Do I eat back calories?

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kpressnell2017
kpressnell2017 Posts: 26 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I'm set at 1950. Burned around 950-1000 during gym time this am with my HR monitor. Should I eat those back?

5ft9
241
26yr

Losing weight
«1

Replies

  • akilia112010
    akilia112010 Posts: 46 Member
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    I've heard that you should only eat back half of the calories that you burn just in case any of your numbers are off a tad bit.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
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    If your calorie goal comes from MFP, it's designed for you to eat back exercise calories. Some people eat back just a portion to account for any potential over-estimation of calorie burn.
  • queenbea77
    queenbea77 Posts: 404 Member
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    No, your calories burned are already figured in.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
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    queenbea77 wrote: »
    No, your calories burned are already figured in.

    If her goal is from MFP, it doesn't include calories burnt through exercise.
  • VintageFeline
    VintageFeline Posts: 6,771 Member
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    queenbea77 wrote: »
    No, your calories burned are already figured in.

    Not if using MFP as designed. MFP uses NEAT, which is a goal before purposeful exercise.
  • VintageFeline
    VintageFeline Posts: 6,771 Member
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    I eat all of my calories burned as tracked by my HRM. But it's never bad to exercise with eating (no pun intended!) when starting or if not using a food scale. Monitor losses for 6-8 weeks and adjust as needed.
  • cityruss
    cityruss Posts: 2,493 Member
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    If you're using MFP to set your calorie goal, then you should be eating back (at least a portion of) exercise calories, as purposeful exercise is not included in the calorie goal that MFP gives you.

    Personally I don't like the inherent inaccuracy involved in logging exercise calories so choose to use a TDEE method.

    Figure out your total daily energy expenditure, knock some off, use that as your goal. It takes a while but with accurate logging of intake and weight you will get a good grasp of your calorie needs in various different situations.
  • kpressnell2017
    kpressnell2017 Posts: 26 Member
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    VintageFeline wrote: »
    I eat all of my calories burned as tracked by my HRM. But it's never bad to exercise with eating (no pun intended!) when starting or if not using a food scale. Monitor losses for 6-8 weeks and adjust as needed.

    So my hrm said 1032. Should I just eat back half?
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
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    akilia112010 wrote: »
    I've heard that you should only eat back half of the calories that you burn just in case any of your numbers are off a tad bit.

    The calorie number from my bike rides are always off a tad bit. They're always 13 % too low. It's like there's a programming flaw in my computer. Anyway if I cut the number it gave me in half, that would be even more off.

    If you keep good logs and weigh yourself daily, you can get a pretty good sense for how accurate your exercise calories are.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    edited October 2016
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    kpressnell2017 wrote: »
    VintageFeline wrote: »
    I eat all of my calories burned as tracked by my HRM. But it's never bad to exercise with eating (no pun intended!) when starting or if not using a food scale. Monitor losses for 6-8 weeks and adjust as needed.

    So my hrm said 1032. Should I just eat back half?

    The "eat back half" rule is somewhat arbitrary and based on the idea that burn estimates aren't necessarily accurate but people realize they should eat at least some of their exercise calories back but don't want to eat to much so they hedge and eat half back. Its not really based on anything.

    If your HRM was 100% accurate you should eat 1032 calories back. Chances are its not 100% accurate but it might be 80% accurate who knows. The only way to figure this out is to choose an amount of calories to eat back based on your HRM and then do that consistantly for months along with tracking your caloric intake as best you can then evaluate your progress and see if its where you expected to be.

    If after 2 months your progress is not where you expected it to be you can adjust how much you eat back.

    Personally I eat back all my exercise calories based on my fitbit and so far thats worked out pretty well. I make an exception for very high activity days where I think it does overestimate though.

    My goal if I was totally sedentary would be 1500 calories a day, what I actually eat each day is more like 2400 calories.
  • VintageFeline
    VintageFeline Posts: 6,771 Member
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    kpressnell2017 wrote: »
    VintageFeline wrote: »
    I eat all of my calories burned as tracked by my HRM. But it's never bad to exercise with eating (no pun intended!) when starting or if not using a food scale. Monitor losses for 6-8 weeks and adjust as needed.

    So my hrm said 1032. Should I just eat back half?

    I would go with half to begin with, or maybe even a bit more if it was steady state cardio you were doing and you have your HRM set up correctly (height, weight, age etc).
  • bfanny
    bfanny Posts: 440 Member
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    Am I correct if you set your diary as active, then you shouldn't eat back any cals from exercise because it is already included???
  • VintageFeline
    VintageFeline Posts: 6,771 Member
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    bfanny wrote: »
    Am I correct if you set your diary as active, then you shouldn't eat back any cals from exercise because it is already included???

    The activity setting is designed to set your goal based on normal day to day activity. So if you get 10000 steps a day then you'd be active on MFP.

    If using MFP as designed, purposeful exercise should always be logged separately.

    If you'd rather a steady goal, the TDEE method may be more appropriate. You wouldn't log any exercise this way.
  • kpressnell2017
    kpressnell2017 Posts: 26 Member
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    bfanny wrote: »
    Am I correct if you set your diary as active, then you should not t eat back any cals from exercise because it is already included???

    My confusion is this.
    Example
    TDEE is 2800
    Set diary to -25%
    2100 to consume
    You burn 1000 calories
    Eat 2100
    Still at 1100 consumed...
    Wouldn't you want it to be at 2100 no matter what?

    This is what confuses me
  • VintageFeline
    VintageFeline Posts: 6,771 Member
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    kpressnell2017 wrote: »
    bfanny wrote: »
    Am I correct if you set your diary as active, then you should not t eat back any cals from exercise because it is already included???

    My confusion is this.
    Example
    TDEE is 2800
    Set diary to -25%
    2100 to consume
    You burn 1000 calories
    Eat 2100
    Still at 1100 consumed...
    Wouldn't you want it to be at 2100 no matter what?

    This is what confuses me

    You're confusing two different methods.

    MFP uses the NEAT method. Which is BMR + daily activity as your base then exercise is extra on a day by day basis.

    TDEE is a steady daily goal that takes into account BMR, daily activity and exercise. You wouldn't log exercise in addition.
  • kpressnell2017
    kpressnell2017 Posts: 26 Member
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    VintageFeline wrote: »
    kpressnell2017 wrote: »
    bfanny wrote: »
    Am I correct if you set your diary as active, then you should not t eat back any cals from exercise because it is already included???

    My confusion is this.
    Example
    TDEE is 2800
    Set diary to -25%
    2100 to consume
    You burn 1000 calories
    Eat 2100
    Still at 1100 consumed...
    Wouldn't you want it to be at 2100 no matter what?

    This is what confuses me

    You're confusing two different methods.

    MFP uses the NEAT method. Which is BMR + daily activity as your base then exercise is extra on a day by day basis.

    TDEE is a steady daily goal that takes into account BMR, daily activity and exercise. You wouldn't log exercise in addition.

    Well *kitten* -.-
  • bfanny
    bfanny Posts: 440 Member
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    So what fitbit gives you at the end of the day is TDEE? Eating 500 less than that a day would result in 1 lbs loss a week?
    (Of course assuming that your tracking is accurate ;)
    Confusing cause MFP gives a # and fitbit another...
  • kgirlhart
    kgirlhart Posts: 5,014 Member
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    kpressnell2017 wrote: »
    bfanny wrote: »
    Am I correct if you set your diary as active, then you should not t eat back any cals from exercise because it is already included???

    My confusion is this.
    Example
    TDEE is 2800
    Set diary to -25%
    2100 to consume
    You burn 1000 calories
    Eat 2100
    Still at 1100 consumed...
    Wouldn't you want it to be at 2100 no matter what?

    This is what confuses me

    The tdee method already includes the exercise calories so you don't add them if you are using tdee. If you got your goal from mfp it uses neat and does not include the exercise calories so you manually add them and eat at least some of them back.
  • kpressnell2017
    kpressnell2017 Posts: 26 Member
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    :'(:s 9-9-1
  • VintageFeline
    VintageFeline Posts: 6,771 Member
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    bfanny wrote: »
    So what fitbit gives you at the end of the day is TDEE? Eating 500 less than that a day would result in 1 lbs loss a week?
    (Of course assuming that your tracking is accurate ;)
    Confusing cause MFP gives a # and fitbit another...

    If you have the devices synced then the easiest thing is to set you activity to sedentary and eat the adjustment given (being mindful to use real world results to determine Fitbit accuracy and adjust as necessary, some find it spot on, others not so much).

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