Eating exercise calories.

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  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    belleflop wrote: »
    Ok so eating the exercise calories back would stabilize to the "safe" deficit of 500cal a day specifically for weight loss, not maintenance or gains. So your TDEE essentially changes daily based on what you did that day. That seems exhausting. In the long term is counting calories burned and eating them back to hit that 500 cal deficit a sustainable practice for most, either in weight loss mode or maintenance mode? Also where in the heck is this 1200cal minimum a day thing coming from? 1200 seems awfully low for anyone performing exercise on the regular. Is 1200 calories sustainable for a prolonged time frame? Also fasting is a thing, a lot of people do it, is consuming zero calories a day harmful? The science is still out for prolonged fasting techniques (not eating for 7 plus days) but for short term fasting (ADF,20/4,16/8, etc) there has been shown to be huge benefits both to HGH and a plethora of other health benefits for weight loss.

    Yes to why eat back to reasonable deficit level.

    Yes, your TDEE literally does change daily.
    Hence the reason even on MFP you'll find people using the average weekly TDEE method other sites use. And they don't log their exercise - they already accounted for it.

    1200 is considered minimal safe level for average sedentary woman eating average food to get in all nutrition needed.
    Sadly it seems most want to be average and sedentary because that's all they eat, and want minimal results.
    Yes, I'm sure they have workouts that are way worse then they could have - but they'll never know with nothing to compare to.

    Yep, the IF stuff has some great things behind it - and still eating appropriate amount of calories when done.
  • estherdragonbat
    estherdragonbat Posts: 5,283 Member
    estherdragonbat wrote: »
    MFP calculates your deficit without exercise. When you exercise you increase that deficit, possibly to dangerous levels. It takes energy to fuel your workouts.

    You WANT a 500 calorie deficit to lose 1lb per week 1,000 is really the highest you should go (assuming you're 75lbs or more overweight) unless you've significantly more than 75 to lose. I'm sure someone will chime in with the exact numbers.

    Exercise is for health and fitness. Calorie deficit is for weight.

    And just my n=1: to lose 1lb/week I'm on 1380 calories, meaning I probably maintain on around 900. If I walk for three hours at 3mph, MFP tells me I burned just under 800 calories. If I don't eat some of those back, I'm pretty darned hungry.

    Danged typo. I meant 1900
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,984 Member
    Kind of. I'm more of a banking person. I tend to do my runs in the evening, and my long runs end short before going to bed. I'm not eating more then, but I have more calories over the coming days.
  • scarlett_k
    scarlett_k Posts: 812 Member
    Ive established that mine are accurate enough so yes. Always. All of them.
  • Holly_981
    Holly_981 Posts: 286 Member
    It really is very simple.
    1. Work out your calorie deficit to lose weight. (e.g 1200) Low I know, but a popular number on these forums..
    2. Work out how many calories you're burning, preferably using a heart rate monitor to get a more accurate idea. (e.g 600)
    * Eat 1800
    * 1800 - 600 = 1200 (still at deficit)

    Or you burn 400 calories then you would eat 1600
    * 1600 - 400 = 1200 (deficit)
    As long as you're always back at 1200, you're still at your deficit.

    For a long time, I had my app set to 1200 calories and wouldn't eat my exercise calories. I plateaud for ages and never had any energy. I worked out that some days I would only be functioning on 700 calories or less which is just not sustainable long term.
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