Do you use your exercise calories you earn??
nurseday73
Posts: 5 Member
I’ve seen some things on other sites that suggest this will stall your loss. I’m confused I guess, MFP calculates them in my available calories so I figured it would be safe to use them if I need them...
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Replies
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I go back and forth on this personally. I think the best approach is to just listen to your body. If you feel genuine hunger you should eat. Your body is working hard and some days it may need the extra fuel.
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Thanks!0
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I just hiked fourteen miles. If I don’t eat any of that back, I will be seriously non-functional tomorrow!12
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I suggest you spend time understanding the calculation. Do some research by experts, particularly about BMR vs daily caloric expenditure. This site does the work for you, if you're not comfortable blindly trusting in it (which I personally consider dangerous and counter-productive), you should really put the effort into understanding the human body before making such impactful decisions on a whim or the advice of non-expert peers. MFP is not a research database.10
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safe thing to do is eat half the exercise calories.4
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nurseday73 wrote: »I’ve seen some things on other sites that suggest this will stall your loss. I’m confused I guess, MFP calculates them in my available calories so I figured it would be safe to use them if I need them...
Other sites are dealing with a method called weekly average TDEE - you are saying what your hopeful exercise will be for the week, calc's add that to otherwise sedentary lifestyle (which is frankly incorrect anyway for many), and divide by 7.
Eat that daily.
You better do your workouts or you may not lose weight. Because you might not be eating less than you burn in reality when they are missed.
MFP is trying to teach a life lesson more easily understood about weight management.
You do more, you eat more.
You do less, you eat less (that's the kicker for most).
In a diet, a tad less in either case.
MFP is using a daily NEAT method (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis), where the exercise as added when it's actually done - meaning you did indeed burn more than estimated.
But gotta get the daily activity right - and Sedentary isn't always true.
Only kicker is adding on exercise honestly.
You may have the time a long walk but not the distance to figure pace - round down estimate. Was the whole time really walking, or some sitting and watching birds?
Or a gym spin class for 60 min, but in reality 5 min warmup, 5 min cooldown, and 5 min stretching - so only 45 min doing a "spin class".
And on MFP, even if the database was dead on correct for a low level calorie burn you did for a long time - the fact it's adding that whole burn onto a chunk of time they already accounted for a say lightly-active activity level - means you didn't burn that much more above it.
So low level calorie burns (ie walking or riding bikereally slow) are best entered as 1/2 to 3/4 the suggested amount.9 -
hartgalore wrote: »I go back and forth on this personally. I think the best approach is to just listen to your body. If you feel genuine hunger you should eat. Your body is working hard and some days it may need the extra fuel.
This!
Now I personally do not eat up the calories I burn. It's counterproductive to my goal.6 -
hartgalore wrote: »I go back and forth on this personally. I think the best approach is to just listen to your body. If you feel genuine hunger you should eat. Your body is working hard and some days it may need the extra fuel.
If only it wasn't for the fact the body speaks a foreign language for most people (vast majority are here because they listened and misunderstood and need to lose weight now), and the effects of under-eating too much can start to stunt correct hunger signals, as body adapts in others way to compensate for foolishness.
If you totally understand how the body can speak incorrectly and interpret other signs - "listening to body" can work.
Most people are no where near that level of translation I think.11 -
I suggest you spend time understanding the calculation. Do some research by experts, particularly about BMR vs daily caloric expenditure. This site does the work for you, if you're not comfortable blindly trusting in it (which I personally consider dangerous and counter-productive), you should really put the effort into understanding the human body before making such impactful decisions on a whim or the advice of non-expert peers. MFP is not a research database.
Thank you, I was looking for some advice from those “non-experts” that may have experience with either successfully using their exercise calories, or not. That’s really all. I never make important decisions on a whim, just interested in others and their examples. As far as understanding the human body, I am a Registered Nurse so I do have a pretty strong understanding of how the human body works. Despite that education/training/understanding, I have always struggled with my weight. It’s safe to say that just understanding how it works may not be enough.
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Short answer, No. But longer answer is - Depends on how you are calculating your calories burned. If you are using the MFP estimates or (god forbid) an estimate off a machine, you are likely way off. If you're using a HR monitor (Polar, Apple Watch or FitBit HR) and a step-based workout (like running) you can get a decent estimate. I have tested it over many workouts and many years and they MFP estimates typically run 30% over what my actual burn is. So if I ate back all of that I would not only undo my workout, I'd be overeating. When I exercise over an hour I will typically eat back *some* of those calories if- and only if- I am hungry which is usually the case! Currently I am training for a marathon and ran 13 miles this morning, so clearly my body needs some extra fuel! I will probably eat back around 500 of the 1275 calories I burned. On a regular workout day I do not eat them back.3
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Think ahead to maintenance at goal weight OP when you must account for your exercise energy output - isn't that a skill that would be sensible to learn now?
Keeping long term successful maintenance in mind isn't regarding exercise as for health/fitness/strength a better habit to build than regarding it as a short term fix to a weight problem?
Personal experience:-
I lost my weight on schedule eating back my exercise calories and maintain long term doing the same.
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If you use MFP to calculate your calorie goal, you should eat your exercise calories back. MFP uses the NEAT mehhod of calculating your calorie goal, which does not include exercise. If you exercise, you are supposed to eat additional calories to compensate that. Exercise calories is an important part of the calorie equation as someone's age, weight, or height. Most people here wouldn't recommend that someone who is 5 feet tall and 120 pounds eat the same amount of calories as someone who is 6 feet tall and 250 pounds. Because they understand that their bodies have different energy needs. The same is true when we do exercise. Our body has different energy needs based on how much activity it does.
The reason why sometimes people are cautious is because exercise calorie estimators can sometimes be aggressive. So if you don't have a great idea of how many calories your are burning, sometimes 50-75% of the estimate is a good place to start. But for many people, the estimates are accurate and they eat all their calories back and lose at the expected rate. So you can play around with it (especially if yourn burns say they are in the 1000s, that's unlikely), but you should at least make some adjustment in your intake for exercise. The only for sure wrong number is 0.7 -
The reason why sometimes people are cautious is because exercise calorie estimators can sometimes be aggressive. So if you don't have a great idea of how many calories your are burning, sometimes 50-75% of the estimate is a good place to start. But for many people, the estimates are accurate and they eat all their calories back and lose at the expected rate. So you can play around with it (especially if yourn burns say they are in the 1000s, that's unlikely), but you should at least make some adjustment in your intake for exercise. The only for sure wrong number is 0.
An exception to this are connected trackers where these "exercise calories" are not really referring to an actual exercise... they are just an adjustment of TDEE based on what the tracker thinks you burned for the day.
Assuming accurate logging to the gram, and picking correct database entries, I would be tempted to eat back a much much higher percentage of these types of "exercise" calories.
Your mileage will vary, of course. During the three plus years I was logging my food intake very carefully, my weight trend reacted as expected and in line with my Fitbit estimates--to a divergence of less than 3.5% of TDEE over any period longer than 60 days.3 -
I used to, but have now worked out that what I was entering didn't seem to be remotely accurate as I was gaining weight not losing it. I now eat maybe a quarter of them back, and that seems to be accurate as I am now losing weight. I stopped logging my weight training calories completely.
I realised I was eating them simply because I'd logged them rather than gauging if I was actually hungry, stopping tracking them made me a bit more accountable. I now stop and think about if I can actually have that 2nd glass of wine.
I'm not hungerer than I was a month ago (when I stopped eating them back) so I don't feel deprived. However, if I went on a huge three-hour hike I'd definitely eat them back!1 -
I am BY NO MEANS suggesting that anyone do this.
My suggested calories goal set by MFP is 1200. Most days I only eat about 1000-1100. I also burn anywhere from 900-1800 via 2-hour bike rides at around 12-14 mph pace. I don’t eat back any of my calories burned. I don’t even eat my suggested calories. I’ve only been on this app for about 10 days and was down 7 pounds.
Even though I exercise a lot I am just hardly ever hungry, now that I’m eating all healthy food.
And NO, I DO NOT suggest this to anyone, just giving my two cents. I know my body well and will definitely eat more if I feel the need/desire to or start to feel exhausted.15 -
I am BY NO MEANS suggesting that anyone do this.
My suggested calories goal set by MFP is 1200. Most days I only eat about 1000-1100. I also burn anywhere from 900-1800 via 2-hour bike rides at around 12-14 mph pace. I don’t eat back any of my calories burned. I don’t even eat my suggested calories. I’ve only been on this app for about 10 days and was down 7 pounds.
Even though I exercise a lot I am just hardly ever hungry, now that I’m eating all healthy food.
And NO, I DO NOT suggest this to anyone, just giving my two cents. I know my body well and will definitely eat more if I feel the need/desire to or start to feel exhausted.
By the time you start to feel bad about this level of underfuelling, you will have done damage to your body that may take a long time to reverse.7 -
I am BY NO MEANS suggesting that anyone do this.
My suggested calories goal set by MFP is 1200. Most days I only eat about 1000-1100. I also burn anywhere from 900-1800 via 2-hour bike rides at around 12-14 mph pace. I don’t eat back any of my calories burned. I don’t even eat my suggested calories. I’ve only been on this app for about 10 days and was down 7 pounds.
Even though I exercise a lot I am just hardly ever hungry, now that I’m eating all healthy food.
And NO, I DO NOT suggest this to anyone, just giving my two cents. I know my body well and will definitely eat more if I feel the need/desire to or start to feel exhausted.
I know there's a ton of people here who scream "this is dangerous!!!!" at every little thing, and I tend to roll my eyes at that sort of reaction... but, this really is potentially damaging. I know that when I was in the dangerously underweight BMI category, I never felt hungry and had tons of energy. I miss feeling as energised as I did when I was slowly killing myself. You can't always trust your hunger and energy levels to tell you that what you're doing is ok.
I'm not going to tell you what you should be doing, but I'm going to ask you to please evaluate what you're doing now and your motivation for doing it this way, because it sounds like you're at the top of a slippery slope.9 -
I estimated exercise calories very carefully, and ate pretty much all of them back, through the process of losing around 50 pounds in less than a year (at age 59-60, while hypothyroid (but treated), BTW).
And I've continued eating back exercise calories for 3, nearing 4, years of maintenance since, still at a healthy weight after literally decades of obesity.4 -
I am BY NO MEANS suggesting that anyone do this.
My suggested calories goal set by MFP is 1200. Most days I only eat about 1000-1100. I also burn anywhere from 900-1800 via 2-hour bike rides at around 12-14 mph pace. I don’t eat back any of my calories burned. I don’t even eat my suggested calories. I’ve only been on this app for about 10 days and was down 7 pounds.
Even though I exercise a lot I am just hardly ever hungry, now that I’m eating all healthy food.
And NO, I DO NOT suggest this to anyone, just giving my two cents. I know my body well and will definitely eat more if I feel the need/desire to or start to feel exhausted.
This is a dangerous road you're headed down. I know because I've been down it. I did something very, very similar to what you are doing just after college for about 7 months. I never felt like I was underfueled or like I was exhausted, until it all hit me at once like a mac truck. My pulse started getting too low. I started having digestion issues. I eventually realized that I had become orthorexic and was able to get off that awful train, but by then, I'd done some serious metabolic and physical damage (not to mention psychological). My weight ballooned after that, and it's taken a long time to get it back off. I still struggle with the anxiety and body image issues I got during that time. Learn from my mistake and eat at a healthy level before you do the same damage to your body that I did to mine.6 -
nurseday73 wrote: »I’ve seen some things on other sites that suggest this will stall your loss. I’m confused I guess, MFP calculates them in my available calories so I figured it would be safe to use them if I need them...
Other sites say not to use your exercise calories because they figure your calorie goal differently.
If you use a TDEE calculator, you don't eat extra when you exercise because your exercise is already included in your TDEE and distributed throughout the week.
If you use MFP, your calorie goal is based on your NEAT (not your TDEE) and does not include your exercise. So if you didn't eat back exercise calories you would lose faster than expected and possibly undereat, or underfuel your exercise. Calorie burns can be inflated, so many people start eating back half and then tweak based on their actual rate of loss.
People who insist they exercise a lot and eat only their MFP calorie goal and lose as expected are probably doing either one or both of these things: Either they set their activity level higher than MFP suggested to include their exercise calories in there, or their food logging is inaccurate and the unlogged exercise calories are balancing out their under-logged food.6 -
I am BY NO MEANS suggesting that anyone do this.
My suggested calories goal set by MFP is 1200. Most days I only eat about 1000-1100. I also burn anywhere from 900-1800 via 2-hour bike rides at around 12-14 mph pace. I don’t eat back any of my calories burned. I don’t even eat my suggested calories. I’ve only been on this app for about 10 days and was down 7 pounds.
Even though I exercise a lot I am just hardly ever hungry, now that I’m eating all healthy food.
And NO, I DO NOT suggest this to anyone, just giving my two cents. I know my body well and will definitely eat more if I feel the need/desire to or start to feel exhausted.
3 words - lean muscle loss.
Healthy weight loss helps you keep a larger % of the lean muscle you already have. Healthy weight loss helps you lower your body fat %.....not just the number on the scale.7 -
I can go either way on this. I usually come in under my target intake of calories, but if I know I may be having a heavier caloric meal or going out, I may exercise extra to give me the added wiggle room. Sometimes momma needs a cocktail!
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For me it depends on the day. Most days are a strong no. However there are some days where I’m just hungry and I will eat some of them, though never more than half. Listen to your body and monitor how you feel and lose depending on whether you eat them or not.1
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I am BY NO MEANS suggesting that anyone do this.
My suggested calories goal set by MFP is 1200. Most days I only eat about 1000-1100. I also burn anywhere from 900-1800 via 2-hour bike rides at around 12-14 mph pace. I don’t eat back any of my calories burned. I don’t even eat my suggested calories. I’ve only been on this app for about 10 days and was down 7 pounds.
Even though I exercise a lot I am just hardly ever hungry, now that I’m eating all healthy food.
And NO, I DO NOT suggest this to anyone, just giving my two cents. I know my body well and will definitely eat more if I feel the need/desire to or start to feel exhausted.
It's been 10 days this is an unsustainable plan and you'll likely crash and burn pretty shortly.0 -
I consume about 50% of them, sometimes more if I'm still hungry, less if I'm not. I don't force myself to eat if I'm not hungry, but I'm careful not to over restrict since I have a bad history of it. But I also don't completely trust my Fitbit, so I think about half is safe for me.
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