Eating back exercise calories?

Options
2»

Replies

  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
    Options
    Nobody took offence by your comment :flowerforyou:

    In answer to your question, I eat back most, sometimes all of my exercise calories. but you must be sure your food logging is on point if you're going to eat back a large portion of them.
  • Achaila
    Achaila Posts: 264 Member
    edited June 2015
    Options
    I'm not going to lie - I just walked 2 miles so I could eat back the calories in cheesecake. I don't care. :D
  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
    Options
    Achaila wrote: »
    I'm not going to lie - I just walked 2 miles so I could eat back the calories in cheesecake. I don't care. :D

    :+1:

    I completely get where you're coming from :D

  • 19marialyn
    19marialyn Posts: 12 Member
    Options
    I don't know. I have been avoiding it.
  • winram11
    winram11 Posts: 12 Member
    Options
    Don't eat back your exercise calories until you have a solid analysis of how well you're losing weight, then you can always work back from there.

    Lots of people don't measure food, don't get those calories right, or exercise calories right. It's just hard to be precise. Lose weight first, establish a habit and pattern, then adjust if it's even needed (or desired).
  • kimbulie
    kimbulie Posts: 20 Member
    Options
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    kimbulie wrote: »
    All the answers are what I suspected...that there's no definite answer, right or wrong! :#

    actually, there is...people are just woefully ignorant.

    you have to account for exercise somewhere. there are basically two methods used for calorie counting...the NEAT method (MFP) and the TDEE method.

    With the NEAT method, your activity level only consists of your day to day hum drum...this is why MFP only talks about what kind of work you do (i.e. desk job or whatever) and makes no mention of exercise...you set your activity to account for only your day to day hum drum and your calorie targets are based on that. Suffice it to say that when you exercise, you are going beyond your daily hum drum...thus increasing your energy (calorie) requisites...thus you would eat back exercise calories to account for that extra activity.

    With the TDEE method, you include an estimate of your exercise in your activity level...a TDEE calculator will then give you a calorie target based on you day to day AND your exercise...thus your calorie targets would already include some estimate of the energy required to fuel your fitness.

    The difficulty with the MFP method and calorie counting in general is that people tend to not be very accurate...they choose erroneous entries from the database...they eyeball servings...they don't actually account for everything going into their mouth, etc...people in general tend to underestimate their intake. On top of that, they also tend to overestimate their exercise burns...so the net effect of all of those inaccuracies for someone eating back exercise calories is often maintenance and not losing weight.

    Done properly and being as accurate as possible, the MFP method works...I lost 40 Lbs eating back exercise calories using the MFP method...it's just that it requires a high degree of accuracy as well as consistency.

    All that said, it's important to learn how to fuel your fitness...when you start to look at fitness for the sake of fitness rather than as a weight management tool, it makes sense. I ride roughly 80 miles per week...if I didn't know how to properly fuel that, I'd be on my *kitten*. If you watch fit and healthy people closely, you will notice that they do not diet and exercise...they eat and they train.

    Thanks!

Categories