I don't feel right eating exercise calories....
Options
GuessIgottalog
Posts: 65 Member
I don't feel right eating exercise calories. Makes me feel like a failure and that I'm wasting all of my time logging and eating a certain amount and that I won't lose any weight. Anybody feel this way? I'm I way wrong? What can I do?
5
Replies
-
Eat half back.15
-
I don't eat any exercise calories back but I am trying to lose. I go to bed most nights with 1,000 calorie deficit after logging all food and exercise.5
-
I try not to eat up to the full value of the exercise calories. However I like the promise of more food as a reward for exercising.
Cue->behaviour->reward, which ensures continuation of the healthy for heart and wellbeing exercise behaviour.
So gain and consume those exercise calories they are good for you in other important ways.8 -
MFP sets you up to lose weight without exercise. You should eat back at least a portion of your exercise calories to fuel your body and keep your deficit at a safe, consistent rate.32
-
If you're following MyFitnessPal's calorie goal to lose weight, you would lose without exercise. The calorie goal is already doing the work for you. If you're doing lots of exercise and not eating anything extra, you risk undernourishing yourself.
Many times the calorie allowances for exercise are inflated, so eat half of them and see if you lose at the expected rate over a few weeks.20 -
If you don't eat enough, you won't have the energy you need to continue to be active. You'll start cheating, more and more often, because you'll be hungry and feel deprived. After a while, you'll give up and start gaining back the weight you lost. You will do better if your way of eating is sustainable over the long term. That means eating enough so you aren't constantly starving.
I am active - a walker and a runner. I eat back all my exercise calories. I lost a pound a week over a three month period. I didn't have that much to lose, but I had no problem losing it, following the MFP model.25 -
It sounds like you are exercising in order to lose weight. Try exercising to increase your fitness level and your thought process may change.24
-
If I have exercised a lot, I'm hungrier and so I do eat about half back. If it is just an average day, I might eat back about 10 percent. If I know I have a day coming up where I want some extra space I'll not eat any of them. I tend to look at my calories as over a week than just one day. This lets me have more flexibility.8
-
I eat back about 1/3 of my cardio exercise calories on a daily. I also do strength training, when logged under that you really don't get an extra on MFP, unless you log them as cardio. In my head that's the way I justify eating them back.0
-
I eat mine. I want to fuel my workouts properly to help prevent injury and maintain muscle mass.15
-
Eat food the old fashioned way. Earn it. Eat 'some' of your exercise calories. Realize that values of calories burned in doing exercise are not precisely accurate for you as an individual. It is on you to be accurate, track your progress, and make adjustments.0
-
This is something I've asked my trainer about a lot. Personally, I'm under the guise that we need a calorie deficit - plain and simple. Eating back the calories reduces that deficit -- and we work out essentially to create one. It truly depends on your caloric goal you eat by, though. It helps to know your BMR -- or your bottom line for calorie intake.
IIFYM and TDEE calculators online can help you find your numbers
) 1 -
If you're only doing a little bit of exercise, you probably don't need to eat any or much back.
But if you're doing quite a bit, it is healthier to eat at least half your exercise calories back. Your body needs fuel.4 -
I eat back all of my exercise calories. I had zero energy for anything but my workouts not eating back calories. Like I would get maybe 2000 steps a day outside my workouts. Now that I eat back calories I have energy to keep increasing my workouts plus I earn even more calories because I feel like doing extra work around the house or doing things like bird watching on my rest days. Food is fuel. Without it you will just be running on empty.8
-
meldeeonline wrote: »This is something I've asked my trainer about a lot. Personally, I'm under the guise that we need a calorie deficit - plain and simple. Eating back the calories reduces that deficit -- and we work out essentially to create one. It truly depends on your caloric goal you eat by, though. It helps to know your BMR -- or your bottom line for calorie intake.
IIFYM and TDEE calculators online can help you find your numbers)
Only if you really are creating your deficit with exercise. If you're creating it with diet, you could be doing more harm than good by not eating a little more for exercise, but that depends on how much exercise we're talking.4 -
Unless you are expending greater than 500 cal on you workouts, I wouldn't count them. Conversely, if you are training for anything beyond a 10k, a sprint triathlon or a 35 mile bike event, then I would make sure that your nutrition covers those extra calories with whole foods.2
-
If your net calories end up being too low, you'll end up causing your metabolic rate to crawl. And then the stagnant weight loss epic begins. There have been lots of threads on them...................losing 10lbs-20lbs or more in less than a month then NOTHING for the next 3 months. Not an uncommon story.
You CAN'T outsmart your body. What you FEEL isn't something your body cares about. It just knows how to acclimate if you don't provide enough for it to function properly.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
11 -
I don't feel right stopping at one serving, but that's the way it's got to be.
Listen, if you find exercise calories to be stressful, don't eat them, but in that case you can't use myfitnesspal's default goals as they are too low. Go and find an online TDEE calculator and type in your stats and get a calorie goal that already takes account of your exercise, then eat up to that.
If you use mfp's default calorie goal, then refuse to eat back any exercise, you are using the system wrong and you are undereating. Undereating is bad for you and likely to derail your weight loss long term. This goes for you too, @sunsweet77 - you're doing it wrong.14 -
You're looking at it wrong. Your goal should be a calorie deficit to lose weight or a net zero for maintenance. Both what you eat and what you burn go into that calculation. Exercise can sometimes make that deficit larger as can eating less. But once you know what your deficit goal is, you then use eating and exercise to keep it the same size each day.5
-
I struggle with this to, I walk ALOT so i try to eat atleast a few hundred extra on long walk/work days (1200 goes to say 1500-1600) It claims i burn like 1000 but i am fine eating my 1500 and calling it a day. Sometimes i drink on weekends so probably all averages out. If consistently not eating calories atleast save them for days you want them and eat extra guilt free. I tend to get hungrier days i dont walk :P3
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 391.7K Introduce Yourself
- 43.5K Getting Started
- 259.8K Health and Weight Loss
- 175.6K Food and Nutrition
- 47.3K Recipes
- 232.3K Fitness and Exercise
- 395 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.4K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.5K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 152.7K Motivation and Support
- 7.8K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.3K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.3K MyFitnessPal Information
- 23 News and Announcements
- 960 Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.3K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions