Do you eat your activity calories?

Siciliana05
Siciliana05 Posts: 5 Member
edited November 2024 in Fitness and Exercise
I haven't touched mine and I'm not loosing much weight. I've been tracking my activity with Fitbit and average 15-17,000 steps a day. I do an hour of moderate to high cardio at the gym. Looking forward to reading your posts:)

Replies

  • GreenValli
    GreenValli Posts: 1,054 Member
    I guess you would say that I do eat back some. I eat 1100-1300 calories a day. On days I go to gym, I allow myself to eat closer to 1300. On days I do not go to gym I stick to 1200 or under.

    BTW, I do workout for 52 minutes on machines that tell me I have "burned" around 400 extra calories. I wonder about the accuracy of the machines, though.

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  • Siciliana05
    Siciliana05 Posts: 5 Member
    I am girl :(
  • kk_inprogress
    kk_inprogress Posts: 3,077 Member
    edited January 2016
    MFP is set up to have you eat them back, as the deficit is already built in and you're creating a larger (possibly unsafe) deficit by working out. Since MFP overestimates, I eat back 50-75% of my workout calories and have since I started. I lost consistently this way for 7 months and have been intentionally in maintenance for 5.
  • rileysowner
    rileysowner Posts: 8,337 Member
    You say you are not losing much? What exactly does that mean? How much do you think you should be losing? How much do you have to lose? How much do you have MFP set to lose per week?

    Then there are the questions about how carefully you are logging. Do you use a kitchen scale for solids or do you just use measuring cups and spoon, or worse yet, sort of guess at serving sizes?

    All this an more figures into this
  • perifecto
    perifecto Posts: 9 Member
    edited January 2016
    Initially when on a reduced calorie diet and exercising as a woman, I notice that most females I know either don't lose much overall weight or even gain a little weight while shrinking in size before the scale starts to show lost pounds. It appears to be because they build muscle mass and then at some point the fat pounds lost begin to exceed the muscle pounds gained.

    I would look at measuring the body at chest/bust, waist, hips, biceps, thighs a certain number of inches above the knee and calves a set number of inches below the knees. If you see those measurements changing for the better (smaller waist, more bicep/calves if they were not oversized due to fat at the start) even while the scale moves very little, then you know that your program is having a positive effect.

    If you can get immersion body fat testing done then redone about 6 or 12 months later to check progress that would be more accurate in determining fat lost and lean mass gained and the changing percentages. Regarding eating the activity calories back, I agree that I worry about the estimates being accurate. I try to not eat more than about 50% of activity calories and only if feeling more hungry. I try make it an extra Atkins protein shake or other low fat higher protein snack like tuna or skinless chicken plus maybe raw vegetable or cup of low fat homemade soup in cold weather.
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