Ultimate Accountability Challenge July 2019

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  • kilobykilo
    kilobykilo Posts: 800 Member
    I've planned my week and really hope I can do this!

    Generally, do people eat back their exercise cals?

    I'm quite active and recently had my activity level at active. But, I do have lazy days, so, I've dropped my activity level down to reduce my cals. This is fairer on less active days and think I'll go with eating back half my exercise calories to ensure I maintain a deficit.
  • evangsimmons170
    evangsimmons170 Posts: 1,188 Member
    edited June 2019
    Hi. I'm Rhonda. I'm 50 and live in Texas. I'm new to this challenge, and I'm looking forward to it, as well as interacting with all of you. I think the accountability piece is my missing link. Does this month's challenge actually start today, June 30th or tomorrow, July 1st? I'm asking because the other challenges I'm in all started their July challenges today, June 30th.

    Wishing us all the best this month! We got this!

    ******Never mind about my question regarding the start date. I found the daily "sign in" pages. :smile:
  • ShareASmile
    ShareASmile Posts: 195 Member
    Hello everyone! I am Cathy from St. Louis, MO. I'm 53 years old, married 29 years and have a son in Philadelphia and a daughter in Memphis. I joined this group in May, did pretty well and then didn't check in much in June due to a week of vacation that just threw me off schedule. I'm trying to lose 10 lbs and having a really hard time! After going from basically no exercise to walking at least 20 minutes almost every day in May and really watching my calories, I ended up gaining weight! 😐 I'm frustrated but thrilled to be back and love the support and positivity of this wonderful group!!!!
  • goldthistime
    goldthistime Posts: 3,213 Member
    kilobykilo wrote: »
    I've planned my week and really hope I can do this!

    Generally, do people eat back their exercise cals?

    I'm quite active and recently had my activity level at active. But, I do have lazy days, so, I've dropped my activity level down to reduce my cals. This is fairer on less active days and think I'll go with eating back half my exercise calories to ensure I maintain a deficit.

    I eat back my exercise calories when I’m hungry. I would do whatever feels right for you.

  • evangsimmons170
    evangsimmons170 Posts: 1,188 Member
    Lliggy wrote: »
    Hi, I'm Lisa. I'm from Huntington Beach California. I'm 60 years old and happy to join this group. I will have a bit of a challenge this month - my son & daughter-in-law are expecting, so my husband & I are driving to Georgia to see them and help. Being away from home makes it a bit more difficult to stay on track, but I will try to check-in daily.

    Welcome, @Lliggy and congrats on the new grandbaby! Enjoy the journey. :smiley:
  • kilobykilo
    kilobykilo Posts: 800 Member
    @goldthistime thanks! And, for the purpose of this challenge you say you're under if you're within your exercise cals, right?
  • goldthistime
    goldthistime Posts: 3,213 Member
    kilobykilo wrote: »
    @goldthistime thanks! And, for the purpose of this challenge you say you're under if you're within your exercise cals, right?

    Right.

  • Ketch_22
    Ketch_22 Posts: 12,711 Member
    goldthistime wrote: »
    kilobykilo wrote: »
    @goldthistime thanks! And, for the purpose of this challenge you say you're under if you're within your exercise cals, right?

    Right.

    Just my 2 cents...
    I think "staying within your calorie budget" is going to be personal to everyone. It is the calorie amount you have allotted for yourself. Some will include exercise calories some will not. Some will consider a yes when they burn 2000 calories and eat 1999, while others will take a pass if they burn 2000 and eat 1300. It's personal for your journey.
  • lalabank
    lalabank Posts: 1,009 Member
    @kilobykilo @goldthistime @Ketch_22

    You make your decision ahead of time if you are going to eat back calories or not and stick to it. It’s up to you to decide what you need.
    I personally do not eat back exercise because I am actively losing. I do have a rule if I do over an hour of intense, purposeful cardio (I.e. an hour of boot camp followed by an hour of kickboxing) I will eat back maybe 1/3 of the calories because my body needs extra fuel.
    My golden rule is I eat to fuel my workouts because I love the way exercise makes me feel. I do not exercise to eat more because I love the way food makes me feel.
    Most of my life was focused on the joy of food but someone here at the UAC passed along the above wisdom and it really clicked for me.
  • ConfidentRaven
    ConfidentRaven Posts: 1,428 Member
    kilobykilo wrote: »
    I've planned my week and really hope I can do this!

    Generally, do people eat back their exercise cals?

    I'm quite active and recently had my activity level at active. But, I do have lazy days, so, I've dropped my activity level down to reduce my cals. This is fairer on less active days and think I'll go with eating back half my exercise calories to ensure I maintain a deficit.

    I only eat half of mine back and even then it’s only if I’m actually hungry. I will drink water or find an activity before I dip into those calories because I know that I will eat out of boredom.
  • goldthistime
    goldthistime Posts: 3,213 Member
    I agree with above posts. I answered too briefly, you all did a much better job. @kilobykilo I should have said earlier that the phrase “for the purpose of this challenge” gave me pause. I don’t change any of my own rules specifically for this challenge. One of the things I adore about this challenge is that there is really no penalty for not making it to the Winners Circle. You still post and give and receive support. That and the fact that you get three pass days, to me, is perfect.

    To me, that the best way to use this challenge is to honestly/realistically acknowledge how you’re doing each day rather than worrying about making it to the Winners Circle.

    Having said that, it still provides gentle impetus for me. I’ve used this challenge on several occasions as a reason to slip away from my family to sneak in 20-30 minutes of exercise rather than use a pass day. Same thing for when I haven’t been feeling my best. Rather than doing nothing, which would probably have been my choice otherwise, I look for a light activity to do for 20 minutes. Something psychologically beneficial about sticking to this, probably physically too.

    There now, I’ve gone from being too brief to being too wordy. :neutral: Oh well.
  • kilobykilo
    kilobykilo Posts: 800 Member
    Thank you all so much for your thoughts! I am still learning about calorie counting and really really want to make it work forever..... so for this month I am going to work hard to stay within my cal budget 7 days a week up to and including half of my cals from exercise, when needed or wanted.

    If at the end of the month that has been doable on the whole, I will make it my new normal, I hope!

    This month I hope to get a big loss also as August is a month off and means skimpy clothes and wanting to feel as good as I can about myself. But, I want to use it to find a way of working with calorie counting that can work for me long term, too.

    Reading different answers really helped with that and how I can fit my choices into the challenge and not the other way around, thank you!
  • w8goal4life
    w8goal4life Posts: 1,375 Member
    @kilobykilo @goldthistime @Ketch_22 @ConfidentRaven Perhaps one perspective is that one should eat to live, and not live to eat. I have to confess, though...I am not as diligent about not eating back those exercise calories. Given I have been in maintenance for an extended period of time, I have no guilt for eating back exercise calories. My rule of thumb is to deny myself nothing, but eat amounts that will stay within my daily caloric allowances.
  • jan110144
    jan110144 Posts: 1,281 Member
    I am currently in maintenance. But in the active losing phase (and now) I always have eaten at least a part of my exercise calories. I am very active and if I don't eat some of the exercise calories, I would often be at a 500 - 800 calorie deficit. That amount of deficit, if continued for several days, has inevitably led to binging behavior for me.

    I don't have a magic formula, but try very hard to make sure that I am not undereating. Part of what has helped is that I know if I should go beyond my stated maintenance weight range, I can pretty quickly lose the pound or two by going back to the eating program I used to lose the weight in the first place (which is really not all that different from what I do in maintenance ... just fewer calories).
  • evangsimmons170
    evangsimmons170 Posts: 1,188 Member
    OK if I may add my 2 cents to the mix. I currently have a 2,000 calorie budget every day. (My weight loss journey is long so I'll lower the calories later. I think I started out at 2,500 calories last fall.) Anyway, what I've been focusing on the most is how big of a calorie deficit I can create each day (burn more than I eat). I've learned that to lose 1 pound, you have to burn 3,500 calories. So each day I'm looking for a 500 calorie deficit on MFP; doing so is a strong predictor of what my weekly weigh-in should look like. The only way I've been able to accomplish that level of deficit is to exercise, which helps my arthritis tremendously, by the way. Even staying within my 2,000 calorie budget does not give me a 500 calorie deficit if I don't add the exercise piece to it. Now that that's been my focus, I've been creating a larger deficit some days; I'm working my way up to a 1,000 calorie deficit several times a week. Again, for me, there's no way around exercising if I'm going to do that. This has helped me on days when I've eaten over 2,000 calories. I immediately know, if I want to reach my daily deficit goal (in the green), then I'd better get to moving. I finally get it. To lose weight, I have to eat less AND move more.
  • KCJen
    KCJen Posts: 1,089 Member
    @kilobykilo I am a member of the calorie counting club myself. Once I learned how calories worked and understood the math behind calories, I finally lost weight. (Stopped tracking calories and gained it all back but that is a story for another day).

    I don't eat back my exercise calories UNLESS I need to match to the NET of 1200 for the day. For example, total calories ate for the day was 1500 and exercise calories burned was 400 which left a NET of 1100. Then I would eat 100 calories to get back to the minimum calories of 1200 required for women and 1500 is required for men.

    Currently, my calorie range is set to 1300 to 1440 a day. When I lost 50 pounds, I was a strict 1200 calorie a day. I am debating if I want to just learn how to be in "maintenance" or drop to 1200 again and then adjust calorie intake once I am in maintenance.

    Feel free to add me as an MFP friend, (and anyone else in this group as well) :)
  • Ketch_22
    Ketch_22 Posts: 12,711 Member
    KCJen wrote: »
    @kilobykilo I am a member of the calorie counting club myself. Once I learned how calories worked and understood the math behind calories, I finally lost weight. (Stopped tracking calories and gained it all back but that is a story for another day).

    I don't eat back my exercise calories UNLESS I need to match to the NET of 1200 for the day.

    Wow ok I like this idea! The NET calories never occurred to me. For me I eat 1340 calories but my exercise is usually 350 sometimes more. Gives me more insight into the concept of eating back calories and it makes sense. ty :)
  • kilobykilo
    kilobykilo Posts: 800 Member
    @KCJen thank you!

    I like the 1200 idea, too! Going to look back over the last few days and see how far under that I've been..... I'm exercising a lot this week as I'm working shorter days so have more time than normal and weight is falling off...... but, I'd rather take my time a little so going to look at 1200 as my minimum eat instead and see the difference.
  • BuddysSurrogateGrandpa
    BuddysSurrogateGrandpa Posts: 19 Member
    edited July 2019
    B)
  • rhycce
    rhycce Posts: 12 Member
    HI, new to this. I'm notoriously bad at sticking to my diet. Hoping by joining an active group and setting goals would help me this time.

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