Is it really OK to eat back your workout calories?
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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.
The so-called external work is the overwhelmingly greater component in where the energy goes. Internal biochemical activity is triggered to fuel the work. A small amount of energy is lost in the process, in the form of things like body heat.mutantspicy wrote: »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.
The actual number of calories I burn rowing distance X at pace Y is approximately the same whether air temperature is 32F, 62F, or 92F, though my HRM will tend to give me noticeably (slightly) different calorie estimates at 32 vs. 92.
Calories aren't anywhere, not inside, outside, in the food, in the body. They're a concept, a way of measuring energy. There aren't different kinds of calories any more than there are different kinds of inches.4 -
WinoGelato wrote: »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.
It's not rocket science folks. There's no absolute rule that apply's to everyone. WinoGelato pretty much nails it. The scale will tell you what to do. If you are eating back all your exercise and not losing then adjust and only eat back 50%. If that doesn't get it moving, then eat back less. If the scale is dropping faster than your goal then eat back 100% of your exercise or whatever you need to hit your goal. In other words, if what you are doing now isn't working then adjust until it works. Everyone is different.8 -
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.
The so-called external work is the overwhelmingly greater component in where the energy goes. Internal biochemical activity is triggered to fuel the work. A small amount of energy is lost in the process, in the form of things like body heat.mutantspicy wrote: »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.
The actual number of calories I burn rowing distance X at pace Y is approximately the same whether air temperature is 32F, 62F, or 92F, though my HRM will tend to give me noticeably (slightly) different calorie estimates at 32 vs. 92.
Calories aren't anywhere, not inside, outside, in the food, in the body. They're a concept, a way of measuring energy. There aren't different kinds of calories any more than there are different kinds of inches.
If you believe that than we have nothing more to discuss8 -
MeanderingMammal wrote: »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.
Absolutely incorrect. You should understand that the MET table is Just a fudge factor trying to describe how hot your body is burning from rest to high level activities. MET table is for laymen, there is an MET equation that is more accurate, describes how your metabolic rate increase with exercise. And finally absolutely NO.. the activity is the activity, its your body that burns energy.8 -
On the side, I'm completely alarmed how many of you so called fitness enthusiasts don't understand the difference between physical work and actual human energy expenditure. I'm floored at level of willing blindness.11
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mutantspicy wrote: »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.
You misunderstand what a calorie is. It's a unit of energy and not just a unit of thermal energy.
Funny that you mention joules as you do realise you can convert from one to the other?
As you seem to disbelieve every knowledgeable user on here then you maybe will trust the "Univerity of Google" - try the search strings convert calories to joules or alternatively convert joules to calories.2 -
mutantspicy wrote: »On the side, I'm completely alarmed how many of you so called fitness enthusiasts don't understand the difference between physical work and actual human energy expenditure. I'm floored at level of willing blindness.
I shared this thread with my partner, who has a PhD in Biochemistry. After the laughter stopped, I'll leave you to conclude the expletives used.3 -
I don't eat back my exercise calories. I have a different work schedule than most people though. I work 3 days a week which I am very active and 4 days where I do not work and am sedentary with the exception of one workout and maybe a short walk or yoga. So I set myfitness pal to active. The 3 days I work I will walk 20 to 30 miles. Work days I will eat 300 to 600 more calories than the days that that I am at home. Doing this has kept me losing 2lbs a week for the last few weeks. In a few more weeks I'll readjust to lose 1.5lbs a week and so on. This week according to the data from my calorie count and exercise I should've lost 3lbs. I have not lost that much so I know that the calorie burn is not accurate. The calorie intake is as accurate as I can get based on the data base. I weigh almost everything with the exception of green leafy vegetables and a few packaged items.0
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I eat back about 250 calories of what I burn.0
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mutantspicy wrote: »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?
...Calories are internal energy expenditure...
No, that's incorrect. Calories are technically measurements of heat energy - not internal energy. There are subtle, yet important distinctions between the two - the largest that Calories are not necessarily internal to a unit. Of course, while they are technically heat energy, it is acceptable - although not always/often useful - to use Calories/calories as units of work energy.
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mutantspicy wrote: »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?
...Calories are internal energy expenditure...
No, that's incorrect. Calories are technically measurements of heat energy - not internal energy. There are subtle, yet important distinctions between the two - the largest that Calories are not necessarily internal to a unit. Of course, while they are technically heat energy, it is acceptable - although not always/often useful - to use Calories/calories as units of work energy.
I agree. I had mentioned that cals are thermal energy that can be compared to other units of energy kinetic and stored, via calorific equivalents. But whatever.0 -
I had my activity set to sedentary, I changed it to lightly active. That increased my calories to 1590 from 1390. I get about 10k exercise steps per day and then an extra 5K from regular life stuff. I was sometimes eating my exercise calories but was trying not to. I switched it so that I would eat at least 200 extra calories, which would be half approx of my exercise calories. It doesn't make me feel guilty because I don't exceed my number. It's just a mental game for me. I just started this so I have yet to see if it will aid me in my weight loss or hinder it. (5'6, 179).0
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I always eat back all of my exercise calories according to MFP. It has worked for me.1
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I had my activity set to sedentary, I changed it to lightly active. That increased my calories to 1590 from 1390. I get about 10k exercise steps per day and then an extra 5K from regular life stuff. I was sometimes eating my exercise calories but was trying not to. I switched it so that I would eat at least 200 extra calories, which would be half approx of my exercise calories. It doesn't make me feel guilty because I don't exceed my number. It's just a mental game for me. I just started this so I have yet to see if it will aid me in my weight loss or hinder it. (5'6, 179).
I get around 10-12k steps a day too, but I'm still set at sedentary. I did have it at lightly active at one stage, but because my activity pretty much ceases at 6pm, and I'm in bed at around 9, I was losing a lot of calories between 6pm and midnight, which pretty negated the extra calories i was given from bumping up my activity level.0 -
cwolfman13 wrote: »I find this mind boggeling too and always feel id do better in my weight loss journey if I did not eat my exercise cals back...but I always do. im hungry.
I don't understand how people find this mind boggling. It's just math.
If I don't exercise and my maintenance calories are 2400, I will lose 1 Lb per week eating 1900 calories. If I start exercising, my maintenance calories are going to go up and I can lose the same 1 Lb per week eating more.
I think it's "mind-boggling" because people think if they've done a work out, they might as well take advantage of that calorie burn, and that they're defeating the purpose of the workout if they eat them back. It's just a different mentality, pretty much using TDEE. It's what I always thought when I read about people eating back their exercise calories, but at that point I didn't know about the NEAT method that mfp uses, in which you already have a deficit built into your calorie allowance.
Once I switched to the mfp method, I actually like it better, because it encourages me to work out for extra calories to eat!2 -
I also like the NEAT method. My activity is not the same each day and I feel it makes me more accountable. I can see how this would be difficult if you are cooking for more than one person. I don't have any problems eating different calorie amounts every day but it's just me.0
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Xkmaf2018X wrote: »@WinoGelato
Thanks for your response, I'm pretty similar to you when you first started your MFP journey, I am 155lbs and 5ft3inches....I am going to stop feeling so bad at eating some of my workout calories back. I put sedentary as I thought that was the norm for people with an office job, I didn't realise it took into account your actual steps etc and like I mentioned I get in around 10k steps per day.
For now I am going to stick with the 1200 but eat 50% of my workout calories back if I want them and see how I get on.
FWIW, I am certainly not sedentary, but I put sedentary as my activity level, and then I add back calories for every single activity that I do. For instance, at sedentary, I assume zero to 2000 steps taken as my base. If my pedometer shows I've done 10,000 steps for the day, I give myself 150 cal. If I did 20,000 steps, I get 300 cal. This works out to about half of what my pedometer calculates my calorie burn would be. If I actually do a workout, which for me is usually running, I'll add back half of what my app tells me I burned, logging it as a separate exercise from my pedometer steps.
This works for me because I know that even if I don't workout or get many steps on any particular day, I'm still contributing to my weight loss every day because my calorie allowance has the deficit built in. That way, any exercise I do is "extra", and I get to eat more. I used to just have a calorie allowance that was 200-300 cal higher, but I didn't add back any workout calories. But then I had to make sure I forced myself to workout several times a week, without the motivation of gaining extra calories. Also, I think my older method was less accurate, because my workouts could vary each week and I wasn't taking that into account in my set daily calorie allowance.
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neugebauer52 wrote: »Every person loses weight differently. I decided to be "clever" and not increase my daily calories level with 3 to 4 hours gym work outs 5 to 6 days a week. Result: the mother of all plateaus for a long time - and 3 years later I am back where I have started. I have learned my lesson...
Can you explain a little more about what you mean? You are linking not eating exercise cals with a plateau and re-gain. Can you tell me how this is linked?0 -
i do NOT eat back my calories. i also find that MFP system of giving me calories/macros was innacurate for me. i got macros from IIFYM and even when i did them manually it was pretty much the same so i go off of that. now setting them up in MFP being that i dont have premium took some finagling but i got it to work. i dont eat back my calories but i do enjoy a cheat meal weekly and do have some treats every now and then and i dont feel bad about it :-)0
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