To eat or not to eat the extra calories you earn during work outs?
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BuerreNoisette
Posts: 16 Member
What does everyone do with the extra calories they rack up during a work out? Do you consistently eat your only your allotted calories regardless of your work outs, or if you earn an extra amount of calories, do you eat those calories? What has been your experience doing what you do? I'm curious as to whether not eating those extra "earned" calories are helping, or hurting your weight loss, or what else you notice when you do or don't.
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Replies
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MFP is designed for you to eat those calories back.
However, many recommend eating a portion (between 25% and 75%) due to MFP overestimating the burns and giving you too many calories to eat back.
If you're doing strength training, I wouldn't log it. Log cardio (runs, walks, zumba, etc) and eat back 50% of those calories for 4-6 weeks and see how your weight loss goes.
If you don't eat back the calories, you risk having too high of a deficit, which in turn means you'll be undernourished. This can lead to more muscle loss, as well as other issues, like brittle nails and hair falling out.
This doesn't mean you have to eat back all of those calories on the day you earn them, though. When I'm running long distances, I'll have 2000+ calories to eat, and I may not be hungry enough for them that same day. I typically look at my calories over the course of a week and spread out those extras to other days.
~Lyssa0 -
As a rule I don't eat them back, but I have used them as a "buffer" twice when I was at a celebration with lots of yummy food. In other words, eating back all of my exercise calories would be my very top limit for the day - I've never come close to that anyway.0
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I usually eat back 50-75% of my exercise calories. It matters greatly where you're getting the numbers from and what you are logging as exercise. Fitbit or mfp, What kind of exercise etc etc0
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I like the partial rule. If I go on a 40 o 50 mile ride and I'm burning 1200 calories during that time, eating that much food is sometimes difficult. ( in a healthy manner that is. I could eat a couple slices of pizza no problem, but I don't feel I'm doing myself any favors with that).
I think that I have a pretty good read on my body, as to when it needs those extra calories, but I absolutely don't want to lose all the muscle I've gained through strength training. That's a scary thought!
I notice that MFP seems to give me a lot of calories for doing exercise that I really don't think I'm working that hard at, such as walking. I bought a Bluetooth up3, which will arrive on Wednesday, and hope to get a more accurate calorie count with it.
Thanks for your replies. It's hard in losing the last 5-7 pounds of fat trying to lean out and expose the muscle without losing the muscle I worked 2 years to aquire.0 -
7K
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BuerreNoisette wrote: »I like the partial rule. If I go on a 40 o 50 mile ride and I'm burning 1200 calories during that time, eating that much food is sometimes difficult. ( in a healthy manner that is. I could eat a couple slices of pizza no problem, but I don't feel I'm doing myself any favors with that).
I think that I have a pretty good read on my body, as to when it needs those extra calories, but I absolutely don't want to lose all the muscle I've gained through strength training. That's a scary thought!
I notice that MFP seems to give me a lot of calories for doing exercise that I really don't think I'm working that hard at, such as walking. I bought a Bluetooth up3, which will arrive on Wednesday, and hope to get a more accurate calorie count with it.
Thanks for your replies. It's hard in losing the last 5-7 pounds of fat trying to lean out and expose the muscle without losing the muscle I worked 2 years to aquire.
Doing calories over a week might serve you well, too. Rather than eating an extra 1200 on that same day, you could add on 200 calories 6 different days. That's a couple small cookies, a serving of ice cream, etc. Gives you more room to get in nutritious stuff, and still have space for a treat.
~Lyssa0 -
I've got a Fitbit One and given my progress it seems to estimate my burn fairly accurately - I eat all my exercise calories back and am losing at my expected rate. My exercise is generally running and walking.0
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macgurlnet wrote: »MFP is designed for you to eat those calories back.
However, many recommend eating a portion (between 25% and 75%) due to MFP overestimating the burns and giving you too many calories to eat back.
If you're doing strength training, I wouldn't log it. Log cardio (runs, walks, zumba, etc) and eat back 50% of those calories for 4-6 weeks and see how your weight loss goes.
If you don't eat back the calories, you risk having too high of a deficit, which in turn means you'll be undernourished. This can lead to more muscle loss, as well as other issues, like brittle nails and hair falling out.
This doesn't mean you have to eat back all of those calories on the day you earn them, though. When I'm running long distances, I'll have 2000+ calories to eat, and I may not be hungry enough for them that same day. I typically look at my calories over the course of a week and spread out those extras to other days.
~Lyssa
I mostly due strength training and I do log it, just like I log Yoga, Pilates, any cardio that I may do, and the ballet/barre exercises. If it is exercise and I burn something, I log it. I do know that this database inflates the calories burned (I don't use any kind of fitness tracker), so I chose to eat more if I am hungry; or like another poster wrote I use them as a "buffer." For me is more important to see the time that I spent working out than the calories themselves because being much older and a small person, I don't burn much.0 -
On a weekly basis I eat back about 1/3 to 1/2 of my exerci5ae calories, but often not on the same day I accrue them. I "bank" them for weekends!0
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rosebarnalice wrote: »On a weekly basis I eat back about 1/3 to 1/2 of my exerci5ae calories, but often not on the same day I accrue them. I "bank" them for weekends!
I guess I never thought of it as banking calories or looking it over a weeks time. Thanks for the insight!0 -
macgurlnet wrote: »MFP is designed for you to eat those calories back.
However, many recommend eating a portion (between 25% and 75%) due to MFP overestimating the burns and giving you too many calories to eat back.
If you're doing strength training, I wouldn't log it. Log cardio (runs, walks, zumba, etc) and eat back 50% of those calories for 4-6 weeks and see how your weight loss goes.
If you don't eat back the calories, you risk having too high of a deficit, which in turn means you'll be undernourished. This can lead to more muscle loss, as well as other issues, like brittle nails and hair falling out.
This doesn't mean you have to eat back all of those calories on the day you earn them, though. When I'm running long distances, I'll have 2000+ calories to eat, and I may not be hungry enough for them that same day. I typically look at my calories over the course of a week and spread out those extras to other days.
~Lyssa
I mostly due strength training and I do log it, just like I log Yoga, Pilates, any cardio that I may do, and the ballet/barre exercises. If it is exercise and I burn something, I log it. I do know that this database inflates the calories burned (I don't use any kind of fitness tracker), so I chose to eat more if I am hungry; or like another poster wrote I use them as a "buffer." For me is more important to see the time that I spent working out than the calories themselves because being much older and a small person, I don't burn much.
I like the buffer approach. Kind of like a safety net.
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I've got a Fitbit One and given my progress it seems to estimate my burn fairly accurately - I eat all my exercise calories back and am losing at my expected rate. My exercise is generally running and walking.
This gives me hope that if I work out really hard, it's okay if I eat those calories back. It's been drilled in the head calories in vs calories out... and seeing that sweet sweet deficit makes it tempting to keep it so... This is why I asked this question though. It makes me feel a lot better that the calories are getting eaten back, and people are still able to achieve weight loss. Thank you!0 -
I eat back nearly all my exercise calories, but I'm careful to estimate them quite conservatively (based on heart rate monitor, mostly - you can override the MFP estimates). I do log (veerrrrrry low) estimates for weight training, but only after I figured out that I'm happier eating a few more calories, mostly protein, on days I weight train. I *don't* log routine things that I figure are in my activity level (like housework), but only unusual and quite calorie-burning ones (though weight training is an exception to the latter).
This is working: SW in April 2015 was 183, and I'm down 56 to CW around 127, close to GW (somewhat flexible, but probably 120-125). If I'd had trouble losing at my expected rate, I would've adjusted what I was eating back, but it wasn't necessary (and I'm 60 years old, plus hypothyroid!).
I hear what you're saying about the difficulty of eating back calories on huge exercise days. That may not be a problem if it's infrequent, but you do want to fuel regular workouts adequately. Evening out the calories across a week may be more realistic than "day of" eating in some cases. Watching the protein macro, and keeping up with weights (even if weight progression slows down during calorie deficit) seem pretty important to keeping your muscle mass while losing.0 -
The MFP calorie counts are insanely high
I use VivoActive with a heart rate monitor feeding into MFP too.
The same bike ride shows 3045 calories on Map My Ride. It is 1278 on Garmin Edge 500 and Vivo Active
Eating the correct number of calories burnt is one thing
Eating back the bloated massive numbers MFP gives is a good way to destroy your calorie deficit.
Don't believe the MFP calorie burn numbers
That has worked for me and I have kept over 100 pounds off for more than a year.
The MFP calorie burn numbers were so high I would gain a half pound eating back my calorie numbers that day.
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I usually eat back 50% of whatmfpsays I burned.0
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haha definitely not
my goal is to lose weight, so I personally don't eat any of those back0 -
I do a low estimate for weights and the lowest for cardio between my HRM and MFP. I eat them all back and have been losing 3# a month at 1200 calories and am close to GW after 6 months.0
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if I don't eat them I lose weight - I found my balance now so it's really up to how good is the estimation from your HRM/device/app
you might want to save them for the week or eat them in a day (a few spoons of nutella will do
) 0 -
I don't log strength training and for cardio I eat back part of the calories. No set amount but probably in the 25-50% range usually.0
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MFP is designed that you can lose weight without doing any exercise at all, it calculates your NEAT (sorry forgetting the full acronym but the first two are Non Exercise). It sets a calorie deficit based on that activity level excluding exercise, which is why when you exercise, you should eat at least a portion of those calories back. By not eating them, you risk creating too big of a deficit, loss of lean muscle, and not having enough energy to fuel your workouts, especially if you are doing intense workouts, strength training, long cardio, etc.
I have always eaten back all of my calories, and use a FitBit to estimate those burns and eat back all of the adjustments I get. It helped me lose the 30 lbs I set out to lose and it is helping me now maintain that loss quite successfully for over a year.
I do often bank calories for weekend indulgences. Additionally, there's nothing wrong with pizza if you've got the calories for it. Everything in moderation.0
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