Exercise and adding those EXTRA calories back into diet.
cristareid
Posts: 6 Member
I feel like I don't have an accurate way to calculate my exercise calories. When I exercise and add those calories in my diet (4-5 times per week) I always wonder if I am adding too many calories back in.
Does anyone know of a good website to plug that info in?
For example, I go hiking. The altitude is 1321.29 ft. It takes me 1 hour and 30 minutes to complete. (Sometimes I take an extra 15 min.)
I have a Jawbone and when it logs my steps the hike is about 9,505 steps. It doesn't count in the altitude though. It says my active burn is 334 calories so that is what I will add back into my calories for the day.
I am just barely 5'3" and 125 pounds. I want to lose 10 pounds in 2-3 months. I put myself on 1000-1200 calories per day and if I am exercising I will add those calories back in to eat. Sometimes it gets late though and I don't get to eat them all back, rarely though.
Does anyone know of a good website to plug that info in?
For example, I go hiking. The altitude is 1321.29 ft. It takes me 1 hour and 30 minutes to complete. (Sometimes I take an extra 15 min.)
I have a Jawbone and when it logs my steps the hike is about 9,505 steps. It doesn't count in the altitude though. It says my active burn is 334 calories so that is what I will add back into my calories for the day.
I am just barely 5'3" and 125 pounds. I want to lose 10 pounds in 2-3 months. I put myself on 1000-1200 calories per day and if I am exercising I will add those calories back in to eat. Sometimes it gets late though and I don't get to eat them all back, rarely though.
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Replies
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Use the number mfp says, they wouldn't give you less than 1200. With only 10 pounds choose-.5 pounds a week.
As for exercise calories, eat what jawbone tells you. After 4-6 weeks of using a trend weight (web: trend weight, apple: happy scale, Android: libra), adjust workout calories as needed. If you are not losing .5 a week, lower exercise calorie intake by up to half.3 -
If you don't eat some of those calorirs, your body will go into starvation mode and you will plateau. If you don't fuel your car, it quits, right? Your body needs to know there will be fuel for the work it is doing.0
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also at 5'2"/ 125lbs you are right in normal BMI range - maybe focus on recomp vs. losing weight (gaining lean muscle/losing BF)4
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Eat back half of them. It's a good balance between too much & too little.2
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If you are giving yourself credit for an extra ~300 calories for a 90 minute hike, I do NOT think you are being too generous. For comparison, I am similar weight so our BMRs are going to be similar. My Fitbit gives me credit for about 5 calories burned per minute for a brisk walk ~3.8+ mph. Negating for BMR/standard activity (which MFP already factors) this goes to about 4 cals per minute. That's 360 for 90 minutes. And a hike with elevation change is likely to burn more. **I have found my Fitbit to be reliable based on expected vs reality in terms of my weight change.**
While eating too little can have negative effects, 'starvation mode' is not one of them. Eating too little can lead to feeling deprived and encourage one to binge. It can also make you lethargic/low energy and personally when I feel crappy physically, I don't get much done.
Ultimately though, its trial and error. Do something for 5-6 weeks, and adjust if your result are not as expected.3 -
I am a similar size to you - 5'3'' and 120 lbs, aiming for 110-115. I eat 1300 cal per day and on gym days, I eat around 1450-1500 cal. Lots of MFP users recommend only "eating back" about 50-75% of exercise calories, to account for any inaccuracies. So if it says you burned 300 cal, only eat back an extra 150-225 cal. That being said, 300 doesn't sound too high for a 90 min walk. Also, you could consider adding some weight training into your routine, to make sure you aren't losing your muscle too.
Regarding your calorie intake, how do you feel? 1200 isn't horrible for someone petite, but I would be wary of going below that, especially on exercise days. Personally, I eat at 1300 because if I eat lower than that (even making sure I am getting proper protein and other macros), I feel so incredibly exhausted and have no energy.
Honestly, at our size, it is difficult to lose more than 0.5 lb/week healthily. Have you tried calculating your BMR & TDEE? I am sedentary throughout the day (desk job) so my TDEE is only about 1520. To lose 1 lb/week I would have to eat only 1020 cal ... I instead opt for a rate of 0.5 lb/week which puts me around 1300 cal net.
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So the device, and any database, for a given distance and time (accurate pace) is going to calculate pretty accurately (better than HRM) if it has your weight right - for flat level walk.
But you are doing no where near a level walk - take the device calorie burn and eat them all back.
If you are carrying water - it's even more wrong, it's using your naked weight - doubt you are naked doing the hike.
Life lesson to learn there.
You do more, you eat more.
You do less, you eat less.
In a diet, a tad less in either case.5 -
ManBehindTheMask wrote: »
If you eat too little your body will think you are starving. Therefore it will hold on to the fat you have/hoard what you eat as fat... in order to keep you from starving to death. Because actually starving to death isnt even a real thing. *insert eyeroll*2 -
ManBehindTheMask wrote: »
It's a poor term choice for the scientifically studied phenomenon Adaptive Thermogenesis.
And many people associate many side effects to it that are untrue, some related more to actually starving situation.
It does have it's own real effects which can have negative impacts on losing weight and workouts. But not the often claimed side effects (skip breakfast and hold onto fat and stop metabolism!).
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/heybales/view/reduced-metabolism-tdee-beyond-expected-from-weight-loss-616251
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For the same reason you mentioned (not having an accurate way to calculate exercise calories) I simply say don't count them. Just track food. You'll only have to worry about food calories which (if you buy and cook your own groceries) will be way more under your control.
[edited by MFP Mods]
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If I didn't eat back some exercise calories, I wouldn't have the energy to fuel my workouts.5
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havesomejoe wrote: »For the same reason you mentioned (not having an accurate way to calculate exercise calories) I simply say don't count them. Just track food. You'll only have to worry about food calories which (if you buy and cook your own groceries) will be way more under your control.
[edited by MFP Mods]
Did you know there isn't an accurate way to calculate daily burn calories either.
So should those be chucked out the window too because they don't meet some required level of accuracy?
In which case - how would you pick an eating level?
And did you know US food nutrition labels can be upwards of 20% off - but you wouldn't know which way, or how much actually is off. Is that within the level of accuracy?
So that would mean chucking the eating plan too actually.
Well ok, for that point, actually it would be better to just pick about 250 calories daily you stop eating from current diet, and figure out about 250 calories more you start moving more from current activity level.
It's the wholesale changes to diet and activity that foul so many up.4 -
I have a 1200 calorie allowance and usually burn 900-1100 calories in exersize, but never eat the extra calories. Im 5'9 and 80kgs, although i havent weighed in for 4weeks. My workouts include a very brisk 25min walk fasted cardio, 30min run LISS or HIIT on alternating days and 45mins of weights 2 out of 3 nights.
If your starving maybe eat half of them. ☺0 -
I have a 1200 calorie allowance and usually burn 900-1100 calories in exersize, but never eat the extra calories. Im 5'9 and 80kgs, although i havent weighed in for 4weeks. My workouts include a very brisk 25min walk fasted cardio, 30min run LISS or HIIT on alternating days and 45mins of weights 2 out of 3 nights.
If your starving maybe eat half of them. ☺
If this is true, you're underestimating your calorie intake and/or overestimating your calorie burn and/or brand new to weight loss (and still in a "honeymoon phase"). Anyone who regularly consumed less than half their maintenance calories* would be hungry and cranky as anything - and there's no way they'd have enough energy for all those workouts. Not to mention they'd start seeing symptoms like hair loss.
*Putting your numbers in a calculator and guessing an age of about 35 gives you sedentary maintenance calories of about 1900. Add 900 to that and you'd be burning at least 2800 calories a day. That would give you a 1600 calorie deficit every day. Your deficit would be larger than your food consumption! And it would theoretically lead to a loss of 3 pounds/week - which is much too fast for someone who weighs less than 200 pounds. Except that your body can't actually metabolize fat at that rate in the long term, so your current practice (if the numbers are accurate) will lead to loss of muscle mass. I hope you're eating a lot of protein!5 -
Well, and even there, the 3 legs for muscle mass retention is enough protein, resistance training, and reasonable deficit.
That extreme deficit with that low of calories would likely prevent the ability to eat enough protein to compensate.
I suppose one could eat all protein with whatever fat is in the meat, and hope for the best.
http://www.jbc.org/content/87/3/651.full.pdf
Like Stefansson and friend.1 -
I have a 1200 calorie allowance and usually burn 900-1100 calories in exersize, but never eat the extra calories. Im 5'9 and 80kgs, although i havent weighed in for 4weeks. My workouts include a very brisk 25min walk fasted cardio, 30min run LISS or HIIT on alternating days and 45mins of weights 2 out of 3 nights.
If your starving maybe eat half of them. ☺
Thats a pretty high calorie burn...and too many to not eat back any at all on a regular basis.
Even a brisk walk + 30mins of HIIT..... 1100??
Im not sure how you have energy to run or do HIIT, tbh.
Something is off....3 -
I have a 1200 calorie allowance and usually burn 900-1100 calories in exersize, but never eat the extra calories. Im 5'9 and 80kgs, although i havent weighed in for 4weeks. My workouts include a very brisk 25min walk fasted cardio, 30min run LISS or HIIT on alternating days and 45mins of weights 2 out of 3 nights.
If your starving maybe eat half of them. ☺
If you're actually burning that many calories, you do realize that what you're doing is the equivalent of eating 100-300 calories per day right?
Yeah...pretty healthy! If this is actually happening, you're pretty much killing yourself slowly...1 -
I have a 1200 calorie allowance and usually burn 900-1100 calories in exersize, but never eat the extra calories. Im 5'9 and 80kgs, although i havent weighed in for 4weeks. My workouts include a very brisk 25min walk fasted cardio, 30min run LISS or HIIT on alternating days and 45mins of weights 2 out of 3 nights.
If your starving maybe eat half of them. ☺
900-1100 in exercise calories is huge. The 25 minutes of brisk walking is likely netting you about 200 incremental calories. The 30 minutes of LISS or interval training is another 250, and the weights would be something like 150 (assuming that weight lifting burns about 200 per hour). I'd guess that the total two hour session would net you about 600-650 incremental calories.
Even with a more realistic expectation of exercise calories burned, you'd still only be eating 600 net calories per day. Not sustainable or realistic at all. If you're not hungry, I'm thinking that you might be underestimating the calories you're eating.0 -
And because that underestimating of calories eaten, and overestimating calories burned, is likely going on - it still doesn't mean it's good advice to hand out in blanket form.
Like eating close to 50% deficit is good idea.
That's merely the point they reached to compensate for both - perhaps, in numbers, just not in reality.1
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