissettemkelly wrote: »
    cosmo_momo wrote: »
    Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. If I'm hungry afterwards I eat. I usually workout in the evening before dinner and I use a heart rate monitor to more accurately measure my calorie burn. Not that it's fool proof, but it's as accurate as I can get.

    Which HRM do you use? I'm in the market for a good one.

    I have the Polar FT4. I think it was around $70 on amazon last year when I bought it. It's not super fancy in that it can't connect to an app on your phone or computer, but you can personalize the settings quite a lot so that it's more accurate. It also automatically connects to most workout equipment that have a HR option. It's a good idea to wear it sleeping/resting for an hour so you can subtract what you would usually burn in the time your workout would take. I've never used a fitbit or whatever, but I also don't feel any need to since my Polar works just fine :)
  • ZiggySquish
    ZiggySquish Posts: 87 Member
    I don't, but if I was lifting or doing more strenuous activites other than walking I would probably have to.
    A few years ago I was training for a half marathon (before this, I had never ran any distance after high school, 10 years prior) and found that if I ate back my cals, I could perform better for longer. Its a trade off, I think.
    Right now I am just focusing on slow and steady weightloss and creating an addiction for daily walking.
    Oh, I use a FitBit Charge, I've only had it for about 3 weeks, but I love it :)
  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
    Following MFP method ...yes ...most of them (I perhaps don't eat 500-1000 over the week) ..I average 3500-4000 calories in exercise over the week, why would I not eat them when I wanted to maximise the retention of LBM and loss of body fat

    Although I'm now at maintenance and still eat most of them
  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
    lissettemkelly wrote: »
    cosmo_momo wrote: »
    Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. If I'm hungry afterwards I eat. I usually workout in the evening before dinner and I use a heart rate monitor to more accurately measure my calorie burn. Not that it's fool proof, but it's as accurate as I can get.

    Which HRM do you use? I'm in the market for a good one.

    Polar ft4 here too for steady state cardio and I take about 60% of the burn for other workout tracking apart from weights where I take about 40%
  • BruceHedtke
    BruceHedtke Posts: 358 Member
    I try to eat back about 75% of them.
  • miz_crawfish
    miz_crawfish Posts: 6 Member
    At first I did, now I don't.
  • Wenchiness
    Wenchiness Posts: 126 Member
    My Dr. initially forbid me to eat back my exercise calories because it negated the hard work. Then my last metabolic test showed I was drastically under eating and my body has been starving. If you are using a heart rate monitor to show what you're actually burning (significantly less than what MFP says, or gym machines) I would eat some of those back, but not all. I've got a Polar too, and my Dr. believes it to be fairly accurate.. but I'd still only eat50-75% of those back
  • tuoregon
    tuoregon Posts: 4 Member
    Follow your intuition! But usually if I just finished a draining workout or a long run, I'd incorporate an extra few hundred calories to my day, dependent on how intense the workout was, (mostly from carbohydrates) to refuel.
  • Merkavar
    Merkavar Posts: 3,082 Member
    I generally don't. Especially smaller amounts of exercise.

    But say I was on a treadmill, waiting for someone to turn up, for 40 mins I will probably eat some of that back.

  • GoPerfectHealth
    GoPerfectHealth Posts: 254 Member
    edited April 2015
    I would say to eat no more than 1/4 to 1/2 of exercise calories back for a month or so unless you really feel the need. Then if you have kept meticulous food logs you can calculate your actual energy expenditure to see how it compares to MFP. Last time I ran the numbers, I found that my fitbit overestimates my calorie burn by 269 calories per day. So either my food logs have bad data, my metabolism is slower or the fitbit just gives too high of a burn. So, if I want to lose two pounds per week, I need a calorie deficit of 1269 (on the fitbit).
  • Leana088
    Leana088 Posts: 581 Member
    It's personal preference. I eat half of mine back, because I'm already eating so little. But sometimes if I feel like I'm not that hungry, I leave it. I usually use the ones I left later in the week anyhow.
  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
    It depends on the method you follow

    If you are cutting from TDEE then no you shouldn't

    If you are following MFP method and are sure of your burns (eg not using the MFP database) then you ABSOLUTELY IMHO should eat them back

    Why risk losing more LBM than you need for the sake of a change in scale weight? LBM is a bugger to gain back, preserve as much as you can.

    If you are using machine burns / MFP database then you should probably eat back 50% to start with and re-evaluate over time to eat back more or less.

    Everyone should check their expectations of weight loss against actual weight loss and adjust up and down over a period of say 8 weeks because these are just estimates and calcualtors
  • lewispwest
    lewispwest Posts: 498 Member
    I only use my exercise calories to have a protein shake that I didn't want to use up my normal calorie allowance or to cover a slight surplus from the day.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    It depends on the method you follow (MFP assumes you will eat them back), your total deficit, and how much exercise you are talking about, and of course how much you have to lose.

    MFP considers 2 lbs/week the max safe deficit (it's probably higher for heavier people, but you might want to look into a doctor-monitored plan then). For many people, 2 lbs/week gives them very few calories (the standard 1200). To then exercise on top of that and not eat it back in theory increases your deficit below the 2 lbs/week (although seems to correspond a lot with people losing less since their compliance or daily activity suffers), so would not be a good idea.

    On the other hand, if you have a less aggressive deficit like .5 lb/week or even 1 lb/week with lots to lose and start doing some lighter exercise, you probably don't need to eat it back, but it's not counterproductive to do so--you will still lose at your goal if you are doing it right and simply also be able to eat more/make fitness gains.

    The goal of exercise ideally shouldn't be losing weight faster, but losing weight in a healthier way and while minimizing muscle loss and getting fitter. And for some of us making fitness gains (like running faster or farther, lifting heavier weights, being able to attack hills when biking) is a huge motivation to eat better/lose weight. If I then refuse to eat to fuel the activity and prevent myself from making the gains I should and can (even while losing weight at a reasonable rate), THAT's what seems to me counterproductive.

    But in any case I prefer the TDEE method, where you include exercise in your upfront calculations so don't need to mess with logging it.
  • TimothyFish
    TimothyFish Posts: 4,925 Member
    Eating your exercise calories doesn't "invalidate" your exercise. MFP is designed to give you a set calorie deficit so that your weight loss is steady. If you don't eat your exercise calories then you deficit will increase and instead of losing two pounds per week, you may be losing three pounds per week.

    Exercise is good for your health. Imagine that you are at your goal weight. Would you stop exercising because there is no point? I would hope not. For the health benefits, you need to keep exercising. But if you don't eat more calories, the exercise will result in you losing weight, rather than maintaining your weight.
  • ArkMom35
    ArkMom35 Posts: 225 Member
    I've lost weight by eating back 50% or more of my exercise calories. I'll stick with it :)
  • kindrabbit
    kindrabbit Posts: 837 Member
    I eat about 75% of what my polar ft4 gives me (less for weight days). I do this to try and maintain lean muscle. I usually have a protein shake and some yoghurt or ham and eggs and a hot chocolate. the protein shake also seems to help with muscle aches over the next day or 2 if I've been strength training.
  • MamaRiss
    MamaRiss Posts: 481 Member
    I lost all of my weight (50ish pounds in about 9 months) by eating back ALL of the calories MFP tells me I burn. The only time I don't eat them back is if I really just am not hungry at all, which is very rare. I also use a heart rate monitor, which shows my burns significantly higher than what MFP says they are ( yes they have the exact same age, weight, gender)
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