Is it really OK to eat back your workout calories?

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  • a_mil7
    a_mil7 Posts: 4 Member
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    Super good topic. Loved reading everyone’s post!
  • mutantspicy
    mutantspicy Posts: 624 Member
    edited April 2018
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    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    mutantspicy wrote: »
    roadglider48 wrote: »
    I have always found that if I eat all of my exercise calories, I won't lose weight despite my best efforts to accurately determine calories consumed. Past discussions of this issue here indicated that a lot of others found the same results as I have. If I keep it to eating half or less of the exercise calories I will lose weight. The mathematics just don't seem to fit with the biology. I think some of the reasons for this is that in eating more of the exercise calories a person is likely to have consumed more fat calories and/or more sodium resulting in water weight gain. I'm not a dietitian and maybe we could hear from someone who is that might have a better explanation.

    Same for me. I wonder if it has to do with fitness level. Like if you're heart, lungs, muscle are used to working out for years and years. Maybe the calorie burn is a lot less, than for someone who is out of shape. I know they're supposed to take that into account, but I just feel like the numbers for me are highly inflated. On average I burn over 1200 cals a day from steps and workouts, If ate that back I'd get fat quick.

    Actually, the more fit you are, the more calories you're going to burn because you'll actually go further and go harder.

    It also depends on what your exercise is...determining exercise expenditure from things like boot camps or classes or lifting, etc is difficult...figuring out calories for running and walking is very straight forward. I always used my Garmin bike computer calorie burns minus my basal calories when i was doing the MFP method and I ate around 2300 - 2500 calories per day to lose about 1 Lb per week on average. A power meter on a bike is very accurate.

    There are ways of more accurately determining energy expenditure. But really, the problem in most cases is that people are really bad at estimating both calories coming in and out which is why they have issues.

    I agree with you for the most part, I probably wasn't clear. I was referring the way fitness trackers guestimate our expenditure not our actual expenditure. People with more muscle and endurance and more strength do more. No doubt. Just wondering if fitness trackers have a tendency to over estimate for people are in better condition, because even though they use heart rate, there is still a lot mathematical algorithms behind it all.

    For instance my average step count is about 17000 to 25000, and I'll get up to 900 calories for that. That just seems crazy to me. Based on my experience I need 1900 cal a day to lose weight. Not 2800 to 3000, I'm not an NFL player. If I actually put mapmyfitness on it will tell something 450 cal for 4 mile walk. And then give me about the same for 40 mins of intense weight lifting. The weight lifting seems more accurate than the walking to me. But really I think they're both pretty high. And my food diary is on point, btw. Its easy to make errant selection, I constantly audit it, import online recipes I use audit them tweak them. I don't pick stuff thats close enough. MFP is solid. Its the trackers that are off.
  • mutantspicy
    mutantspicy Posts: 624 Member
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    raindawg wrote: »
    Think of it like this. Let's just say at 1280 net calories your deficit is 500 per day resulting in 1lb per week loss (your's may be different but go with me here). You told MFP your goal is 1lb per week (500 deficit per day). MFP took you at your word and is holding you to that goal. No more of a deficit than that, no less of a deficit than that.

    If you eat 1280 calories and exercise during the day you are eating at a deficit greater than 500 calories or greater than your goal. That's not what you told MFP your goal was. You eat your exercise back to keep your deficit right at 500 calories and right at your goal of 1lb per week. MFP is defaulted to losing weight slow and steady (healthy weight loss) vs. a lot in a short time frame (unhealthy).

    Now having said that. The scale will tell you how you are doing. If you are only eating 50% back and still hitting your goal every week, then stick with that, no guilt necessary.

    This right here. If you are currently losing weight at the rate you want using your current calorie intake stick with it. Otherwise make adjustments, those may not be setting new goals but instead making sure your food diary is actually accurate.
  • alltimeburrit0
    alltimeburrit0 Posts: 41 Member
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    I never trust my Apple Watch, phone or machines for how many calories are burnt.
    Short answer: yes it’s fine to eat back your calories. Your recommended calories already take into account deficit for losing weight.
    But
    As it’s not always correct I usually steer away from using them all, usually try and eat back half
  • Sp1tfire
    Sp1tfire Posts: 1,120 Member
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    I always do! If you're nervous about MFP overestimating calories from exercise you log, a lot of folks eat back 50%-75% of them.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,366 Member
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    While losing weight, and for 2+ years of maintaining my weight since, I estimated exercise calories thoughtfully/conservatively, then ate pretty much all of them back. I had no problem losing weight (50+ pounds in just less than a year) doing this, and have maintained a healthy weight since.

    Nonetheless, because others report varied experiences, I suggest eating back 50% of exercise calories to start, then adjusting once you have 4-6 weeks of actual weight loss experience, to keep your actual weight loss rate at a satisfying yet sensible level. People vary.

    Unless you do only a tiny amount of exercise, or are targeting a very slow weight loss rate before considering exercise calories, you risk your health by not eating back any exercise calories, assuming you're using MFP as designed. In particular, doing high amounts of exercise, while targeting a very fast loss rate, is a recipe for problems: Crash and burn, in one form or another.

    Be conservative and value your health and energy level: Eat back at least part of the exercise calories, until you see the results.
  • malibu927
    malibu927 Posts: 17,565 Member
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    OliverRaningerVegan wrote: »
    not ok..

    That’s how the program is set up
  • dmcnur
    dmcnur Posts: 157 Member
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    I generally eat some, but not all, back as I find the calories allocated to an activity seem to be over generous at times.
  • amusedmonkey
    amusedmonkey Posts: 10,330 Member
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    roadglider48 wrote: »
    I don't believe that I am overestimating calorie burn or underestimating calorie intake. ALL of my calorie burn data comes from my Fitbit Charge 2. ALL of my calorie intake comes from religiously weighing/measuring all food and liquids using label data or the MFP database. Not sure what else I could do. I think there are just a lot of inaccuracies in Fitbits, label data and MFP's database. So I would continue to recommend to anybody that over the long haul, don't assume you can eat all of your exercise calories if you want to lose weight. These days there is a strong incentive for food makers to fudge their numbers and little real regulation.

    I downgraded from Charge to Alta because heart rate measurements over-estimated my calorie burn by a lot to where adjusting the calories it gives me to align with my actual loss required ridiculous measures like making myself 4 feet short in Fitbit settings and even then it was inconsistent. Could it be that the way your heart rate responds to things is as overblown as mine? I currently wear my Alta clipped to my bra (wanted to wear a nice watch) and I have myself set as slightly older on Fitbit but at my actual height, and the extra calories I'm getting are on point. I eat every single one of them and lose at my desired rate. You could fiddle with your height and age to adjust the extra calories you get from Fitbit.
  • Xkmaf2018X
    Xkmaf2018X Posts: 97 Member
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    Thanks all for your responses, I think from now on (like yesterday) I’ll just eat 50% of my workout calories that fitbit gives me as eating back 50%-75% seems to be what others do.

    I put I was sendetary because I have an office job, my steps come from the walking to school, work, gym, steps throughout the day etc and I gain steps when I do my gym classes too. My step goal is 8k but I tend to do more like 10k.

    Your responses have been a great read - thanks
  • MeanderingMammal
    MeanderingMammal Posts: 7,866 Member
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    roadglider48 wrote: »
    ALL of my calorie burn data comes from my Fitbit Charge 2.

    Just because it's a piece of technology doesn't mean that the data are correct. If you're using it to measure something that is not designed for then you've got an error.

    Would you use a 12 inch rule to measure the volume of water in a fish tank?

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