Exercise calories do you use them for food?
sarahsgoal2020
Posts: 11 Member
Hello. Should I be saving calories from exercise to boost weight loss or should I be eating them? Sorry if this has been repeated I've just joined.
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Replies
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MFP assumes you will eat back your activity calories. That being said MFP also overestimates activity calories. If you are going to eat them back consume 1/4-1/2 of what is calculated.1
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I was planning on saving them for a boost so thank you. I thought it was high when I logged I walked for an hour at nearly 400 calories burnt. It was a normal walk.0
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Eat them! Or at least a proportion of them.4
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Exercise should be mostly thought of for improving fitness not boosting weight loss. It is also not a good idea to be trying to boost weight loss. It could potentially result in muscle loss which would have a negative impact on your level of fitness and potentially your appearance when the weight is gone.
How long was your walk?
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I was going to ask the same question thanks everyone for explaining it0
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sarahsgoal2020 wrote: »I was planning on saving them for a boost so thank you. I thought it was high when I logged I walked for an hour at nearly 400 calories burnt. It was a normal walk.
A normal NON-VIGOROUS (2.5 MPH or so) walk would burn somewhere around 200-250 calories an hour for me and I'm 188 lbs. and to answer the question, yes, I eat all my purposeful exercise calories back.0 -
I next to never eat into my activity calories. I just consider them a buffer for any food log underestimating. Its what seems to be working for me anyway.6
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Assuming a person lets MFP estimate their calorie needs and follows instructions accurately:
If the weight loss rate target (X lbs/kg per week) is slow for the person's current body size, and they do very little exercise (low added calorie burn), it's probably OK to use the exercise to create a bit bigger deficit.
If someone has an aggressive weight loss rate target (say, .75% or more of current body weight per week), and does quite a bit of exercise (several hundred calories or more), then it could pretty substantially increase their health risks.
In between, it's a crapshoot. Are you resilient? Do you feel lucky?
Personally, I estimated my exercise calories carefully during weight loss, ate back pretty much all of them, and managed my actual weight loss rate to keep things on the safe side, once I got rolling and had enough personal results data to handle it that way. Since I lost at a satisfying but safe weight all the way to goal, and this is now year 4+ of weight maintenance for me - and one must eat back exercise in maintenance (don't wanna keep losing infinitely, right?
) - this worked out pretty well, I think.
Putting it another way, MFP has given you a calorie goal before exercise. That goal has a calorie deficit, but otherwise already includes your dishwashing calories, your walking to a meeting at work calories, your heartbeat while you sleep calories, your folding the laundry calories, and much more. You eat those back. Why wouldn't you eat back the exercise calories, as intended, and keep your planned deficit? You add them to your log as you earn them, but they otherwise aren't any different from any other calorie burn.
Besides, exercise calories taste the best. 13 -
I just log about 60% of the exercise I actually do and eat the calories if I am hungry. Rough estimate that mfp overestimates exercise calories.1
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sarahsgoal2020 wrote: »I was planning on saving them for a boost so thank you. I thought it was high when I logged I walked for an hour at nearly 400 calories burnt. It was a normal walk.
That does sound rather high, but might not be unrealistic depending on how much you weigh. I'm 5'6" and if I weighed 300 pounds, I would burn 449 calories for an hour of "Walking, 3.0 mph, mod. pace."
MapMyFitness, which I do not have synced to MFP, gives me higher burns than the MFP database, but I believe their raw figures include the calories I burn just from being alive, and not only exercise calories, so if you are looking at something like MapMyFitness numbers in that app, that's another explanation for high numbers.
Unlike other sites which use TDEE calculators, MFP uses the NEAT method (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis), and as such this system is designed for exercise calories to be eaten back. However, many consider the burns given by MFP to be inflated for them and only eat a percentage, such as 50%, back. Others, however, are able to lose weight while eating 100% of their exercise calories.
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/818082/exercise-calories-again-wtf/p1
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Yes, of course!1
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Yup - that's how this process works.
I note that many won't feel their appetite as strong at first. This is when motivation is at its highest and you are determined to succeed at this new plan. There's a common thought that eating less is going to speed up the process. Mathematically sound, but humans aren't wired for such behavioral changes.
Eat a portion back, but be cautious at first as caloric counting and estimating caloric burn from exercise is a horribly imprecise business.
Identify foods you like that are also satiating - for me this is eggs, chicken, and oatmeal. Everyone is a bit different, so find out your high satiating foods early on.1 -
i think the rough rule of thumb for weight burnt by walking - is weight*mins*(.3) - so for my 165*.3*distance - so my 30min walk this am was 1.9 miles - which gives me approx 95cal - possibly on the lower end but works for me1
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sarahsgoal2020 wrote: »Hello. Should I be saving calories from exercise to boost weight loss or should I be eating them? Sorry if this has been repeated I've just joined.
Depending on what rate of loss you selected, your calorie target is likely already a significant deficit...making that deficit bigger with exercise isn't always a good idea...it rarely is. Your body needs calories (energy) just to perform basic functions. Dieting is already a big stress on the body...you're just adding to that stress by exercising and not accounting for that...particularly if/when you get to the point of doing more strenuous exercise.
Having large deficits are a detriment to you health over time. Exercise performance as well as daily performance will ultimately suffer...recovery from exercise will be compromised...and ultimately your body will try to conserve energy by shutting down or slowing down "non essential" functions like involuntary movement, growing hair and nails, menstrual cycle, etc.1 -
Walking and running calories are very easy to calculate, so I eat back all of them. Exercise that relies on effort is harder (i.e. calisthetics or yoga), I'll eat back some of the calories but not all.2
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sarahsgoal2020 wrote: »I was planning on saving them for a boost so thank you. I thought it was high when I logged I walked for an hour at nearly 400 calories burnt. It was a normal walk.
It is still good to eat some of them, as faster weight loss is not usually better (more will come from lean body mass as a % of total loss the faster you lose)
A portion of those 400 would be burned had you know walked (maintenance cals/24 hours) the calculator uses gross cals burned not net. so assume you burn 1.25 cals/min sitting there, in an hour you would have burned 75 of those 400 anyway.1 -
I don't eat all my calories back, maybe 1/3-1/2, and mainly on days when I have two activities (IE, today I did a weights class in the morning and in an hour I'm taking a Lyra hoop class, so I'll eat back some, but not all). I feel very hungry if I don't eat back some, and I feel like it gives me more energy. But honestly, that's because I have such a freaking long wait between finishing work and my evening workouts, so I have to eat something on the go as a snack or I'm ravenous by the time I get home and more likely to binge than eat dinner.1
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I choose not to and the calorie burn for Zumba is pretty much accurate on mfp.1
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Sometimes I do - if I feel like having a glass of wine or something.0
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MFP assumes you will eat back your activity calories. That being said MFP also overestimates activity calories. If you are going to eat them back consume 1/4-1/2 of what is calculated.
What he/she said...
Or...figure out accurate estimates of cal burn and eat them all back. Most gym machines, HR monitors and MFP over estimate significantly. So, you want to eat them all back but you need to have an accurate estimate.
There are highly accurate estimates for running and cycling and others too.1 -
tawnyamh1209 wrote: »I choose not to and the calorie burn for Zumba is pretty much accurate on mfp.
So if you feel it’s accurate then why wouldn’t you eat them back? How do you know it’s activate if you aren’t factoring those calories burned into your data points?3 -
I think it is odd that people who want to lose weight and therefore "move more" then eat more food to compensate for that extra movement.
Makes no sense to me at all.
Obviously a different conversation if you are exercising for health reasons but if you are eating a variety of foods to cover your nutritional needs while not moving then what is the point of moving if you then going to just eat back the calories???2 -
I think it is odd that people who want to lose weight and therefore "move more" then eat more food to compensate for that extra movement.
Makes no sense to me at all.
Obviously a different conversation if you are exercising for health reasons but if you are eating a variety of foods to cover your nutritional needs while not moving then what is the point of moving if you then going to just eat back the calories???
Because that’s how MFP is designed? The calorie deficit is built in with the presumption of no exercise. If you do exercise, you are creating an unnecessarily large deficit which can have adverse effects.
Also, calories fuel the exercise...
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I think it is odd that people who want to lose weight and therefore "move more" then eat more food to compensate for that extra movement.
Makes no sense to me at all.
Obviously a different conversation if you are exercising for health reasons but if you are eating a variety of foods to cover your nutritional needs while not moving then what is the point of moving if you then going to just eat back the calories???
Energy (calories/kilojoules) is the most basic nutrient. Too big a deficits means your not covering your most basic nutritional need.8 -
I think it is odd that people who want to lose weight and therefore "move more" then eat more food to compensate for that extra movement.
Makes no sense to me at all.
Obviously a different conversation if you are exercising for health reasons but if you are eating a variety of foods to cover your nutritional needs while not moving then what is the point of moving if you then going to just eat back the calories???
Because . . .
It's fun?
It's useful to be strong?
I want to delay my one-way move to the assisted living facility as long as possible, maybe permanently?
Older fit people I know typically have easier, happier, more-fun lives than the unfit ones?
I actually like a little snappy performance in my exercise, not miserable draggy exhaustion?
Eating more calories while losing weight is more enjoyable than eating fewer calories while losing the same weight?
It teaches the useful life lesson that people who move more can eat more while staying at a healthy weight, but it's necessary to eat less when one can't or doesn't want to move more but still wants a healthy weight?
Losing weight too fast is a fool's game?
. . . etc.
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I think it is odd that people who want to lose weight and therefore "move more" then eat more food to compensate for that extra movement.
Makes no sense to me at all.
Obviously a different conversation if you are exercising for health reasons but if you are eating a variety of foods to cover your nutritional needs while not moving then what is the point of moving if you then going to just eat back the calories???
Because they're already at an appropriate calorie deficit before the exercise and there's no reason to make it larger.9 -
janejellyroll wrote: »I think it is odd that people who want to lose weight and therefore "move more" then eat more food to compensate for that extra movement.
Makes no sense to me at all.
Obviously a different conversation if you are exercising for health reasons but if you are eating a variety of foods to cover your nutritional needs while not moving then what is the point of moving if you then going to just eat back the calories???
Because they're already at an appropriate calorie deficit before the exercise and there's no reason to make it larger.
not only that, it's potentially unhealthy by creating too great a deficit.
headaches, dizziness, hair loss, sleep disruption, etc6 -
I don't usually unless I think I need them (body is sending hunger cues or I had a big workout and I know my body is craving them)0
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I only eat my excercise calories back if im famished. Otherwise - no. YMMV. 😉0
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I think it is odd that people who want to lose weight and therefore "move more" then eat more food to compensate for that extra movement.
Makes no sense to me at all.
Obviously a different conversation if you are exercising for health reasons but if you are eating a variety of foods to cover your nutritional needs while not moving then what is the point of moving if you then going to just eat back the calories???
Because your calorie target on MFP assume ZERO exercise and is already often a substantial deficit. Crashing your diet to 1200 calories and then doing a bunch of exercise on top of that and not accounting for that is extremely unhealthy.
Lets say MFP gives me a calorie target of 1900 calories to lose about 1 Lb per week. I go on a 30 mile bike ride and burn around 1,000 calories. If I don't account for that activity, I would be netting around 900 calories. Does that sound remotely healthy to you?11
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