Eating burned calories

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Montesmom2014
Montesmom2014 Posts: 4 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Hi everyone, my first post so please excuse me if this has already been covered.
I've read a lot of posts stating that people do not eat the calories they have burned through exercise. My exercise of choice is cycling. I live in the mountains so do a lot of climbing, if I don't "fuel my ride" I just can't function.
I'm interested to hear what others do. Sometimes I might be in the saddle for five or six hours. I have a heart rate monitor and garmin. If my ride says I've burned 1,800 calories for example I might increase my calories for the day by 1,000. Does that sound about right or am I going about this all wrong?
Thanks x

Replies

  • aemsley05
    aemsley05 Posts: 151 Member
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    Many people don't eat bakc exercise calories as they are often an inflated estimate - especially if you use the database entries or are trusting a cardio machine with no HR monitor. If you are wearing a monitor and Garmin, you're exercise calorie estimate is likely to be much more accurate. If you are cycling for 5 or 6 hours you should definitely be eating more to fuel up - that's why MFP will add on additional calories to your daily goal when you add exercise/sync your Garmin. You don't need to eat them all back if your goal is to lose weight, but if you don't eat enough you won't perform as well when cycling and will risk burning out.
  • joemac1988
    joemac1988 Posts: 1,021 Member
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    There's 2 ways to do this and neither is wrong, you need to decide which is best for you.

    1. Calculate macros and deficit based on no exercise, than eat back calories you burn through additional exercise so you're not in too severe a deficit.
    2. Calculate macros and deficit assuming an exercise burn, then don't eat back calories as this would put you in a surplus.

    I don't eat back my burned calories but that's because I know my TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) or calories burned. I workout 7 days a week so my days are all pretty similar in that I burn about 3500 calories per day. I eat 3000 calories leaving me with that 500 calorie deficit. For example, the other way I could do it is assume I burn 500 calories per workout. I would then set my calories at 2,500, then eat back the 500 calories burned.

    I hope this helps.
  • PennStateChick
    PennStateChick Posts: 327 Member
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    When I do a 30 min walk or run, I don't eat back those calories... or at least not all of them. I may have a little extra, but not a lot. Cycling is a totally different beast and I always eat back a decent amount of those calories. Like you, I can see 1200-1800 calories burned on a ride. On a normal day, I only eat 1600 calories so if I didn't fuel my body after a ride, I would be dying.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    Montesmom2014 wrote: »
    Hi everyone, my first post so please excuse me if this has already been covered.
    I've read a lot of posts stating that people do not eat the calories they have burned through exercise. My exercise of choice is cycling. I live in the mountains so do a lot of climbing, if I don't "fuel my ride" I just can't function.
    I'm interested to hear what others do. Sometimes I might be in the saddle for five or six hours. I have a heart rate monitor and garmin. If my ride says I've burned 1,800 calories for example I might increase my calories for the day by 1,000. Does that sound about right or am I going about this all wrong?
    Thanks x

    You are doing it wrong - if you believe your calorie burn estimate is in the ballpark eat them all.
    Your calorie goal is plus exercise, your deficit comes from the rate of loss you selected.
    (If would sort of work if you selected your weight loss goal as "maintain current weight" - then your exercise is creating your deficit.)

    I'm a long distance cyclist too, the method works very well for people doing variable and sometimes extreme exercise.

    The same calories every day method using TDEE does include exercise calories despite people saying it doesn't!
    But you get an average amount daily rather than variable. That suits people which a more regular exercise, or low calorie burn, exercise routine.

  • BrianSharpe
    BrianSharpe Posts: 9,248 Member
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    Assuming that you've got your activity level set to sedentary and are weighing / measuring / accurately logging your food intake I'd probably be eating back pretty much 100% of the exercise calories. I'm not sure which model of Garmin that you're using but my 920xt is pretty much bang on when I manually calculate calories expended on a long run (using .63 x weight in lbs and distance in miles) and it's pretty conservative on the rides.

    Like you've said, 6 hour rides take fuel.....MFP's basic net calories already have a modest deficit built in.

    BTW kudos on the rides, especially the climbing. It's something I need to spend more time doing.
  • Biker_SuzCO
    Biker_SuzCO Posts: 54 Member
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    Eat! Just don't gorge on burgers and beer, which is why I never lost weight while doing long mountain bike rides with lots of climbing!
  • apullum
    apullum Posts: 4,838 Member
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    Eat your exercise calories, especially if you're confident that your calculation of calories burned is pretty accurate. (You have a heart rate monitor and Garmin, which helps a lot.) . If you're burning 1800 calories, which seems reasonable for a 5+ hour ride, then you really need to refuel your body by eating those back.

    Is eating back 1000 rather than 1800 calories going to hurt you? Remember that if you've set MFP to weight loss/sedentary, then it already builds a calorie deficit into your calorie goals and assumes you do little physical activity. That 800 calories is thus an additional deficit of 800 on top of whatever deficit MFP already created for you. You may wind up feeling ill and/or not getting your macros. But if you have a higher activity level set in MFP, you need to take that into account. (Many people who log exercise separately set MFP to sedentary.)

    Eat within your calorie budget, don't create an unsustainably large deficit, fuel your exercise properly.
  • jaci66
    jaci66 Posts: 139 Member
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    As a rule, I don't eat back exercise calories. I will eat some if I'm actually hungry or have extended myself more than usual. I am in agreement with others here. It's neither right nor wrong. You have to work out what works for you. Keeping track of your numbers will be important in this decision. Keep your log and notes to see where you are each day, especially on your rides. Then you'll be able to adjust accordingly.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
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    aemsley05 wrote: »
    Many people don't eat bakc exercise calories as they are often an inflated estimate - especially if you use the database entries or are trusting a cardio machine with no HR monitor. If you are wearing a monitor and Garmin, you're exercise calorie estimate is likely to be much more accurate. If you are cycling for 5 or 6 hours you should definitely be eating more to fuel up - that's why MFP will add on additional calories to your daily goal when you add exercise/sync your Garmin. You don't need to eat them all back if your goal is to lose weight, but if you don't eat enough you won't perform as well when cycling and will risk burning out.

    If estimates are inflated, this means we should not eat back all calories. What we can know for sure -- it doesn't take 0 calories to exercise. If you never eat exercise calories back, you're essentially assuming you're burning 0 calories and for active people, that's a recipe for hunger, burnout, and fatigue.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
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    Biker_SuzCO wrote: »
    Eat! Just don't gorge on burgers and beer, which is why I never lost weight while doing long mountain bike rides with lots of climbing!

    If you're eating measured portions of burgers and beer and hitting your calorie goals, you'll still lose weight.
  • Montesmom2014
    Montesmom2014 Posts: 4 Member
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    Thank you so much everyone for taking the time and trouble to write such detailed replies. It seems I need to change my settings from moderately active to sedentary and then eat my exercise calories with healthy options. So pleased you all put my mind at rest and thanks once again.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    Montesmom2014 wrote: »
    Thank you so much everyone for taking the time and trouble to write such detailed replies. It seems I need to change my settings from moderately active to sedentary and then eat my exercise calories with healthy options. So pleased you all put my mind at rest and thanks once again.

    Not quite!
    Your activity setting doesn't determine if you eat exercise calories back or not.
    It is independent of exercise and needs to reflect your job and lifestyle. So set sedentary only if you are sedentary.

    For example my son is a builder so clearly he would need a higher activity setting than me (desk job) to reflect the calorie needs of a manual job. But we would both eat back exercise calories.
  • TimothyFish
    TimothyFish Posts: 4,925 Member
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    For me, Garmin tends to be fairly accurate, so yes you are doing it wrong. You should be eating what you burn.
  • Montesmom2014
    Montesmom2014 Posts: 4 Member
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    sijomial wrote: »
    Montesmom2014 wrote: »
    Thank you so much everyone for taking the time and trouble to write such detailed replies. It seems I need to change my settings from moderately active to sedentary and then eat my exercise calories with healthy options. So pleased you all put my mind at rest and thanks once again.

    Not quite!
    Your activity setting doesn't determine if you eat exercise calories back or not.
    It is independent of exercise and needs to reflect your job and lifestyle. So set sedentary only if you are sedentary.

    For example my son is a builder so clearly he would need a higher activity setting than me (desk job) to reflect the calorie needs of a manual job. But we would both eat back exercise calories.

  • Montesmom2014
    Montesmom2014 Posts: 4 Member
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    Thanks. That makes perfect sense.

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