Do YOU personally eat back your workout calories?
CassieJones104
Posts: 76 Member
Just wondering if you personally eat back your workout calories?
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Replies
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Yes.2
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Yep... normally all of them! So far I have lost at the expected/projected weight.3
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Nope. And it's not a good idea to do so, especially when you're trying to maintain a smaller deifict or are closer to GW. the reason being that at 2 to 400 calorie deficit can be wiped out by just one or two mistracked or misweighed meals. Also provided that most fitness trackers are up to 20% inaccurate, it's just not worth it in my opinion.10
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MFP is designed for your to eat back at least some of your exercise calories - some recommend starting with 50% and adjusting based on your weight trend compared to your set goals. I eat back 100% and have not seen any ill effect on my weight loss efforts, even at .5lb/week. Ignoring them completely can lead to underfueling and undernourishing your body long term - fatigue, muscle loss, hair loss, and other nasty effects in time, especially if someone is already at a steeper deficit. And some people have higher calorie burns - on a Sprint triathlon day I will hit around 1000 burned. To ignore that would not be good for my body in the long run (and short term I would by tired, hungry, and grouchy!)Nope. And it's not a good idea to do so, especially when you're trying to maintain a smaller deifict or are closer to GW. the reason being that at 2 to 400 calorie deficit can be wiped out by just one or two mistracked or misweighed meals. Also provided that most fitness trackers are up to 20% inaccurate, it's just not worth it in my opinion.
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I generally eat back half or so. For example, I had 375 calories of exercise during the day. Therefore, I ate about 150 calories above goal today.3
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Yes. Pretty much every single carefully estimated, delicious exercise calorie, all through just under a year of weight loss (obese to a healthy weight) and 4+ years of maintaining a healthy weight since. Now, I can maintain weight if I do exercise (usually quite a lot in summer), and maintain weight when I don't exercise (as much, in Winter). That's useful!
(RE: PP. Yes, Fitness trackers can be inaccurate . . . in either direction. If I believed the all-day calories my good-brand/model estimates, compared with what almost 5 years of logging experience say, I'd lose weight like a house afire, instead of maintaining like I ought to be doing at around BMI 21-point-something. We figure out how to estimate calories with reasonable accuracy, including exercise calories, by experimenting with it and practicing. If someone doesn't eat exercise calories in maintenance - either with separate estimating, or built into a TDEE estimate - that person is going to keep losing weight. Exercise calories, in that sense, aren't any different from tooth-brushing calories, or vacuuming-the-floor calories. They're just more variable for a lot of us than daily life calories, so it can make sense to account for them separately. Weight loss is really just maintenance practice, just on slightly lower calories. ) 5 -
Never. Bad idea, it’s like you didn’t even workout then.5
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Again, MFP is designed for you to eat back at least some of your exercise calories. Trying to expedite weight loss through an increased calorie deficit can majorly backfire if it dips low enough. I exercise so I can gain cardiovascular health, strengthen my body, and I also enjoy the benefits of that exercise through food. I have a headband that says “I run for chocolate” - and some days it is quite literally the chocolate that gets me out the door! Other times, after a heavy calorie burn day I will eat an entire pizza, enjoying every bite, and can do so entirely guilt free! It gets logged, and I move on.absandproteinshakes wrote: »Never. Bad idea, it’s like you didn’t even workout then.
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No, I eat them back impersonally. The calories never made it personal about being burned off, why should I make it personal about putting them back in?
Odd, I was under the impression exercise tended to generate physiological changes - for example, increasing the volume of aerobic activity leads to higher aerobic capacity. Surely eating back the calories facilities those adaptations if anything, rather than negating them, right?absandproteinshakes wrote: »Never. Bad idea, it’s like you didn’t even workout then.19 -
MFP is assuming I was honest on picking an Activity level.
MFP is assuming I was smart about picking a weight loss goal.
(frankly I'd wager the majority on initial setup do neither)
So my base calorie goal is merely to see me through my normal active day with no exercise, get enough nutrients in for my body stats, and deficit enough to lose hopefully just fat if I chose wisely. (again on majority - "they chose unwisely")
I just did a decent 1 hr hard bike ride after mowing the lawn really quick.
I know full well I didn't burn 0 (ZERO) calories. That's the one guaranteed wrong choice.
I know I didn't burn under 100 calories, as that would be my sleeping burn rate for an hour. I was much more active than sleeping.
I also know the HR-based calorie burn is a tad high, but I have watts to go by, and therefore I go by watts.
So that calorie burn took right off the top the calories and nutrients my body is wanting to just get by for the daily things.
Start ignoring that and the body will adapt. Nothing like making a workout suck and be a total waste of time and effort like not feeding it.
For those that think activity trackers can be upwards of 20% off (always inflated? studies say no!) and therefore throw the info out the window - they seem to forget nutrition labels can also be upwards of 20% off by allowance - do they chuck those numbers out the window?
Eating out - wooh - I bet more than 20% - chuck those out - that's calorie free food I guess!!
As far as mis-tracked or mis-weighed meals - why would those only occur for what's eaten to balance out what was burned in exercise?
Did someone get sloppy with logging only on those meals?
If that's a problem - that's going to show up for every meal - and you got a bigger issue to deal with when you see no weight loss. Totally unrelated to exercise calories.12 -
I eat back every last calorie earned by purposeful exercise. I have learned which calculators work best for me over months/years of trial and error and seeing how my weight trends with the calculations. Most calorie burn calculations are high so it’s been integral to my weight management to pay attention to how my weight responds in real life versus the calculators. Over time I actually know roughly how many calories I’ve earned by how tired I feel, I know what it feels like to my body to expend 300, 600, 900 calories through exercise or any other activities for that matter. It’s taken a long time to learn this but it’s been worth it. I’ve maintained my loss for 6+ years now so I guess it’s working
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I am training for a marthon and working on weight loss so it gets tricky.
I let my body be my guide and I have a rule if it is a workout day I don't get to splurge on garbage calories; so if I need to eat some of my burn it has to be good fuel for my body. And even then I am cautious because I want to make sure I am fueling properly and maintaining gap in calories.
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I do. All my activity is tracked with a Garmin, personally I've found that if I log everything and let Garmin/MFP adjust the calorie goal, I lose as forecast.
Or, did, until MFP developed this annoying issue where it won't sync with external websites anymore.6 -
Yes, of course.2
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Yes. My calories are accurately measured (with a power meter while I'm cycling) so there's no reason not to.
The slight caveat is that I'm still drifting my weight down to find a final goal weight, and at the moment my goal is set at maintenance but I still create a small deliberate deficit by not eating all my exercise calories back. That way of doing it just works better for me when I have some rest days with no exercise and some days where I ride for 5 hours and burn 2500 calories as it smooths my intake out a bit.
(Typically on the 2500 days I will still eat 1750-2000 of the exercise calories back, I need them for fuel!)3 -
Of course!
Partly because I understand how this tool works.
Partly because I have a long term view and exercise is just one of many legitimate energy needs of your body whether you are losing, gaining or maintaining weight.
Partly because I'd be wasting away if I didn't.
Partly because I couldn't do the exercise I enjoy and is so good for me if I didn't.10 -
Yes and no. If I'm hungrier the day I work out, I will eat them that day. More often though, I'll have a little bit more to eat that day, and spread the rest throughout the week, so I end up having a bigger deficit on days I work out and smaller deficit on days I don't.
Years ago, in my pre-MFP days, I used a different logging site and their system was designed so that it automatically split your workout calories throughout the week, so for a 700-calorie run you'd get 100 extra calories every day that week. I have conflicted feelings about that system, but at least it encouraged consistent everyday eating habits that didn't allow the "I have to run to earn this huge chocolate bar" thinking. A little bit of that system is clearly still hidden in the way I approach workout calories, and it works for me.3 -
I eat back about 3/4 of them, over time I've discovered mfp estimates are close to accurate for me (sedentary but work out 6 days a week), and if I don't I feel really sluggish and don't have my normal energy and strength when doing my workouts... + if I didn't eat at least some of it back I'd end up with a net of maybe 800-900kcal a day... keep in mind I'm short and normal weight, only trying to lose a few "vanity" pounds at this point, even a modest -0.5lb per week goal puts me at only around 1250kcal a day (net) to aim for2
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Nope, I don't eat them back because I like having a bigger deficit and usually the estimated calories you burn from exercise are incorrect so I don't want to take that risk.4
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Yep. I need nutrients to support my body. I probably eat between 50 and 100% depending how hungry I am and try to make sure it's good healthy food. If I'm weighing and measuring my food accurately I lose as I should do.
I want to keep my muscle loss to a minimum. My aim is not to have a smaller number on a scale its too be healthier.5 -
I selected active and 1/2 pound weight loss. I don’t eat back additional exercise calories.2
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The guidance I've seen here on MFP is to eat back 50% of calories burned. I don't meticulously track that. But if it's a day that I burned a crazy amount of calories, I'd definitely eat a bit more.2
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MichelleMcKeeRN wrote: »I selected active and 1/2 pound weight loss. I don’t eat back additional exercise calories.
If you used your level of intentional exercise as the basis of selecting "active," then that's just another way of eating back your exercise calories. You're just using a workaround to get them upfront.11 -
Not all of them. I may go over my base calorie goal by 40-50, and this is most of then the calories in my pre-workouts. If I was still hungry I guess I would, but that's a non-issue for me. 1
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I did all through my 80 pound weight loss and I still do today 13 years later. Every single delicious calorie.
I use this site as it is designed and so I eat more on exercise days, less on non-exercise days.
Everyone finds their own way. I just like to keep it simple.5 -
I do and you will find that most people who have been here for a long time and seen long-term success do the same. I need to fuel my workouts and activity. Failure to eat back at least some of my calories would result in inadequate nutrition. I want to be overall healthy, not just lose weight.5
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I listen to my body. If I feel like I need more fuel then yes I'm not afraid to eat them back, but I don't always eat them all back. Also it's important to note that I do this because I am at a pretty extreme deficit and eating 1200 cals. If I had more to play with, I might be stricter about that.2
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CassieJones104 wrote: »Just wondering if you personally eat back your workout calories?
Yep, some.
Depends how I feel but if I'm actively losing weight, I'll do something like this:
For light exercise like an 45 minute walk, I'll probably only eat about half back.
For moderate exercise like a 2 hour bicycle ride, I might go for somewhere around 75%.
For lots of exercise like a half marathon run or 4 hour bicycle ride or something along those lines, I might go for somewhere around 90%.
That's just my preference and seems to work well for me.2 -
Absolutely. I find that under-eating leads to bingeing and then what was the point? I've been here almost 8 years and I have a pretty good handle on my logging and how much I burn day to day.6
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I eat them back (both exercise calories and the calorie adjustment from extra activity), and I have done since I started my weight loss journey in August of last year. And my weight loss is as fast as I wanted it to be.
The only exceptions:
- sometimes the estimates are a bit inflated (especially walks, and sometimes also runs if it's very warm) so I sometimes keep a small margin
- sometimes I don't eat them back on the same day: e.g. after a 4 hour hike, having eating regular meals AND half a tub of ice-cream as a snack, I'm not going to 'stuff my face' just for the sake of it. I might carry over some calories to the next day, or just leave myself with a larger deficit.
My weight loss rate is set at 0.5lbs (0.25kg) per week and I still have about 18 lbs to lose, so it's not a big deal if I have a slightly larger deficit occasionally.3
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