Do you eat exercise calories in maintenance?
Kittyy1994
Posts: 108 Member
Hi there, recently switched to maintenance on 1930 calories per day lightly active. I am 5’6” and maintaining at 61-62kg. Should I be eating back exercise calories ? I work out 3-4 times a week doing 45min boxing/weights circuit. Not sure how many I am burning as no fit bit - is I should be eating some back how many do people recommend?
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Replies
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Yes you should be eating them back. The amount will be trial and error but go loosely by what MFP gives you for the burn. You can err on the side of caution for a few weeks and eat back 75%.
Well done on reaching maintenance
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If you burn lots of calories and don’t eat them back, what do you think will happen?7
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Did you lose weight with MFP goals? How much and over what period of time? Was your rate of loss steady? Did you eat back calories while losing? Did you log consistently and accurately?
MFP follows the NEAT approach meaning your exercise calories are not included in your goal. That goes for losing, maintaining or gaining.
So yes in theory you should eat them back in maintenance and if you logged consistently and tracked carefully while losing you actually can calculate your own calorie burn rather than relying on the system estimates.8 -
I certainly am eating back most of my exercise calories! As WinoGelato says, there is some trial and error involved in figuring out how much to eat back. I am finding it super helpful to continue to log food and weigh in.1
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That depends.
If you use myfitnesspal's calculations, then yes. Is that 1930 calories based on your past experience and logging or how did you come to that number? You haven't given us much info.
Here, this will answer your question in 3 minutes:
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10503681/exercise-calories-do-i-eat-these-a-video-explanation/p1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67USKg3w_E4
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1930 cal is the number MFP Has given me for maintenance. I lost about 3kg eating around 1600 and doing same exercise. I ate at maintenance on my exercise days when losing0
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Exercise calories aren't special, really. (The usual MFP process - which it sounds like you didn't follow - just does the arithmetic differently for them.)
If you want to keep your weight steady, you have to eat all the calories you actually spend: Your tooth-brushing calories, your walking-to-the-bus-stop-calories, your sleeping calories, and - yes - your exercise calories.
If the process you used to lose weight didn't help you collect data to support estimating your total maintenance calories (including exercise), then you'll need to figure it out now.
How much weight did you lose on average per week in the last 4-6 weeks of reduced calories? Multiply that number of pounds/fractions by 3500 (approximate calories in a pound), divide by 7 (days in a week), and eat that many more calories daily than you were while you were on reduced calories. That should be approximately right.
Set a maintenance weight range of several pounds, enough to encompass your typical daily weight fluctuations. (For example, if your weight tends to fluctuate up or down by around 3 otherwise unexplained pounds over the course of a month - so water weight, mostly - set your range as goal weight plus and minus 3 pounds.) If your scale creeps gradually up over the top end of your range, and stays there for a few days, cut back eating by a few calories, or move a little more, until it starts to drop down. If your weight drops down below the lower end of your range, eat a little more or move a little less until it increases. Rinse and repeat.
If you start eating what you think is the right number of calories (based on good evidence as per above), then you're not going to be far off. For example, if you accidentally eat 100 calories too much every single day, it will take you more than a month to gain a pound. You can lose a pound, because you've been doing it, right?
Experiment; don't worry. :flowerforyou:8 -
Exercise calories aren't special, really. (The usual MFP process - which it sounds like you didn't follow - just does the arithmetic differently for them.)
If you want to keep your weight steady, you have to eat all the calories you actually spend: Your tooth-brushing calories, your walking-to-the-bus-stop-calories, your sleeping calories, and - yes - your exercise calories.
If the process you used to lose weight didn't help you collect data to support estimating your total maintenance calories (including exercise), then you'll need to figure it out now.
How much weight did you lose on average per week in the last 4-6 weeks of reduced calories? Multiply that number of pounds/fractions by 3500 (approximate calories in a pound), divide by 7 (days in a week), and eat that many more calories daily than you were while you were on reduced calories. That should be approximately right.
Set a maintenance weight range of several pounds, enough to encompass your typical daily weight fluctuations. (For example, if your weight tends to fluctuate up or down by around 3 otherwise unexplained pounds over the course of a month - so water weight, mostly - set your range as goal weight plus and minus 3 pounds.) If your scale creeps gradually up over the top end of your range, and stays there for a few days, cut back eating by a few calories, or move a little more, until it starts to drop down. If your weight drops down below the lower end of your range, eat a little more or move a little less until it increases. Rinse and repeat.
If you start eating what you think is the right number of calories (based on good evidence as per above), then you're not going to be far off. For example, if you accidentally eat 100 calories too much every single day, it will take you more than a month to gain a pound. You can lose a pound, because you've been doing it, right?
Experiment; don't worry. :flowerforyou:
This is brilliant for me. In the last 4 weeks I lost 9 pounds. How do I work it out? I’m getting confused- the numbers are so high. I’m basically in maintenance as of this week and slowly trying to figure it out.0 -
To maintain weight you MUST be eating enough to cover your exercise (and your daily activity, bodily functions etc. etc.) calorie expenditure. The question isn't what proportion of the actual calorie burns as it must be 100% but rather what proportion of a potentially inaccurate estimate you should eat. And a Fitbit wouldn't be much help for those exercises anyway.
Whether that is done in the myfitnesspal style of estimating your exercise after the event giving a variable daily allowance or estimating in advance and eating the same every day (average TDEE method) is a personal choice for most. Experimentation over an extended period of time may be required using the feedback loop of what your weight trend does.
Remember the daily goal MFP gives you is for a non-exercise day only.
It's one of the (many) reasons when people are losing weight they are advised to learn the skill of estimating exercise calories then rather than use exercise to boost weight loss.4 -
MFP is saying I would burn 496 cal per hour of circuit training. How accurate would this be.... this is why I am hesitant to log exercise as I don’t want to overestimate. Would it be safe to add a lower number - say 300 just in case?1
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And another question sorry - do you have to eat the calories back that same day as I find I am often not as hungry on days where I do exercise. Would it make any difference if I ate them back the next day instead?2
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No, you can use them any day - I am inclined to bank mine for the weekend.2
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In the interests of balance regarding the subject of whether or not to eat back exercise calories I'd like to offer this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RaW7gpEer4
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Kittyy1994 wrote: »MFP is saying I would burn 496 cal per hour of circuit training. How accurate would this be.... this is why I am hesitant to log exercise as I don’t want to overestimate. Would it be safe to add a lower number - say 300 just in case?
Depends what you do in that hour, how fit you are and how hard you try.
Hard for anyone else to judge without any information to go on.
Don't let fear of over-estimating stop you from estimating! Perfection isn't required to maintain successfully long term. Reasonable is fine.
It's neither safe or unsafe to go with either 300 or 496, if you are substantially off in your estimates (of which exercise is the minor player) you will get a very slow drift in weight which you can correct.5 -
In the interests of balance regarding the subject of whether or not to eat back exercise calories I'd like to offer this
<snip video link for reply length, you can see it up there ^^^ >
He's talking about weight loss. OP's talking about weight maintenance.
He's talking about tracker activity calories. We're talking about actual calories burned during exercise (and most of us are admitting they're hard to estimate).
He's talking about tracker estimates generally, which estimate TDEE. We're talking about MFP estimates mostly, and MFP estimates NEAT (which is TDEE minus exercise).5 -
Kittyy1994 wrote: »MFP is saying I would burn 496 cal per hour of circuit training. How accurate would this be.... this is why I am hesitant to log exercise as I don’t want to overestimate. Would it be safe to add a lower number - say 300 just in case?
Pick a consistent way of estimating it, and use that same way of estimating every time. So, if you want to use 300 now instead of 496 (roughly 60%), keep using 60%. After 4-6 weeks, evaluate how your weight responded (overall, averaged over that whole time) and adjust accordingly. Unless you're doing very, very unusually huge amounts of exercise, a moderate overestimate will not result in immediate major weight gain**. You might see a gradual weight creep, at worst.
While losing, some people like to start with 50% of MFP's estimate, and monitor from there, but 60% is fine. Personally, I estimated my exercise calories carefully (sometimes used MFP, sometimes other sources if there were better ones) and ate them all back; I lost weight just fine and have maintained a healthy weight for nearly 4 years since. Just use the same method for a consistent time period, don't keep changing your mind (that just creates poor data).
Or, use the method I suggested above, where you base your maintenance estimate on your recent weight loss experience (assuming you have a semi-accurate food and scale weight record for the last month or thereabouts).
There's a thread over in the maintenance area with a lot of commentary about estimating maintenance calories. It sounds like you've used some non-usual processes during weight loss, but maybe something in the thread will help you anyway:
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10638211/how-to-find-your-maintenance-calorie-level/p1
** I should point out that if you add 350 or so daily calories to your eating all in one jump, you may see a sudden scale jump of a couple or so pounds because that extra food has physical weight, probably contains carbs (which lead to a small amount of extra water retention), and probably contains sodium (same deal with water retention). This kind of jump is not fat gain, so there's no reason to stress about it. It'll sort itself out.
Over the weeks of your trial period, you may also find - as some people do - that your energy level picks up so you burn a few more calories in daily life than you expected, so that you get to eat more than you might've thought.
It's an experimental process. You can do it! 3 -
bigcraddock wrote: »Exercise calories aren't special, really. (The usual MFP process - which it sounds like you didn't follow - just does the arithmetic differently for them.)
If you want to keep your weight steady, you have to eat all the calories you actually spend: Your tooth-brushing calories, your walking-to-the-bus-stop-calories, your sleeping calories, and - yes - your exercise calories.
If the process you used to lose weight didn't help you collect data to support estimating your total maintenance calories (including exercise), then you'll need to figure it out now.
How much weight did you lose on average per week in the last 4-6 weeks of reduced calories? Multiply that number of pounds/fractions by 3500 (approximate calories in a pound), divide by 7 (days in a week), and eat that many more calories daily than you were while you were on reduced calories. That should be approximately right.
Set a maintenance weight range of several pounds, enough to encompass your typical daily weight fluctuations. (For example, if your weight tends to fluctuate up or down by around 3 otherwise unexplained pounds over the course of a month - so water weight, mostly - set your range as goal weight plus and minus 3 pounds.) If your scale creeps gradually up over the top end of your range, and stays there for a few days, cut back eating by a few calories, or move a little more, until it starts to drop down. If your weight drops down below the lower end of your range, eat a little more or move a little less until it increases. Rinse and repeat.
If you start eating what you think is the right number of calories (based on good evidence as per above), then you're not going to be far off. For example, if you accidentally eat 100 calories too much every single day, it will take you more than a month to gain a pound. You can lose a pound, because you've been doing it, right?
Experiment; don't worry. :flowerforyou:
This is brilliant for me. In the last 4 weeks I lost 9 pounds. How do I work it out? I’m getting confused- the numbers are so high. I’m basically in maintenance as of this week and slowly trying to figure it out.
9 pounds in 4 weeks is an average of 2.25 pounds per week.
2.25 pounds is very approximately 7,875 calories worth of weight loss (2.25 pounds X roughly 3500 calories per pound).
7,875 calories of weight loss per week is about 1,125 calories worth of deficit daily (7,875 calories divided by 7 days in a week). (Why in the heck were you losing so fast all the way to goal? Not really the best plan . . . !).
The implication is that maintenance is roughly around 1,125 calories per day more than you've been eating daily (on average) for the last 4 weeks. If you add that all back at once, you will see a scale jump from the physical weight of the food, sodium, and carbs, as I described in a post above, but it won't be fat. If that scares you, add it back gradually (which will cause you to lose a little more weight).2 -
You can calculate your own calories burned without an exercise device. While you are working out pause every ten minutes, (or five if it's a shorter workout) put your finger on a pressure point like your neck and take your pulse. Get a stop watch (available on every phone) let the stop watch count off 6 seconds while you count your pulse beats. So in a 6 second time period say you count 14 pulse beats. Then you multiply 14 by 10 because 6 seconds taken 10 times makes a full minute, and this tells you your heart rate is at 140 beats per minute. You calculate your heart rate that way and at the end of the work out you come up with an average number then you down load an app that gives you a calory loss calculator and you plus in your height weight and average heart rate and it tells you how many calories your burned. It's not near as complicated as it sounds.6
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vc3jvaughn wrote: »You can calculate your own calories burned without an exercise device. While you are working out pause every ten minutes, (or five if it's a shorter workout) put your finger on a pressure point like your neck and take your pulse. Get a stop watch (available on every phone) let the stop watch count off 6 seconds while you count your pulse beats. So in a 6 second time period say you count 14 pulse beats. Then you multiply 14 by 10 because 6 seconds taken 10 times makes a full minute, and this tells you your heart rate is at 140 beats per minute. You calculate your heart rate that way and at the end of the work out you come up with an average number then you down load an app that gives you a calory loss calculator and you plus in your height weight and average heart rate and it tells you how many calories your burned. It's not near as complicated as it sounds.
Nonsense.
People's HR is wildly different and isn't directly linked to calorie expenditure.
I've been one of three very similar sized people training on power meter equipped bikes and our HR was 120, 150 and 180bpm.
e.g. due to increased fitness levels I can now burn 20 - 25% more energy at the same HR as previously as my CV system and heart in particular are simply better trained.6 -
He's talking about weight loss. OP's talking about weight maintenance.
True, but the same thing applies.He's talking about tracker activity calories. We're talking about actual calories burned during exercise (and most of us are admitting they're hard to estimate).
Again, true, but why not keep it simple and not try to estimate? Go by what is actually happening and adjust from there rather than trying to estimate and guess.He's talking about tracker estimates generally, which estimate TDEE. We're talking about MFP estimates mostly, and MFP estimates NEAT (which is TDEE minus exercise).
and why would MFP's estimate of NEAT be any more accurate?
Let's not make this more difficult than it has to be. As individuals we all do what works for us, but others will read this, possibly new to weight loss, and I just think it's important to point out all the options. People get so hung up on what their tracker or exercise machine or MFP is saying and then wonder why they're not making progress.
Gather all the variables regularly and make adjustments based on what is actually happening, not what some tracker says.5 -
I haven't tracked calories burned since January and just stuck to total calories consumed each day. I hit my target weight in May and still wasn't counting calories burned. What happened - no surprise - was I lost another 7 pounds by not counting heavy yard work, dragging furniture around, walking from the train to work and back, etc. I don't even belong to a health club. Working out? That would be cutting all the the grass front & back, plus the grass in my neighbor's and my culvert. I've gained a couple of pounds back by treating myself to deep dish pizza & an occasional Dairy Queen, but in my opinion, weighing yourself regularly once a week ought to help you figure out what ratio of calories in to calories out works for you. The scale doesn't lie and not everyone is going to fit perfectly into formulas. If you stay on top of your weight and calories, you'll be able to figure out how many extra calories you can east in a day or week to maintain the weight you want. The beauty about calories is they don't lie. You just have to find that balance for yourself and eat enough to compensate for what you burn off. You'll get there. It's just tweaking.1
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PrairieTurtle wrote: »You just have to find that balance for yourself and eat enough to compensate for what you burn off. You'll get there. It's just tweaking.
I agree. You have to account for at least heavy exercise. I tried tracking yard work, walking the dog, mowing the lawn, etc. but it was too much effort and it was just a guess on the tracker, anyway. I bumped my listing to "slightly active" and only tracked what I did at the gym. That's still a bit of a guess (are the machines accurate? tracking resistance work?) but it is something and it is a variable that happens or not. The proof is in what the scale says. Still losing? Add some food. Gaining weight? Cut out some food.
I am struggling a bit myself. I was holding well for a while, now I seem to be losing weight but it is fat not muscle (according to the InBody 570 scan). That isn't bad, but I wanted to hold my weight AND lose fat. Never satisfied. 3
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