Is it really OK to eat back your workout calories?
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NorthCascades wrote: »
IMO, a heart-rate-based device is more likely to underestimate calories for an above-average fit person, and overestimate calories for a very unfit person. Why? Because I suspect the algorithms are pitched to average fitness, and a very fit person will perform work X with a lower than average heart rate (look like they're doing less work), while a very unfit person will spike their heart rate doing the same X work (look like they're doing more work).
I agree with this, unless your HRM also allows you to change your V02Max and max heart rate. The V02max change will balance out the work performed based on level of fitness, though can still be off for both populations, but this would "equal the playing field"
This only makes sense if you know your current VO2max for the activity in question. And even then it'll leave you with a giant margin of error.
True, but still better than an HRM that doesn't allow you to change that input, which is all I was getting at. I noted that the estimates would still be off, but that would equal the error for unfit and fit individuals1 -
IMO, a heart-rate-based device is more likely to underestimate calories for an above-average fit person, and overestimate calories for a very unfit person. Why? Because I suspect the algorithms are pitched to average fitness, and a very fit person will perform work X with a lower than average heart rate (look like they're doing less work), while a very unfit person will spike their heart rate doing the same X work (look like they're doing more work).
I agree with this, unless your HRM also allows you to change your V02Max and max heart rate. The V02max change will balance out the work performed based on level of fitness, though can still be off for both populations, but this would "equal the playing field"
Actual max or VO2Max in the algorithm helps, but doesn't fully level the field, IMO. Other adaptations (muscularity, say) are also going to affect exertion level (thus HR) for at least some activities of the same actual calorie expenditure, I would think.
I have rowing in mind, because it's what I'm most familiar with. When training consistently, my HR becomes lower for any given pace/distance/time combo, so my HRM thinks I burn fewer calories (rowing machine thinks otherwise
).
I suspect V02 max improvement doesn't explain all of this difference over the short run; I suspect other adaptations also play in. But I can't prove it.
Over the longer run, I suspect muscularity improvement would make a significant difference in what I could do at the same HR, if only I weren't so lazy about lifting. I know it would improve my race pace!
Given the inherent errors in HR as a proxy for calorie burn, that "other adaptations" thing starts to be a minor consideration in numeric terms, of course. Lacking better estimates, I use HRM calorie estimates for some actuvities, but I view them with some skepticism. I bought the thing for training purposes . . . RPE would likely work as well, but I'm a data geek. 0 -
MeanderingMammal wrote: »mutantspicy wrote: »MeanderingMammal wrote: »mutantspicy wrote: »MeanderingMammal wrote: »mutantspicy wrote: »mutantspicy wrote: »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.
Any of the devices are estimating. Work, in pretty much the physics sense of the term, determines calorie burn. The devices use algorithms based on formulas from research, plus various proxy measures (heart rate, distance, speed, body weight, etc.) to estimate work and therefore calories.
IMO, a heart-rate-based device is more likely to underestimate calories for an above-average fit person, and overestimate calories for a very unfit person. Why? Because I suspect the algorithms are pitched to average fitness, and a very fit person will perform work X with a lower than average heart rate (look like they're doing less work), while a very unfit person will spike their heart rate doing the same X work (look like they're doing more work).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.
...aren't calories are a thermal unit from heat released due to internal energy expenditure. If you . very helpful
No. A calorie is just a unit of energy. It's quantified against a thermal energy benchmark, but it's an extensible metric.
The issue in this area is how does one measure work in a meaningful way. For running and walking it's really easy; distance and mass. For cycling and rowing, measure power output and extrapolate from there.
If your using the wrong tool to measure something then errors are inevitable.
I think we are talking about two different things. Some of the Algorithms are just converting how many estimated calories it would take to do a certain amount of physical work (Joules) this can be expressed in Cals. however, Cal are the also the amount of internal thermal energy to burn off a certain amount of water or fat. This is whole theory behind MET/BMR. HRM calorie trackers are attempting estimate your change in temporary metabolic rate due to exercise (heart rate) as where other ones are just estimating the amount of work that needs to be done. And some try to combine the two with some complex math.
I don't think we are talking about different things, but I think we're approaching it from slightly different directions.
Tracking devices measure one thing, and extrapolate an estimation of energy expended based on that. If one understands how the metric measured relates to energy consumed then one can account for potential error.
HR is one of a number of metrics that can be tracked, but it's not a particularly good proxy for energy consumption. Too many things affect it.
More sophisticated devices do use HR data to corroborate other data, leading to a better approximation. I would agree that the maths is complex. One of my Master's degrees is in control systems.
Just to clarify, my issue it seems is that some of you seem to be directly correlating Calories to Physical Work.
That's not real. The Physical work required to lift an 80 lb weight 4 ft off the ground, can be easily calculated without error or question. The amount of thermal energy a human needs to expend to do the work is where the complication begins. So when someone says, it takes so many calories to walk a mile, that's based on empirical data for an average human not physics.
But I will agree HR data by itself is not the best way to estimate calories, which is kinda what I've been trying to say. Just not so succinctly. Anyway, Its an interesting topic.
It sounds as if you're on about efficiency coefficients?
The materiality isn't significant enough to worry about. For example running consumes about twice the energy of walking. The fact that as an experienced runner my efficiency coefficients may be 0.5999, whereas someone else might be 0.6002 isn't going to make a material enough difference to worry about.
And fwiw a calorie is merely a unit of energy, a measure of work done. It doesn't gain some special property when we use it to describe the conversion of chemical energy to thermal and kinetic energy.
Well all energy can be described in joules. But chemical vs thermal vs kinetic are completely different mechanisms.
Calorie is a very specific term used to describe the amount thermal energy required to raise 1 gallon of water 1 degree If I remember correctly. Its very specifically a thermal unit. So we'll just have to agree to disagree. Sure we can compare because all energy ultimately can be expressed in Joules, however, the conversion factors between the chemical and thermal energy in the body and kinetic out put is not hard science. Its based largely on empirical data not that that is bad thing. Statistical data is usually ok, most of us are more average than we care to admit. 1 -
NorthCascades wrote: »
IMO, a heart-rate-based device is more likely to underestimate calories for an above-average fit person, and overestimate calories for a very unfit person. Why? Because I suspect the algorithms are pitched to average fitness, and a very fit person will perform work X with a lower than average heart rate (look like they're doing less work), while a very unfit person will spike their heart rate doing the same X work (look like they're doing more work).
I agree with this, unless your HRM also allows you to change your V02Max and max heart rate. The V02max change will balance out the work performed based on level of fitness, though can still be off for both populations, but this would "equal the playing field"
This only makes sense if you know your current VO2max for the activity in question. And even then it'll leave you with a giant margin of error.
That's not to mention that these trackers are tracking heart rate 24/7. I tend to get large spikes of heart rate after coffee so my tracker used to think I was doing something labor intensive when I tidied up around the house after drinking coffee. I also play video games and some moments can send my heart rate right up. That's why I ditched 24/7 heart rate tracking all together and use my heart rate chest strap for actual exercise to keep in my desired heart rate zones.4 -
mutantspicy wrote: »Calorie is a very specific term used to describe the amount thermal energy required to raise 1 gallon of water 1 degree If I remember correctly.
The amount of energy to generate an effect expressed in those terms. You could generate that effect through different inputs.0 -
No it is not. Only if you are trying to gain.
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LodiLooWho64 wrote: »No it is not. Only if you are trying to gain.
False.4 -
LodiLooWho64 wrote: »No it is not. Only if you are trying to gain.
Oh?0 -
Wut?
0 -
On the side, I'm LMAO. My S Health steps finally decided to start syncing again today. Currently at 8856, it says my shealth make up calories are 1454.
Seriously that's a new all time record of nonsense. Obviously that's different type of miscalculation than we've been discussing, but seriously that's cra - cra. I don't what happened there. 0 -
LodiLooWho64 wrote: »No it is not. Only if you are trying to gain.
So you didn’t read the thread? What are you basing your blanket statement on? Are those of us who lost weight and kept it off, following the MFP method based on NEAT and eating back exercise calories - somehow actually gaining weight and we didn’t realize it?4 -
Personally, I try not to eat back all of them. If I happen to dip into them then so be it, no biggie0
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When I started on here I was 290lb and chose a smaller rate of loss, said I was sedentary (which I most definitely was at the time) and linked my fitbit to my account. I kept my setting as sedentary the whole way through my loss and ate back the majority of my Calories (not always the same day). As I've got fitter and lighter the number of Calories I'm burning doing everyday activities has gone down and the same with most exercise, despite being able to work hard enough to get my hr up much higher I'm burning fewer Calories during a class, but I can also work hard for much longer.
Anyway I've found the fitbit pretty accurate throughout my 142lb weight loss and 6 months of maintenance, it seems to have adjusted well to my lower weight and steadily increasing fitness level.4 -
I DON'T believe that the Fitbit is accurate on calorie burn. That is the whole point of what I have been posting. We can debate the science all day to explain the reasons for the inaccuracies. The value, I believe, is having some estimate of burn and intake that a person can use to make decisions on both based on experience. But because of the inaccuracies in both burn and intake despite best efforts is EXACTLY why my finding and recommendatio remains - don't eat all of your exercise calories if you want to lose weight. I lost 65 pounds about four years ago and have maintained it by not eating more than a third to a half of exercise calories. And not eating any of your exercise calories some days ( depending on how long and intense the exercise was ) won't kill you. I have days like that and I'm still here.2
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roadglider48 wrote: »I DON'T believe that the Fitbit is accurate on calorie burn. That is the whole point of what I have been posting. We can debate the science all day to explain the reasons for the inaccuracies. The value, I believe, is having some estimate of burn and intake that a person can use to make decisions on both based on experience. But because of the inaccuracies in both burn and intake despite best efforts is EXACTLY why my finding and recommendatio remains - don't eat all of your exercise calories if you want to lose weight. I lost 65 pounds about four years ago and have maintained it by not eating more than a third to a half of exercise calories. And not eating any of your exercise calories some days ( depending on how long and intense the exercise was ) won't kill you. I have days like that and I'm still here.
Ate 100% of mine, lost weight at desired rate of loss and have maintained fairly effortlessly for the last several years.
My findings and recommendations stand as well - each individual should determine for themselves how accurate the device, their own logging, and their adherence to the recommendations are - monitor and adjust accordingly.
But to suggest that they are wrong for everyone and that no one should eat back the full amount is just as unhelpful as telling someone that they should trust it implicitly with no monitoring and adjustment of their own.9 -
mutantspicy wrote: »mutantspicy wrote: »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.
Any of the devices are estimating. Work, in pretty much the physics sense of the term, determines calorie burn. The devices use algorithms based on formulas from research, plus various proxy measures (heart rate, distance, speed, body weight, etc.) to estimate work and therefore calories.
IMO, a heart-rate-based device is more likely to underestimate calories for an above-average fit person, and overestimate calories for a very unfit person. Why? Because I suspect the algorithms are pitched to average fitness, and a very fit person will perform work X with a lower than average heart rate (look like they're doing less work), while a very unfit person will spike their heart rate doing the same X work (look like they're doing more work).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.
You are thinking of work from an external physics standpoint, which is of course how the standards are set. You're not wrong. But aren't calories are a thermal unit from heat released due to internal energy expenditure. If you take my meaning, the out of shape guy is a lot hotter than the standard MET number, and the in shape guy can be varying degrees lower. Work in physical Joules does not take into account mechanical advantage, muscle efficiency, etc. of the human who is burning the thermal energy (Cals) to get it done. 1 guy can grab a 20, another a 40, another a 60 and all burn the same amount of energy because of their differing strength.
Also. Just because someone is fit, doesn't mean they can't get their heart rate up in the same workout. I can get mine up to 195 from a simple warm up to max weight dead lifts in just a few minutes. And yet my thermal load isn't going to be as high as someone who is out of shape even if he is doing less, because I'm used to doing it. At least that's the way I'm thinking about it.
Think of it like this if you are used working out at high intensity regularly you can have a super high heart rate and not get as fatigued and hot as you did when say first starting the routine. And you maybe even had a lower heart rate the first time thru and got a lower number, but you actually spent more because you almost had heat stroke. Isn't this why we are always changing up our routines? Its why I change up my routines.
There is an actual fitness tracker that is really new and not connected to anything yet, called the matrix power watch. It uses body heat to generate electric current to power itself so it doesn't need a charge, but it also uses this same tech to calculate calorie expenditure. I've been curious about it since its announcement. But its not ready for market in my opinion, but they're selling them.
Long story short fitness trackers I don't trust em. But>>>> If you realize its fake news. You can still accept that you have data. If you stick with one you have relative kCal data, and heart rate info on your workouts. You can review your trends. very helpful
Does the same person, at the same weight and fitness level, burn more calories running a mile in July than in December? Does laying down in a sauna burn more calories than skiing uphill at race pace?4 -
it all just depends on your goals. of course you are going to need to replenish at least some of those burned calories0
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NorthCascades wrote: »mutantspicy wrote: »mutantspicy wrote: »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.
Any of the devices are estimating. Work, in pretty much the physics sense of the term, determines calorie burn. The devices use algorithms based on formulas from research, plus various proxy measures (heart rate, distance, speed, body weight, etc.) to estimate work and therefore calories.
IMO, a heart-rate-based device is more likely to underestimate calories for an above-average fit person, and overestimate calories for a very unfit person. Why? Because I suspect the algorithms are pitched to average fitness, and a very fit person will perform work X with a lower than average heart rate (look like they're doing less work), while a very unfit person will spike their heart rate doing the same X work (look like they're doing more work).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.
You are thinking of work from an external physics standpoint, which is of course how the standards are set. You're not wrong. But aren't calories are a thermal unit from heat released due to internal energy expenditure. If you take my meaning, the out of shape guy is a lot hotter than the standard MET number, and the in shape guy can be varying degrees lower. Work in physical Joules does not take into account mechanical advantage, muscle efficiency, etc. of the human who is burning the thermal energy (Cals) to get it done. 1 guy can grab a 20, another a 40, another a 60 and all burn the same amount of energy because of their differing strength.
Also. Just because someone is fit, doesn't mean they can't get their heart rate up in the same workout. I can get mine up to 195 from a simple warm up to max weight dead lifts in just a few minutes. And yet my thermal load isn't going to be as high as someone who is out of shape even if he is doing less, because I'm used to doing it. At least that's the way I'm thinking about it.
Think of it like this if you are used working out at high intensity regularly you can have a super high heart rate and not get as fatigued and hot as you did when say first starting the routine. And you maybe even had a lower heart rate the first time thru and got a lower number, but you actually spent more because you almost had heat stroke. Isn't this why we are always changing up our routines? Its why I change up my routines.
There is an actual fitness tracker that is really new and not connected to anything yet, called the matrix power watch. It uses body heat to generate electric current to power itself so it doesn't need a charge, but it also uses this same tech to calculate calorie expenditure. I've been curious about it since its announcement. But its not ready for market in my opinion, but they're selling them.
Long story short fitness trackers I don't trust em. But>>>> If you realize its fake news. You can still accept that you have data. If you stick with one you have relative kCal data, and heart rate info on your workouts. You can review your trends. very helpful
Does the same person, at the same weight and fitness level, burn more calories running a mile in July than in December? Does laying down in a sauna burn more calories than skiing uphill at race pace?
Actually the person will burn more calories in both December and July. Its scientific fact that human have higher BMR's at extreme temperature both high and low. You guys keep focusing on the external. Calories are internal energy expenditure. Your body has to work harder at both high and low temps and therefore your calorie expenditure is higher in both cases. Workout Cal are calorific equivalents of expenditure need to do work, not calories., Food Calories are Calorific equivalents of energy stores for your body, not calories. Calories are inside not outside.4 -
And again work defined outside the body does not always equal energy expenditure within the body. Its not that complicated. The big mac you ate doesn't care if you ran 7 or 10 miles, it cares if you raised your MET enough to burn it off.1
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mutantspicy wrote: »And again work defined outside the body does not always equal energy expenditure within the body. Its not that complicated. The big mac you ate doesn't care if you ran 7 or 10 miles, it cares if you raised your MET enough to burn it off.
I assume that you're using MET in this instance to mean the amount of energy burned at rest? Rather than Metabolic Equivalent Table?
You do appreciate that activity doesn't raise that? It's the activity itself that consumes energy, converting stored chemical energy.1
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