Should I eat back exercise calories?

rayraynicole15
rayraynicole15 Posts: 22 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi everyone! I’m kind of confused when it comes to eating back my exercise calories. I’m 5’1 and mfp gave me 1280 cals to lose 1 lb a week. I workout five days a week at a circuit gym similar to Orange Theory. Today I burned 370 cals which would put me at 1,650 if I eat back all my exercise calories is that too many calories? I feel like since I’m short that would be too much.

Replies

  • Talan79
    Talan79 Posts: 782 Member
    MFP is designed to let you eat back exercise calories. You can go with eating back half and see how you do. It gave you 1280 bc 1 pound a week may be aggressive if you don’t have much to lose. I’m also petite, 5”2. I’ve set mine to 1/2 pound a week and it gave me 1450. If I move it to one pound, it cuts it down to 1,200’s.
  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,011 Member
    MFP gives you a lower calorie goal expecting you to log exercise and eat back those calories. As exercise calories can be tough to get right, many of us started eating back at least half oft hem and seeing how it goes over the next 6-8 weeks.

    Also, the more aggressive a weekly goal you choose, the more important it is to eat back more of your exercise calories. If you're set to lose 2 lbs per week but don't have at least 50+ lbs to lose, err on the side of caution and eat back more of your calories. If you chose 0.5lbs per week and you don't have much wiggle room, start with half so you don't accidentally negate your small deficit. Hope that makes sense!
  • RelCanonical
    RelCanonical Posts: 3,882 Member
    1,280 already has the deficit built in, so you if burn more, you need to eat them back. You need to make sure to fuel your workouts. MFP can sometimes overestimate burn, so you could eat back half and then re-evaluate. If you're losing faster than expected, eat back more of your calories. I'm also 5'1'' and I eat back all of them, and continue to lose at the expected rate.
  • runnermom419
    runnermom419 Posts: 366 Member
    Yup, I actually just asked something similar today. And the consensus is that, yes, you should eat back your exercise calories. Your calories already include your deficit for weight loss.
  • musicfan68
    musicfan68 Posts: 1,143 Member
    poisonesse wrote: »
    Every time I attempt to eat back my exercise calories, I gain weight. MFP VASTLY overrates your caloric burn for exercises, so if you do eat back, do so with care!

    This is why most people are told to eat back HALF of the calories, because most calorie burns are overstated.
  • kami3006
    kami3006 Posts: 4,979 Member
    _RidgelineWorkouts_ wrote: »
    musicfan68 wrote: »
    poisonesse wrote: »
    Every time I attempt to eat back my exercise calories, I gain weight. MFP VASTLY overrates your caloric burn for exercises, so if you do eat back, do so with care!

    This is why most people are told to eat back HALF of the calories, because most calorie burns are overstated.

    I'm under the impression there is still no accurate way to measure calories burned from strength training. I've looked and looked online and found nothing. About a year ago I went into a cut and only ate back the calories burned from cardio, because that is more measurable. Lost 9 pounds of muscle in the process :/

    When I started six years ago, I just used MFP’s strength training entry. After six weeks I found it to be pretty accurate for me. I’ve used it since.
    At 5’3”and 124 lbs I still get about 150 calories per hour while following either a strength or hypertrophy program.
  • glassyo
    glassyo Posts: 7,743 Member
    MikePTY wrote: »
    If you really do not want to eat back your exercise calories because you can't wrap your head around the idea, then you should use a TDEE calculator to set your daily calorie goal, since it will account for your exercise level in your daily goal. TDEE has its own issues with estimation in it, but it is certainly better than not eating back your calories at all.

    That's sneaky. :)
  • MikePTY
    MikePTY Posts: 3,814 Member
    glassyo wrote: »
    MikePTY wrote: »
    If you really do not want to eat back your exercise calories because you can't wrap your head around the idea, then you should use a TDEE calculator to set your daily calorie goal, since it will account for your exercise level in your daily goal. TDEE has its own issues with estimation in it, but it is certainly better than not eating back your calories at all.

    That's sneaky. :)

    It's got its pros and cons. I think for beginners, unless they absolutely refuse to eat back exercise calories, that MFP's NEAT method with eating exercise calories back is the best way to do it. Later on, if it suits their goals, they can switch to TDEE.

    I've been doing TDEE for about 4 weeks and have found it to work well for me. But I also train long on my exercise days and am actually less hungry on those days, so it allows me to spread my calories a bit more and eat more on days that I don't workout while keeping my weekly deficit the same. But that's because it fits my specific goals. If you just do moderate exercise, especially on a non consistent schedule, I think MFP is best.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    _RidgelineWorkouts_ wrote: »
    musicfan68 wrote: »
    poisonesse wrote: »
    Every time I attempt to eat back my exercise calories, I gain weight. MFP VASTLY overrates your caloric burn for exercises, so if you do eat back, do so with care!

    This is why most people are told to eat back HALF of the calories, because most calorie burns are overstated.

    I'm under the impression there is still no accurate way to measure calories burned from strength training. I've looked and looked online and found nothing. About a year ago I went into a cut and only ate back the calories burned from cardio, because that is more measurable. Lost 9 pounds of muscle in the process :/

    There are studies that have measured calorie burn in chamber for different types of workouts.
    Those are used to determine the METS in that database.
    Many sites use that METS database - MFP converts it to weight based first. Fitbit for instance keeps as METS and uses your BMR they calculated and use on tracker.

    The entry for Weights is based on those studies - on average it's 1-5 sets and 3-15 reps with 2-4 min pause between doing max effort.
    The differences between those extremes and change in calorie burn is about meaningless, since the calorie burn isn't that high.

    Circuit training is over 15 reps, rests up to 1 min.

    https://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/corrected-mets

    But the database entry is a whole lot more accurate than 0.
  • AvianDB
    AvianDB Posts: 56 Member
    Most sources suck at estimating calories burned, while MFP wants you to eat back exercise calories, keep in mind that the estimates may be off, and don’t eat back too many exercise calories just keep it to a reasonable amount (I don’t eat them back at all). I see a lot of people lose no weight because their exercise calories are badly overestimated and they eat them all.

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