Recent article on myfitnesspal
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I eat 100% of my pedometer calories and lose at the rate I expect to.0
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I have a fitbit and eat back between 50 and 75% of those 'earned' calories. The wiggle room I leave is to give me a bit of a buffer in case my food logging or the calories burned is a bit inaccurate. The closer you get to goal weight, the more critical remaining in a predetermined calorie deficit becomes. I lost 75 lbs this way.1
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I log the calories burned according to my heart rate monitor, and usually eat back about 80% of them. I also lose at the rate I expect to. I would not be able to sustain a diet that did now allow me to eat a reasonable amount of calories every day, and eating back my work-out calories allows me that.1
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I think most of the fault lies with the user. Many people don't lose when eating back exercise calories because they don't weigh their food and they're eating more than they think or they overestimate their activity level and log all exercise on top of the extra calories they get based on their activity level. We all know that the calorie burns in the MFP database are overinflated for the most part. That being said, I've seen people log things like "Cleaning, 60 minutes, 800 calories burned" or "Cooking, food prep, 90 minutes, 450 calories burned". As ridiculous as those numbers are and ignoring the flaws of the exercise database to begin with, you have to question the logic of anyone who accepts those numbers as reality. "Well, MFP says it so it must be true!" If it were that easy to burn off so many calories, people would not be overweight to begin with.
Regarding the calories earned from fitness trackers, while there is a margin of error to consider, I've seen people claim they are so far off the mark but the same people have acknowledged that they did things like eating back calories from steps they know they earned by driving just because their fitness tracker said they could do so. That's inane and of course will produce little, if any, results. You have to analyze the data and adjust or else you're not going to make progress at all. You can't expect a fitness tracker to do everything for you just like you can't expect it to be 100% accurate. That's just not how technology, or the body, works.
I'm always nervous for new users when I see posts like this because a year ago when I started, I was one of the 1200 calorie people who tried everything NOT to eat back exercise calories as I would read conflicting information and didn't know any better. I'm 5'3" and started at 139 pounds which is right at the brink of being overweight. For my first two months, I lost a total of 18 pounds and was pulling an average of 2.2 pound losses per week. After those first two months, I noticed my performance suffering when I went for runs and I was suffering from insomnia but I kept pushing on. Then one day I just could not get out of bed no matter what I did. I probably slept for a total of 20 hours that day and all I could do was eat. I went to the boards and searched up similar situations. I read, read, and read some more and took the advice of eating back at least 50% of my exercise calories. My sleep improved, my run time increased, and I just felt better. Now I'm 112 pounds and enjoying eating back most of my exercise calories. It disturbs me to know that back then I passed up on so much good food out of fear of gaining weight, eating 1200 calories at 139 pounds, and now at 112 pounds, I'm over here maintaining at 2000+ calories.
In conclusion, eat back some exercise calories. Unless you truly know your activity level, start at sedentary or even lightly active. If you do not use a food scale, my suggestion would be to start with 25 % if you're using MFP's database or 50% if you're using a fitness tracker. If you do use a food scale for everything, I suggest 50% using the MFP database and 75% using a fitness tracker. Be patient and give it a few weeks, especially if you're a woman as we hold water during certain parts of the month. Pay attention to your intake and after 30 days look at your information as a whole. If you're losing at a faster rate than expected, eat more exercise calories. I know it's tempting to lose faster, but faster is not always better. You should aim for no more than 1% of your body weight per week. If you're losing slower than expected, then decrease the amount of exercise calories you eat back. The one caveat to this is that if you already have less to lose and you put in two or even one pound per week, you may hit that 1200 for women/1500 for men wall that MFP refuses to go below, so in cases like that you can't expect a two pound loss per week if eating 1200 calories only gives you a 500 calorie deficit per day. Cross reference MFP's info with another BMR/TDEE calculator and do the math.6 -
Like some other people said the real issue is that people will eat back the exercise calories. Where as you should use exercise to build muscle so you will burn more calories, and do cardio to burn fat. But a lot of people will see the number of calories they burned and say OK now I can eat all of this extra food. And that's the problem.0
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Like some other people said the real issue is that people will eat back the exercise calories. Where as you should use exercise to build muscle so you will burn more calories, and do cardio to burn fat. But a lot of people will see the number of calories they burned and say OK now I can eat all of this extra food. And that's the problem.
That's not a problem, that's how this app was designed. I think the MFP method is a bit confusing to people because they can do it in one of two ways: include exercise in their activity level and not eat them back or set their activity level to sedentary and eat back the extra food. Several people in this thread have seen success with the second method. In some cases it's actually dangerous not to eat that extra food, especially if the person is at a low allowance and is exercising to boot.2 -
I don't weigh any of my food, I just guess and use the generic entries or scan my packages. I don't have a lot to lose so I have it set to lose .5 lbs per week so I don't have much room for mistakes. I've found that when I eat back my exercise calories I am less successful, leaving less room for food logging mistakes. I feel more deprived on the days that I don't work out and I'll go out of my way to get more calories, like walking for 20-30 minutes just to burn 100 calories so I can have a piece of chocolate. Mentally, for me, it's counterproductive. But if you actually log your calories correctly and are working out "hard", it's going to be more productive to fuel your body properly for your work outs by eating some of those calories back.0
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I have to say the article itself was pretty hopeless, and left out a good portion of the story on both studies, and it didn't really offer much hope in the way of proper suggestions for weight loss. Was highly disappointed in the article quite frankly, and have to agree with an early poster that many of the MFP blog articles are a bit less than stellar to me also. (Take everything with a grain of salt, especially advice in forum threads!! Do your own research rather than just asking for 'opinions'.)
I have to agree with those that are saying that it is okay to eat back your exercise calories because that's not the problem. The problem is that most people way over estimate their activity and way under estimate how much they are eating. If you want to succeed in losing weight, you might want to reverse that. Over estimate your calories you eat if you can't measure accurately, like at a restaurant (otherwise measure, measure, measure), and under estimate your activity level (like don't count every little step you make to get up from the couch to go to the bathroom or check the mail, or the calories burned from 'driving in traffic', but include all your real exercise like going on a directed walk for 30-60 minutes or going for a run or a bike ride - all that stuff above and beyond 'normal activity' for you). While many have figured out how to use them properly, I really think those with fitbits that are counting every little body shift as calorie burners are doing themselves a disservice and fooling themselves (well, until they look at the scale).
If I had an article to recommend (even though the video mentioned in the article is no longer available), it'd be this one that I saw posted on the boards earlier this week about being brutally honest with yourself - http://www.bodyforwife.com/the-most-important-thing-you-can-do-to-lose-weight/1 -
Like some other people said the real issue is that people will eat back the exercise calories. Where as you should use exercise to build muscle so you will burn more calories, and do cardio to burn fat. But a lot of people will see the number of calories they burned and say OK now I can eat all of this extra food. And that's the problem.
Not a problem for me!
In fact it is a benefit of exercise ... because I exercised a lot today, I ate pizza.0 -
Like some other people said the real issue is that people will eat back the exercise calories. Where as you should use exercise to build muscle so you will burn more calories, and do cardio to burn fat. But a lot of people will see the number of calories they burned and say OK now I can eat all of this extra food. And that's the problem.
@lun4wub
Sorry but's that's not correct.
Eating back the correct amount of exercise calories isn't the problem, it's how this site is designed - when you get to maintenance you will have to!
Building muscle to burn more calories is very close to being a myth, apart from the difficulty in building muscle at a deficit the very, very few extra calories burned by having a few more pounds of muscle are more than offset by the reduced energy demands from losing weight.
Cardio doesn't "burn fat" as such - it burns calories but losing fat is a result of your deficit and not any particular exercise. You can do a load of cardio and more than offset that by eating too much.
Eating the incorrect amount of calories certainly can be a problem, that's where some effort is required to make estimates "reasonable" and adjust calorie balance based on results not just calculators and estimates of both food and exercise calories.
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Building muscle to burn more calories is very close to being a myth, apart from the difficulty in building muscle at a deficit the very, very few extra calories burned by having a few more pounds of muscle are more than offset by the reduced energy demands from losing weight.
Really? Then why am I losing weight and still building muscle? At the most, I am only eating back a couple of hundred calories of my exercise calories at the most, but I am still building muscle and losing fat. I've been on this course for the last four years, and I can now really see the progress that I have been making. My body comp studies are indicating that I have flipped the ratio of lean muscle mass to fat. I balance my exercise time between the pool, weight room, and the great outdoors.
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Building muscle to burn more calories is very close to being a myth, apart from the difficulty in building muscle at a deficit the very, very few extra calories burned by having a few more pounds of muscle are more than offset by the reduced energy demands from losing weight.
Really? Then why am I losing weight and still building muscle? At the most, I am only eating back a couple of hundred calories of my exercise calories at the most, but I am still building muscle and losing fat. I've been on this course for the last four years, and I can now really see the progress that I have been making. My body comp studies are indicating that I have flipped the ratio of lean muscle mass to fat. I balance my exercise time between the pool, weight room, and the great outdoors.
Skeletal muscle burns approx. 6cals / day / per lb.
Fat burns approx. 2cals / day / per lb.
Work out the significance on your calorie balance when you are losing weight.2 -
amandaherr wrote: »Did anyone else read the article about feeling weight loss is hopeless? I am particularly wondering about the part that says you will sabotage weight loss by counting your exercise calories toward your daily allotted calories. Anyone have any comments on this? I am at a 16 pound loss and have 95 pounds to go for goal so I need the best advice.
Well, first, and most importantly. congrats and on the 16 pound loss, and assuming that the loss has been at an appropriate rate (with the amount you have to lose, say up to 3 lbs a week, or 1% of BW), I would say keep doing whatever you're doing. If you've been eating back exercise calories, it's working for you. If you're not, and you're not losing too fast, maybe you don't want to start eating the exercise calories.
I lost 30 lbs eating my exercise calories, and I lost faster than expected. (I asked for a 1 lb a week weight loss goal, and averaged 2 lbs a week loss.)
Online calculators and formulas are great to give you a starting place, but given the variation in people, lives, errors in food packaging, etc., nothing beats paying attention to your own results and using your own data to adjust your goals and behavior. If you're reasonably consistent, even if things you are doing are "wrong" in terms of accuracy, it's far easier to make adjustments based on your results than to try to beat the world (food scales, food manufacturers, restaurants, crazy schedules, the occasional meal you just have to take a wild guess about, and life in general) into some laboratory-level of accuracy.1
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