Does anyone eat their exercise calories while losing?

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  • FreyasRebirth
    FreyasRebirth Posts: 514 Member
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    I will if I'm hungry. I use a Garmin Vivosmart HR, which supposedly underestimates burns. I'm losing just fine.
  • estherdragonbat
    estherdragonbat Posts: 5,283 Member
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    I'm not an expert, but maybe the stepped calories are already factored into MFP's calorie allotment, based on the activity level you input? So if you put down 'sedentary', it figures that in the normal course of the day you're already walking X steps. Now you're going and putting down all your exercise calories and the X you burn, just by virtue of the fact that you aren't spending your whole non-exercise time lying in bed or sitting in a chair. Effectively, you're double-dipping.
  • FreyasRebirth
    FreyasRebirth Posts: 514 Member
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    ronjsteele1 wrote: »
    Be careful syncing a tracker with MFP. I did that because I thought it would be helpful. It was giving me back my calories based on how many steps I was walking (I avg 10-12K a day). I made sure I was logging my exercise as "0" or "1" calorie so I wasn't double dipping exercise calories. I ended up gaining 5#'s before I realized it was because I was eating back my step calories. I unsynced my Misfit from MFP and just log my exercise normal and I'm back to losing again. I eat back most of my exercise calories but I have a lot to lose. I figure as I get closer to goal I won't be able to (or will only be able to eat half). I'm not sure why eating back my actual exercise calories works and why eating back my step calories doesn't. All I know is, I gained when I followed the calories given when I had my tracker synced to MFP.

    I think *maybe* there was a clash between your activity setting and your step counting. A higher activity setting is already giving you more calories and it may have double dipped. Steps shouldn't have give you really any additional calories until you were above your reported activity level.
  • joemac1988
    joemac1988 Posts: 1,021 Member
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    lc_getsfit wrote: »
    Does anyone eat their exercise calories while losing? Do you eat a certain amount?

    If you eat them do you track them manually or use a fitness tracker synced (like a Fitbit)!

    Depends how much you burn! You don't want to be in too severe a deficit so if your target macros already put you in a deficit then yes, eat them back.

    Personally I don't let my macros adjust from exercise calories; I workout every day and I know what my average TDEE is so my macros are preset accordingly.
  • EchoFiveNiner
    EchoFiveNiner Posts: 3 Member
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    RedheadedPrincess14 wrote: »
    Yes but I severely underestimate them to be safe

    I think this is the answer, combined with your specific caloric goals. If you're already cutting 500 calories or more from your diet, then denying your body further can be counter-productive. You could be encouraging your body to break down muscle, for example, or slowing down your metabolism.

    Also, interestingly, MFP doesn't deduct calories for strength training. Muscle burns off fat, not to mention the energetic use of the workout itself, so this is another way to underestimate caloric intake.
  • Gazelle1953
    Gazelle1953 Posts: 1 Member
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    The WW system has a similar structure, and I always ate my earned calories on that, and always lost. First day on this was yesterday, and I ate them. If I'm remembering correctly, WW stressed that it's possible to eat too little to lose, as your body goes into starvation mode, which would cause it to hold onto what weight you have. I don't use a device to track. I think there are studies that it doesn't really help you lose.
  • estherdragonbat
    estherdragonbat Posts: 5,283 Member
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    Starvation mode isn't actually a thing: http://www.fattyfightsback.com/2009/03/mtyhbusters-starvation-mode.html
  • Kay_180
    Kay_180 Posts: 38 Member
    edited March 2017
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    I don't generally log and eat them, *but* I over-run my calorie limit fairly often anyway, so I feel like I'm banking those exercise calories to give me a little more flexibility when I need it.

    Edited to add: and yes, this seems to work for me in terms of losing!
  • joemac1988
    joemac1988 Posts: 1,021 Member
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    estherdragonbat wrote: »
    Starvation mode isn't actually a thing: http://www.fattyfightsback.com/2009/03/mtyhbusters-starvation-mode.html

    Agreed, but aggressive deficit for weightloss isn't optimal.
  • estherdragonbat
    estherdragonbat Posts: 5,283 Member
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    No argument there!
  • LenGray
    LenGray Posts: 842 Member
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    I tried to only eat half of my exercise calories back and would end up losing too much/starving by the end of the week, which would lead to over-eating or not exercising because I was feeling miserable. Now I eat back all of my exercise calories (after making sure they're reasonable for the effort I put in) and I'm feeling a lot better. I suspect it's just something you have to experiment with and see what works for you as an individual.
  • Tacklewasher
    Tacklewasher Posts: 7,122 Member
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    For the posters thinking they should not eat back activity calories, do you have negative adjustments turned on?

    How it should work is you pick an activity level, sync you HRM and turn on negative adjustments. If you are more active than the activity level, MFP will add calories. If you are less active, it will deduct calories.
    On normal days, excluding exercise, I'm between sedentary and lightly active. If I choose sedentary, I get calories added. If I choose lightly active, MFP takes calories away. The net is roughly the same, but I like seeing calories added more than taken away so I choose sedentary. Plus I eat them back, but I know my HRM is pretty close to reality based on 4 months of tracking.
  • elkhunter7x6
    elkhunter7x6 Posts: 88 Member
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    I eat all of mine back. Every four weeks I check my weight loss average and readjust my base calorie intake accordingly.
  • justkeeprunning91
    justkeeprunning91 Posts: 96 Member
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    Tacklewasher wrote: »
    For the posters thinking they should not eat back activity calories, do you have negative adjustments turned on?

    How it should work is you pick an activity level, sync you HRM and turn on negative adjustments. If you are more active than the activity level, MFP will add calories. If you are less active, it will deduct calories.
    On normal days, excluding exercise, I'm between sedentary and lightly active. If I choose sedentary, I get calories added. If I choose lightly active, MFP takes calories away. The net is roughly the same, but I like seeing calories added more than taken away so I choose sedentary. Plus I eat them back, but I know my HRM is pretty close to reality based on 4 months of tracking.

    This is exactly what I do. My activity level is set to sedentary and synced with my fitbit charge HR. I don't log exercise in MFP so I make sure I'm not double dipping and I've found fitbit calories are more accurate than the MFP exercise database.
  • HGarcia1527
    HGarcia1527 Posts: 69 Member
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    I rarely eat them back but if I do I was told never to eat more than half.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
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    HGarcia1527 wrote: »
    I rarely eat them back but if I do I was told never to eat more than half.

    This really depends on how you arrived at your estimated expenditure. Cutting by 1/2 is rather arbitrary recommendation.
  • ronjsteele1
    ronjsteele1 Posts: 1,064 Member
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    FreyasRebirth wrote: »
    ronjsteele1 wrote: »
    Be careful syncing a tracker with MFP. I did that because I thought it would be helpful. It was giving me back my calories based on how many steps I was walking (I avg 10-12K a day). I made sure I was logging my exercise as "0" or "1" calorie so I wasn't double dipping exercise calories. I ended up gaining 5#'s before I realized it was because I was eating back my step calories. I unsynced my Misfit from MFP and just log my exercise normal and I'm back to losing again. I eat back most of my exercise calories but I have a lot to lose. I figure as I get closer to goal I won't be able to (or will only be able to eat half). I'm not sure why eating back my actual exercise calories works and why eating back my step calories doesn't. All I know is, I gained when I followed the calories given when I had my tracker synced to MFP.

    I think *maybe* there was a clash between your activity setting and your step counting. A higher activity setting is already giving you more calories and it may have double dipped. Steps shouldn't have give you really any additional calories until you were above your reported activity level.

    I don't know. I messed with it a bunch and decided weight gain wasn't worth it. I was very careful to make sure I wasn't double dipping and I had MFP cals set at "sedentary" so it should have worked. I wasn't adding any exercise calories in b/c I was setting them at "0" or "1." I was just recording exercise to keep track of the fact that I had exercised. Nonetheless, just a caution when syncing trackers with MFP to make sure it's not giving someone too many calories.
  • DanyellMcGinnis
    DanyellMcGinnis Posts: 315 Member
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    I did crazy amounts of cardio while losing (sometimes 80 or 90 minutes a day) because I didn't like eating <1500 calories (I'm a 5'5" woman with a small frame). And yeah, I ate all but maybe 10% of my exercise calories back. Took me about 49-50 weeks to lose 45 pounds, which I think is quite reasonable. Now in maintenance I'm eating most or all of my exercise calories back (leaving like 5-20 or so) and I've been good since mid-December.

    I don't sync my Fitbit to MFP. I only even have a Fitbit because my health insurance company gives me points for using it (points can be redeemed on gift cards). My non-exercise step level is something like 8000 per day so probably my activity level is higher than sedentary but I have it set at sedentary and doing that plus eating my calories back seems to keep me in my maintenance range (so I guess any errors cancel each other out).
  • kmorrow0712
    kmorrow0712 Posts: 29 Member
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    I use my fitbit to track and attempt to eat back half unless I'm really hungry. Even then I try to leave a 150 calorie padding. Doesn't always work.

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