Eating back exercise calories

meggy83
meggy83 Posts: 1 Member
edited November 2024 in Fitness and Exercise
I know that to lose weight I need to stay in a calorie deficit. I workout a lot and do hard workouts, in heavy workout days I can burn up to 1000 according to my heart rate monitor. Taking into account that my heart monitor is 100% accurate how many of the calories should I eat back on my 1000 calories burned days? How does everyone decide this?

Replies

  • JaydedMiss
    JaydedMiss Posts: 4,286 Member
    edited April 2018
    no heart rate monitor is 100% accurate, Especially for calorie burns. But if it were and you were doing MFP method youd eat them all. most people go 1/2 to 3/4 to account for how off they are and still get a slightly lower deficit healthily
  • stanmann571
    stanmann571 Posts: 5,726 Member
    meggy83 wrote: »
    I know that to lose weight I need to stay in a calorie deficit. I workout a lot and do hard workouts, in heavy workout days I can burn up to 1000 according to my heart rate monitor. Taking into account that my heart monitor is 100% accurate how many of the calories should I eat back on my 1000 calories burned days? How does everyone decide this?

    Ok, The accuracy of the HRM has NOTHING to do with the relative accuracy of the HRM software's calorie estimation algorithm.

    Without knowing what sort of activity you're doing it's difficult to determine how close to accurate the estimate is.

    So.

    What are you doing?
    How long?
    and
    Who are you? Height, weight, gender, etc
  • rj0150684
    rj0150684 Posts: 227 Member
    I think you meant to say “isn’t 100% accurate”. Assuming that, I just eat back a quarter or so if I’m hungry. Mine says I burn over 4K/day (total, not just from activity), and I don’t believe it. My goal (without exercise, from MFP) is 1960. I usually end up around 2500. Progress so far has been good.
  • Jruzer
    Jruzer Posts: 3,502 Member
    Assuming that:
    - You've set up your profile correctly, with appropriate activity level, height, weight, etc.,
    and
    - Your HRM is accurately measuring heart rate,
    and
    - The HRM's algorithm for determining caloric burn is correct (questionable),
    and
    - You're using the HRM only to determine calorie burns from steady-state cardio, not from weight lifting or HIIT,
    then
    You should eat all of your exercise calories.

    The reason that people recommend eating half, of 2/3, or whatever, is that these assumptions are often violated.

    1000 calories is a lot and probably represents two hours of continuous, high intensity exercise, or several hours of lower intensity exercise. Is that what you're doing?
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,808 Member
    If you have burned 1000 cals in exercise yes you should eat them back to keep your calorie deficit on target but....

    What precisely are these hard workouts and for what duration?
    How does everyone decide this?
    The theory and method is fine but you need to put some effort into making your estimates if not accurate then at least reasonable.
    That means using suitable tools for the particular exercise and HRMs (especially the basic) ones have a limited range of exercises that they may be reasonable for.
    Verifying at least some of your HRM estimates against more accurate methods at least lets you know if yours are in the realms of believable.

    My most accurate burns are from indoor biking on a power meter equipped trainer. That gives me a very good idea of what I'm capable of.
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