Eating back exercise calories??
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FitVegetarian14516
Posts: 39 Member
How many exercise calories should you eat back? Say you ate 1,200 and burned around 800 how many would you normally eat back?
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Replies
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Me, personally, at 1200 per day I'd eat back about 50% of what you burn. There's a couple of reasons for this.. first the calorie burn estimates are almost always over-rated. Most apps over-rate calories by up to 50%. If you use a good quality heart rate strap coupled with an app/device that takes heart rate into its calorie burn calculations, then you can consider it likely 80-85% accurate, but still it's going to be off. So just to be safe, no more than 50% of your burned calories if you want to lose weight at the rate you selected. It can, however, depend on your own height, weight, fitness level, etc. So start with the 50% rule, and see if you stay on track with your loss after 30 days. If you're not losing what you thought you would, then drop it back to say 35% and go from there for 30 days. If you're losing more than you thought, adjust it up and eat back a little more. Try adding in protein first, it always helps build and sustain muscle. Eventually you'll find out how accurate the app/device you are using is based on your own body. Try to stay at no more than 2lbs a week loss.
Anyway, I'm sure you'll get tons of different responses, but the main thing is to start conservative then adjust to your own goals and needs, just give yourself about 30 days to equalize every time you make an adjustment.3 -
I don't eat them, anymore. I used to eat, like, half of them, but my weight loss stopped completely. Now, I work out four days in a row, don't eat back the exercise calories, then take a day off for my body to heal up a little. So far, I've lost more weight in seven days than I'd lost in a month.3
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For your age / ht / wt in your profile....if your logging is on point you should eat every single calorie back and adjust from there. 1200 is already a pretty aggressive cut for you pre-exercise, let alone after exercise.0
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I don't eat them, anymore. I used to eat, like, half of them, but my weight loss stopped completely. Now, I work out four days in a row, don't eat back the exercise calories, then take a day off for my body to heal up a little. So far, I've lost more weight in seven days than I'd lost in a month.
It depends on the person, fitness level, height, weight, etc. Nobody is the same. I am 6'2" tall, and my TDEE is somewhere around 2300 calories sedimentary without exercise. With exercise (I average about 900 cals a day six days a week of exercise/cardio/etc.) my TDEE raises to around 2900 to 3k calories. However, bearing in mind overestimation of my apps (even though I do use an accurate HR strap) I generally try to stay under the 2900 daily and on my rest day I stay under my 2300. It keeps me at an even 189-190lbs yet I build muscle very slowly (body recomposition). If I was still trying to lose 2lb/wk I'd have to subtract up to 1000 calories a day from those numbers. Over a 7 day period it would require me to eat about 1900-2000 calories a day, as low as 1700 without eating back exercise calories. Eating back 50% is just a good place to start, but remember, if you have not been eating them back, your body takes time to adjust to the extra calories, so give it 30 days before freaking out and adjusting down or up. Weight loss, especially long term successful weight loss, is the long game, not the short game.
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I don't eat back my calories.1
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I just make sure the calories remaining box on the right has 250 in green each day. I eat up to whatever gets me there.1
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I don't eat back my calories.
At only 1200 calories, OP is cutting at nearly 40% without exercise. Include exercise, OP is cutting at over 50% (If they're really burning 800 cals it would be somewhere in the 60ish% range)....they need to eat some exercise cals back. They're setting themselves up for a massive crash and burn.4 -
I'm also on 1200-1300 and I typically don't eat exercise calories back unless I feel hungry, weak, sick, etc.
My activity level is very low most days during the week so exercise brings me to a normal person's level. It also gives me a buffer in case I have miscalculated my calories.
If you're hungry eat some back... maybe 1/2? Depends on how you log your food (weighing it vs cups or eyeballing) and how you are coming up with the calories burned with exercise.0 -
I am just gonna put this link here in case anyone wants read through this. This question comes up many times a day..
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/818082/exercise-calories-again-wtf/p14 -
Start with 50% and then adjust up or down based on your avg loss over say a 4-6 weeks. Losing more than you want, more than 1% bodyweight or more than 2 lbs per week; eat more. Losing less than you want or not at all; eat less and re-evaluate the accuracy of your food diary.
I can eat 100% of my adjustments from my Fitbit and I do. I don't want my deficit getting too large to where I end up losing lean mass and fatigued all the time. I also use a food scale for all the food I eat at home and have noticed if I eat out a bunch weight loss might not happen or I might see a gain. This isn't because the Fitbit is wrong, but is the result that I can't be 100% sure of what I'm eating when I eat out. Not to say that this is true for everyone. Fitbit/Exercise burns are just estimates, but how you are logging is always something you want to consider when you hit a stall. It could be you've been selecting inaccurate entries from the data base, or maybe your eyeballing portions or you could be eating out with a bunch of unknowns or exercise burns being overestimated...lots of things too consider.0 -
FitVegetarian14516 wrote: »How many exercise calories should you eat back? Say you ate 1,200 and burned around 800 how many would you normally eat back?
And to answer this question specifically, what is your NET calorie goal for the day? This is what you eat each and every day.
Example
1600 is My calorie goal.
My Current food intake is 2000 - 400 Exercise = 1600
In this example I have eaten 2000 calories and burned 400 and met my goal of 1600 for the day.0 -
I have a Fitbit and I know from months of experience that my calorie burn estimates are accurate. If I had an adjustment of 800 calories, I would eat all of them back.0
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The general consensus seems to be...Start by eating back 50% of exercise calories and then adjust the percentage up or down based on your results over a reasonable length of time (4-8 weeks)2
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I don't eat them, anymore. I used to eat, like, half of them, but my weight loss stopped completely. Now, I work out four days in a row, don't eat back the exercise calories, then take a day off for my body to heal up a little. So far, I've lost more weight in seven days than I'd lost in a month.
I'm trying to lose thirty by january and I've already lost three, so I am kinda skeptical on eating some back. When I eat them back I end up like you just not gaining but not really losing (fast enough I lose a little but it's like .5 pounds a week) either.0 -
FitVegetarian14516 wrote: »How many exercise calories should you eat back? Say you ate 1,200 and burned around 800 how many would you normally eat back?
And to answer this question specifically, what is your NET calorie goal for the day? This is what you eat each and every day.
Example
1600 is My calorie goal.
My Current food intake is 2000 - 400 Exercise = 1600
In this example I have eaten 2000 calories and burned 400 and met my goal of 1600 for the day.
I don't really have a net calorie goal I think? If you mean what MFP wants me to get up to it's 1200 but take today for instance I'm going to eat a total of 1091 and I've burned (this is the guesstimate) 520.0 -
FitVegetarian14516 wrote: »I don't eat them, anymore. I used to eat, like, half of them, but my weight loss stopped completely. Now, I work out four days in a row, don't eat back the exercise calories, then take a day off for my body to heal up a little. So far, I've lost more weight in seven days than I'd lost in a month.
I'm trying to lose thirty by january and I've already lost three, so I am kinda skeptical on eating some back. When I eat them back I end up like you just not gaining but not really losing (fast enough I lose a little but it's like .5 pounds a week) either.
Then your logging is off (either your intake, your estimated calorie burn, or most likely both). So you're probably eating more than 1200 cals and burning less than 800 (which is a really high burn). How fast are you losing if you don't eat them back?0 -
FitVegetarian14516 wrote: »FitVegetarian14516 wrote: »How many exercise calories should you eat back? Say you ate 1,200 and burned around 800 how many would you normally eat back?
And to answer this question specifically, what is your NET calorie goal for the day? This is what you eat each and every day.
Example
1600 is My calorie goal.
My Current food intake is 2000 - 400 Exercise = 1600
In this example I have eaten 2000 calories and burned 400 and met my goal of 1600 for the day.
I don't really have a net calorie goal I think? If you mean what MFP wants me to get up to it's 1200 but take today for instance I'm going to eat a total of 1091 and I've burned (this is the guesstimate) 520.
Assuming your numbers are accurate (and they may not be accurate at all since you're guessing), that would give you a net of 571 calories. For a day this wouldn't really be a problem, but long-term netting such a low number is going to compromise your health and your energy.0 -
FitVegetarian14516 wrote: »I don't eat them, anymore. I used to eat, like, half of them, but my weight loss stopped completely. Now, I work out four days in a row, don't eat back the exercise calories, then take a day off for my body to heal up a little. So far, I've lost more weight in seven days than I'd lost in a month.
I'm trying to lose thirty by january and I've already lost three, so I am kinda skeptical on eating some back. When I eat them back I end up like you just not gaining but not really losing (fast enough I lose a little but it's like .5 pounds a week) either.
Then your logging is off (either your intake, your estimated calorie burn, or most likely both). So you're probably eating more than 1200 cals and burning less than 800 (which is a really high burn). How fast are you losing if you don't eat them back?
Anywhere from 1.5-2 pounds a week.
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