Fitbit and my fitness pal - do you eat all of your 'earned' calories?
crossfreddy
Posts: 12 Member
Do you eat all your earned calories, and do you still lose weight? Just wondering what works for other people. I'm just hoping to lose 1lb a week until I get to my target.
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Thinking about it, very tempting!, but I think if you try to stick to your original target you will definitively reach your target, and maybe do better than you thought you could, and that gives you a very positive motivational push, to stick at it.0
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Yes, I eat my earned calories and yes I lose weight. Fitbit is generally accurate enough that most people can do this. That's kind of the point!
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I'm usually coming in under the green zone everyday. I don't mean for it to happen, but with the amount of calories I burn during exercise and daily acivity compared to how many I eat that's just how it turns out. Keep on working with it and you'll find what works for you. Whether to eat back thise calories or not.0
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Thanks for all the replies, I think I'll do my best not to eat into them (pardon the pun) too often. But if I am peckish before bed, then at least I can have a little snack & not feel guilty about it. ☺0
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I often try to maintain an eating plan that is below my suggested total - as a result I often find a large issue with concentration and maintaining a consistant body weight - I have put on 20 lbs in the past year and am working to lose that - my issue is getting enough macronutrients to be healthy, but not eating so much that my ED flairs up... I'm not sure what to do, I wish they made high protein lettuce.0
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My friend and I were just talking about this and we both don't eat the "earnt" calories and stick the the allocated ones, but if it's a special occasion then I might work out a bit more and then not worry about eating them because ya gotta live.0
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I sometimes eat my calories back. It depends on the workout that day. If I did a heavy lifting session, yes...I'm gonna eat some of those calories back in protein. If I took a recovery day, I don't eat the calories. Seems to be working.0
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I try to eat no more than 50% back0
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I use the TDEE method, and have different calorie goals on gym and non-gym days. It's way simpler than worrying about how many calories you can "eat back", and much less error-prone, because pretty much everyone underestimates their intake and overestimates their burn. For me, trying to eat back calories is the quickest way to stall weight loss.0
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If I'm completely starving yes.. but most of the time I don't need to.0
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I cut back my 1200 calorie goal down to 900 in settings. I don't plan on keeping it that low but going to try it for one week to kick start fast burning. If it works I will change it back to 1000, but not over. I also raised my protein by 10 and lowered carbs and fat by 5 each.0
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I talked this question over with my doctors as I wanted to get it right when I started a month ago. I have a condition so have to visit hospital every 2 weeks for blood tests and a chat with my nutritionist.
I will share what they said, but bear in mind it's advice specifically for me, so won't necessarily apply to others.
Firstly, they were less interested in calories than they were in protein, carbs, sugar, fibre, cholesterol and salt. They were less interested in Fat too, but I expect that's because I can't eat dairy or meat... so let's face it, "bad fats" in my diet are a rare occurance.
Secondly, to achieve my weight loss goal they told me to set a "net" goal if I could, then try to maintain it within a 15-18% margin. To meet the net nutrient recommendations they gave me (as remember they didn't advocate calories as a measure) I worked out myself that I'd have to have a net calorie goal of approx 1200 per day on MFP, give or take 150 calories. The macros they calculated for me took into account a lot of things mind you, height, metabolism, current liver health, heart health, and most importantly the medication I'm on. So it's unlikely that my scenario would apply to everyone.
There was also a ceiling on all the macros, which afterwards I worked out via MFP would take me up to about 2000 calories "eaten" in a day. So this means if I go mad and burn 1,500 calories in a day, I'm only expected to eat about 1000 of them, then stop when my food "eaten" reaches 2000.
My nutritionist explained this is because there is only so much nutrients the body can process in a day, regardless of exercise. Protein for example has a cap per day. If you go over it, the extra just comes out in your urine. My nutritionist joked that when a person already has enough protein in their diet then they take fancy protein shakes on top, all they get is really expensive wee... Haha!
So yes, the advice I got implied "eating my exercise calories" but only to maintain a net goal. I translated the plan to Fitbit and it was harder, but broadly I set it to 1000 less than burned, and I monitor nutrients closely via MFP. Some days this means Fitbit and MFP misalign. I tried to align them but it's nearly impossible, given they work in 2 different directions.
Hope this helps or is interesting for someone. If not, ignore away0 -
By the way - it occurred to me that the below scenarios are exactly the same:
Person A - sets a daily MFP calorie goal of 1,600. They eat that 1,600 but don't eat any addition calories created from exercise. At the end of the day they have 1,600 goal - 1,600 eaten + 400 exercise = 400 under goal.
Person B - sets a daily MFP calorie goal of 1,200. They "eat calories burned" of 400 per day. At the end of the day they have 1,200 goal - 1,600 eaten + 400 exercise = Zero (goal met).
Person A and Person B have done exactly the same thing, just managed the numbers differently.
I think it's valuable to point this out because I recently came across an occasion where Person A was ragging horribly on all "Person B's in the world" for having an unhealthy goals, when in fact they had exactly the same goal. It's all in there, in the maths...0 -
I eat some back and am able to maintain my weight at 58kg. The info you read all seem to recommend 2000calories for my height and physical activity, but I try to keep it to 1500 otherwise I gain weight.0
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