Is it really OK to eat back your workout calories?

TR0berts wrote: »

mutantspicy wrote: »

NorthCascades wrote: »

mutantspicy wrote: »

AnnPT77 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.

cwolfman13 wrote: »

urloved33 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.

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.