Eating back your exercise calories
WicklowWanderer
Posts: 247 Member
Does anyone do this, eat the additional calories earned from exercise? I'm not convinced about the calories MFP or that my Fitbit says I'm burning from activity. I think if I start to eat them it may be a slippery slope back to where I started, overestimating my activity and underestimating my intake. I find it much easier to stick to the recommended 1200 (I'm on the 5:2 so two days a week at 500) no matter what activity I get up to. I guess what I'm wondering is will I possibly see better results if I take on even a few of the extra activity calories, maybe as protein?
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Most people follow a rule of eating only half of your exercise calories back. I'm actually not consistent on that. Some days I eat them all, some days half, some days none at all. I guess I'm not a good example, but my weight is steadily going down.0
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I'm also not sure about how close the MFP calorie burn from exercise is, so I'm logging about half of what I actually do. I always try to stay under my calorie goal as well.
Question, what is the 5:2? Does this have to do with nutrition or exercise?0 -
I never eat back the calories I burn from a workout. To me, there's no point. I'm wanting to lose weight and it helps to burn more this way. If I go over it's less than 100 calories.0
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dontgiveup2319 wrote: »I never eat back the calories I burn from a workout. To me, there's no point. I'm wanting to lose weight and it helps to burn more this way. If I go over it's less than 100 calories.
Agreed. Never eat your exercise calories back as it might be inaccurate. Stay under goal always. I know as I did this and I have already lost 50 pounds in 3 months.0 -
listen to your body and eat when you need food for energy. Eat enough protein during the day so you don't end up with cravings for junk food. If I have barely over 1,000 calories and I have an additional 1,000, you bet I am going to eat. Why deprive myself good nutrition? I usually pick which ever macros I am missing for my extra meal.0
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WicklowWanderer wrote: »Does anyone do this, eat the additional calories earned from exercise? I'm not convinced about the calories MFP or that my Fitbit says I'm burning from activity. I think if I start to eat them it may be a slippery slope back to where I started, overestimating my activity and underestimating my intake. I find it much easier to stick to the recommended 1200 (I'm on the 5:2 so two days a week at 500) no matter what activity I get up to. I guess what I'm wondering is will I possibly see better results if I take on even a few of the extra activity calories, maybe as protein?
I'm trying 5:2 as well (I say trying because it's been a while since I've had a successful fast). I plan to eat half of my exercise calories on my maintenance days and none of them on my fasting days. I set my MFP goal on maintenance days to be -250 from maintenance but that's because I know my food logging is inaccurate. I don't prepare my food and I can't measure things on a scale so I try to make a buffer for the guess work.danielaica wrote: »I'm also not sure about how close the MFP calorie burn from exercise is, so I'm logging about half of what I actually do. I always try to stay under my calorie goal as well.
Question, what is the 5:2? Does this have to do with nutrition or exercise?
It's a way of creating a calorie deficit. You eat at your maintenance level 5 days out of the week and eat 500 calories the other two days. Depending on how much I burn on my fasting days it usually averages out to a 3500 calorie deficit for me for the week (1lb/week), but instead of the deficit being spread out throughout the week it happens on 2 days.0 -
Thanks folks for your responses. Staying under my 1200 for the day is the goal, activity or not, and I guess if I feel I need a bit extra, I'll have a scoop of protein. Listen to your body always is good advice. @danielaica The 5:2 is five "eat regular" days (whatever that is!) interspersed with two "fast" days (I prefer to call them "lean" days) at 500 calories. I can naturally go longish periods without eating so I found this quite easy to stick to. The trick was not to pig out when I did eat again! My lean days are usually Monday and Thursday. Though not today, as I'm bit worn out from interval training yesterday and I've roller derby tonight! I'll go lean tomorrow. The science behind this is admittedly a bit mixed but a lot of it is reputable and makes sense so I figured I'd give it a go. I can't argue with how it makes me feel- better- so I'll keep at it. I think with the deficit from the lean days and the increased activity, I was expecting slightly better results than the just over a pound I've been losing per week. It's progress though.0
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Please be sure to not stay under 1200 consistently. 1200 is the bare minimum recommended for women. To continually eat less than that will put you at risk for severe energy loss, muscle loss, hair loss, etc. I know we all want to hurry up and lose the weight, but we have to keep in mind that it took a while to gain it, so we're not going to lose it quickly, either. That is the reason MFP is set up to have people eat back their exercise calories. The deficit is already set up in the number of calories they give you. Burning hundreds of calories can put you way under 1200 calories and that may seem great at first, but normally leads to weight loss burn-out.0
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I have always eaten my exercise calories. When I used an HRM (it has since died) and logged accurately, netting about 1400 calories I lost 30 pounds. I have gained it back b/c I returned to unhealthy habits, but there is nothing wrong with eating your exercise calories if you are staying in your goal net calories.0
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Ditto on eating more than 1200. You are shutting down your metabolism when you exercise and then don't eat back some of your calories. Just eat quality calories where ever your macros are lowest, even if it's a protein meal at the end of the day0
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I'm going to give the 5:2 a rest for this week and will stick to 1200 for every day. If I'm hungrier on the days when there's more activity, I'll eat a proportion of the extra calories. But only if I feel the need to! Thanks for the insights!0
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Please be sure to not stay under 1200 consistently. 1200 is the bare minimum recommended for women. To continually eat less than that will put you at risk for severe energy loss, muscle loss, hair loss, etc. I know we all want to hurry up and lose the weight, but we have to keep in mind that it took a while to gain it, so we're not going to lose it quickly, either. That is the reason MFP is set up to have people eat back their exercise calories. The deficit is already set up in the number of calories they give you. Burning hundreds of calories can put you way under 1200 calories and that may seem great at first, but normally leads to weight loss burn-out.
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Feeling better now that I have moved up from the 1200 calories per day. Less tired!0
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Thank you for clariflying!
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I don't eat my exercise calories back, it's like an insurance to my probably inaccurate logging. The only thing I drink excessively is H2O. 12-14 cups a day and a minimum of 3 litres. Well the weight is going down, lost 11 lbs before MFP and another 4 lbs since MFP, 15 lbs is 3 months. So I guess that's working okay. Oh and I eat what I want, just in a tiny amount. And occasionally eat up to 1500 cals.0
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