Going for a run to make up for going over the limits
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nbuuifx
Posts: 23 Member
Is this the correct way to do it?
Basically the family wanted a chippy tea tonight, so I participated and had 300g of deep fried chips and 330g of battered cod. To top it off I had a jam and cream filled doughnut.
At this point I was now over my calorie target and over my fat target for the day.
So I went out and did a fairly fast paced run in a hilly area, which added 800 calories to my target.
Is that an ok way to do it?
The fat is still 17g over the target which I can't do much about.
I also I am now under the calorie target - so should I have more calories to meet it?
I was thinking of having a protein shake with semi skimmed milk, but that will add more to the fat.
I haven't reached the protein goal yet today.
My diary should be public to view.
Basically the family wanted a chippy tea tonight, so I participated and had 300g of deep fried chips and 330g of battered cod. To top it off I had a jam and cream filled doughnut.
At this point I was now over my calorie target and over my fat target for the day.
So I went out and did a fairly fast paced run in a hilly area, which added 800 calories to my target.
Is that an ok way to do it?
The fat is still 17g over the target which I can't do much about.
I also I am now under the calorie target - so should I have more calories to meet it?
I was thinking of having a protein shake with semi skimmed milk, but that will add more to the fat.
I haven't reached the protein goal yet today.
My diary should be public to view.
4
Replies
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I personally don't do unplanned exercise to make up for anything...I just move on with my life. This can ultimately lead to a bad relationship with food and exercise and using exercise as some kind of punishment or penance for overeating. Regular exercise is something that should just become a part of your life whether you're trying to lose weight or not.
In the grand scheme of things, going over your target for a day is pretty immaterial...what you're doing most of the time is what is important. Also remember that your calorie target is a deficit, it's not maintenance...in many cases, people go over, but they're still under maintenance or at maintenance when it comes down to it. I would also question the 800 calorie burn for going for a run.
Calories are what is important for weight management. Your macros and going over on this or that macro is pretty irrelevant.24 -
im over my calories by 1600 and change today, i think? whatever.
now, there are many reasons why this doesn't concern me, but even if i had permission from my doctor to workout (which at the moment i do not)... it is unlikely I would try to make up for it in any meaningful way. there was a time when i might have tried to get in an extra workout or something but... not anymore. its one day. its just really not a big deal. there comes a point in your weight loss journey where (most of us) come to accept that fact.7 -
I think that's not a particularly heathy attitude TBH.
Exercise for health, fitness and enjoyment because those motivations continue for the rest of your life.
Maybe looking at your calorie allowance as a weekly budget instead of trying to balance the books daily would help you fit in special events or meals?
No I wouldn't worry about going over fat allowance if you stay within your calorie goal. I'd also more likely regard the protein goal as a minimum not a maximum.
BTW - 831 calories for just 36 minutes of exercise would put you in line for a place in the next Olympics! That's astronomically high, how are you getting that estimate?
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Regarding the calories burned by your run, this is a good source to check that high number:
https://exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs
Choose net calories, not gross.3 -
cwolfman13 wrote: »I personally don't do unplanned exercise to make up for anything...I just move on with my life. This can ultimately lead to a bad relationship with food and exercise and using exercise as some kind of punishment or penance for overeating. Regular exercise is something that should just become a part of your life whether you're trying to lose weight or not.
In the grand scheme of things, going over your target for a day is pretty immaterial...what you're doing most of the time is what is important. Also remember that your calorie target is a deficit, it's not maintenance...in many cases, people go over, but they're still under maintenance or at maintenance when it comes down to it. I would also question the 800 calorie burn for going for a run.
Calories are what is important for weight management. Your macros and going over on this or that macro is pretty irrelevant.
I do normally do planned exercise, when in my normal routine with 3 nights of either running or cycling (usually 2 x run & 1x cycle). However I've been in holiday for the last few weeks so things have gone off a little. I enjoy running so don't see it as a punishment.
I'm sure as you say that one day won't make a huge difference but in many ways it gave me a nudge to run which I probably wouldn't have done otherwise.
I'm interested in your question if the 800 calories is accurate. I realise they are just estimates but they are always relatively close no matter what app I use to track it.
I weigh around 200lbs and ran for just over 35 minutes at an average of 12.2kph. Distance 7.25km. Elevation gain 250 feet.
Strava, mapmyrun, and my fitness watch (combined with HR) all give similar calorie estimates. But happy to listen to anything that might show that it is incorrect.
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If I feel like I want to do something to keep up my regular deficit, I usually tend to attack these from the food end, and will lower my calories by 100 or so for the next several days, which is doable but doesn't feel punishing. For a while in the beginning I deliberately planned high calorie days once a week or so and that was helpful, using basically the same strategy - shave a few calories off the rest of the days of the week, then add them to the high calorie day. I haven't been doing that recently because I haven't felt the need, but that is another option.
I have had days too where I go over and I just accept it and move on. Maybe I would decide to do another walk or something - I don't think that's necessarily bad, and can counteract some of the lethargy I often feel when I eat really heavy, greasy foods if I force myself to get up and move a little, but I try very hard to not have it be a punishment thing, which seems flirting with disorder-type behavior. Overall, though, it's just one day, and in the balance it won't mean much.6 -
Use @Lietchi link provided.
Throw a 2% grade in if that hilly.
Confirm using NET - which is what you would want to log into MFP with, because it's already accounting for some calories burned during that time and the logged workout is ADDING to what is there.
For Fitbit or Garmin or likely other - adding a workout manually REPLACES what was already there, so Gross is fine option there.
But HR-based calorie burn is likely inflated calorie burn.
Sure Strava didn't get a data pull from something else? In which case it just uses the calorie burn sent, not it's own calc.
If the exercise was something you normally would have intended to do anyway, the fact you did it after instead of prior and that was because of this nudge - that's not so bad I think.
The fact you had a deficit to go through before hitting maintenance helped a lot, so actual overage to maintenance would likely have been minimum.
Some people though treat the whole thing as comments above described - and they learn to dislike exercise.
Usually doesn't take long to learn 15 min of eating can become a hard 1 hr workout equal - so better just to carry on and enjoy what you had. If it's not a regular thing or can be accounted for.2 -
cwolfman13 wrote: »I personally don't do unplanned exercise to make up for anything...I just move on with my life. This can ultimately lead to a bad relationship with food and exercise and using exercise as some kind of punishment or penance for overeating. Regular exercise is something that should just become a part of your life whether you're trying to lose weight or not.
In the grand scheme of things, going over your target for a day is pretty immaterial...what you're doing most of the time is what is important. Also remember that your calorie target is a deficit, it's not maintenance...in many cases, people go over, but they're still under maintenance or at maintenance when it comes down to it. I would also question the 800 calorie burn for going for a run.
Calories are what is important for weight management. Your macros and going over on this or that macro is pretty irrelevant.
I do normally do planned exercise, when in my normal routine with 3 nights of either running or cycling (usually 2 x run & 1x cycle). However I've been in holiday for the last few weeks so things have gone off a little. I enjoy running so don't see it as a punishment.
I'm sure as you say that one day won't make a huge difference but in many ways it gave me a nudge to run which I probably wouldn't have done otherwise.
I'm interested in your question if the 800 calories is accurate. I realise they are just estimates but they are always relatively close no matter what app I use to track it.
I weigh around 200lbs and ran for just over 35 minutes at an average of 12.2kph. Distance 7.25km. Elevation gain 250 feet.
Strava, mapmyrun, and my fitness watch (combined with HR) all give similar calorie estimates. But happy to listen to anything that might show that it is incorrect.
800 calories for a 35 minute run @ 200 pounds?
no way. im not a runner but that cant be right.
at 182 pounds, female i burn (give or take) 350 MAYBE 400 calories (if it is a harder workout than average) in an HOUR on the elliptical. now, i will say my metabolism is a bit lower than the average, and that calorie burn also has to do with intensity levels (which is an autoprogrammed 'variety' mode of a medium type intensity) but I dont know that I can see 800 calories in a half hour for a run. Maybe someone can educate me on that if it is indeed a possibility for an average runner.10 -
cwolfman13 wrote: »I personally don't do unplanned exercise to make up for anything...I just move on with my life. This can ultimately lead to a bad relationship with food and exercise and using exercise as some kind of punishment or penance for overeating. Regular exercise is something that should just become a part of your life whether you're trying to lose weight or not.
In the grand scheme of things, going over your target for a day is pretty immaterial...what you're doing most of the time is what is important. Also remember that your calorie target is a deficit, it's not maintenance...in many cases, people go over, but they're still under maintenance or at maintenance when it comes down to it. I would also question the 800 calorie burn for going for a run.
Calories are what is important for weight management. Your macros and going over on this or that macro is pretty irrelevant.
I do normally do planned exercise, when in my normal routine with 3 nights of either running or cycling (usually 2 x run & 1x cycle). However I've been in holiday for the last few weeks so things have gone off a little. I enjoy running so don't see it as a punishment.
I'm sure as you say that one day won't make a huge difference but in many ways it gave me a nudge to run which I probably wouldn't have done otherwise.
I'm interested in your question if the 800 calories is accurate. I realise they are just estimates but they are always relatively close no matter what app I use to track it.
I weigh around 200lbs and ran for just over 35 minutes at an average of 12.2kph. Distance 7.25km. Elevation gain 250 feet.
Strava, mapmyrun, and my fitness watch (combined with HR) all give similar calorie estimates. But happy to listen to anything that might show that it is incorrect.
MFP has already assigned anywhere from BMR * 1.25 /1440 and up to BMR * 1.8 / 1440 to every single minute of that run.
You have to deduct that pre-assigned amount from the gross burn that you see to find out the actual amount you SHOULD be adding to your eating goals.
Determining all this SHOULD be something done automatically by MFP (and most other similar websites) .. I've yet to run into one that does it.3 -
Sadly,you lost me when you topped off with a doughnut. After a 1000 cal fish +chips!!
I can only suggest you look for a mentor who might inspire you.
G luck3 -
callsitlikeiseeit wrote: »cwolfman13 wrote: »I personally don't do unplanned exercise to make up for anything...I just move on with my life. This can ultimately lead to a bad relationship with food and exercise and using exercise as some kind of punishment or penance for overeating. Regular exercise is something that should just become a part of your life whether you're trying to lose weight or not.
In the grand scheme of things, going over your target for a day is pretty immaterial...what you're doing most of the time is what is important. Also remember that your calorie target is a deficit, it's not maintenance...in many cases, people go over, but they're still under maintenance or at maintenance when it comes down to it. I would also question the 800 calorie burn for going for a run.
Calories are what is important for weight management. Your macros and going over on this or that macro is pretty irrelevant.
I do normally do planned exercise, when in my normal routine with 3 nights of either running or cycling (usually 2 x run & 1x cycle). However I've been in holiday for the last few weeks so things have gone off a little. I enjoy running so don't see it as a punishment.
I'm sure as you say that one day won't make a huge difference but in many ways it gave me a nudge to run which I probably wouldn't have done otherwise.
I'm interested in your question if the 800 calories is accurate. I realise they are just estimates but they are always relatively close no matter what app I use to track it.
I weigh around 200lbs and ran for just over 35 minutes at an average of 12.2kph. Distance 7.25km. Elevation gain 250 feet.
Strava, mapmyrun, and my fitness watch (combined with HR) all give similar calorie estimates. But happy to listen to anything that might show that it is incorrect.
800 calories for a 35 minute run @ 200 pounds?
no way. im not a runner but that cant be right.
at 182 pounds, female i burn (give or take) 350 MAYBE 400 calories (if it is a harder workout than average) in an HOUR on the elliptical. now, i will say my metabolism is a bit lower than the average, and that calorie burn also has to do with intensity levels (which is an autoprogrammed 'variety' mode of a medium type intensity) but I dont know that I can see 800 calories in a half hour for a run. Maybe someone can educate me on that if it is indeed a possibility for an average runner.
It depends completely on the intensity of your workout. I'm by no means the fastest runner, however the average speed of runners for my age (for a 5km) is around 11 minutes per mile. I'm running at less than 8 mins per mile on a 7km run. So it is more intense than an average run. I would call it high intensity exercise.
Looking at it I do think that as suggested above Strava is probably including the calories that would have been burnt anyway which MFP had already accounted for once.
I've checked out a few calculators and given my speed, weight, distance, time and elevation gain. They come out between 600 and 750 calories.
I could easily spend an hour on a cross trainer and only burn 400 calories but I also wouldn't feel it anywhere near as much as going for a run.3 -
While logically there's no real difference between limiting your intake to create a deficit and increasing your output to create a deficit, I have to agree with those who say there could be a tendency in this approach to creating an unhealthy relationship with food and exercise.4
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Sadly,you lost me when you topped off with a doughnut. After a 1000 cal fish +chips!!
I can only suggest you look for a mentor who might inspire you.
G luck
Why?
we can all have these sorts of meals now and then
Obviously frequency and portion amounts matter - but nothing wrong with eating those things sometimes if they are what you enjoy and can fit them in to your overall calorie allowance (or not, occasionally)
Whether to do a direct excercise 'swap out' to compensate for calories on the day was OP's question - not whether to ever eat such things.15 -
I’m going to buck the trend and say there’s nothing wrong with doing it this way. However you get to a calorie deficit is fine as long as you’re happy. In a perfect world you might plan ahead to run because you knew you were going to eat more, but that sort of planning will come with time as you get used to how much you need to eat, logging, and balancing your diary. There’s not one thing in the world wrong with eating more because you exercised more, it’s just the last minute “oh my gosh I went over now I have to hurt myself working out hard” that strikes some long timers here as obsessy, and I don’t think you’re in that mindset.
Carry on and don’t worry about the fat macro as long as your blood work is good. Try to eat some healthy veg and fruits, and don’t worry too much about whether you’re doing it right or not. The scale will tell the tale.8 -
YES!!
Great answer!!!!!
An occasional meal with the family, including fish and chips AND a donut?
As long as it truly is occasionally?
We’re not meant to wear hair shirts and whip ourselves absolutely all day every day
(unless that’s your thing. If so, I don’t judge)
Life is for living.
We all go over our calorie budget sometimes.
Planning ahead is best, obviously. But sometimes that doesn’t happen.
So. Roll with it.
Make up for it in the next few days by going a bit under, as has been suggested above.
You don’t have to exercise to burn it off.
If you want to? It doesn’t hurt. But you don’t have to.
Personally? I am losing weight in order to be healthier. But if it means no more cakes and donuts and pies ever????
Nah. That’s not how I want to live my life.
I will budget in a gluten free donut occasionally. Bet on it.16 -
I have often exercised to get more calories so I can have a specific treat or meal. I usually plan ahead rather than run retrospectively but if you enjoy running, and would have stressed out about eating too many calories if you hadn't run, I don't see a problem. I do enjoy running usually... otherwise I would choose another exercise or forego the treat.
I wouldn't then go and have a protein shake to meet my new calorie allowance though, only because I don't ever eat 100% of my exercise calories in case there's an error in my calculations. However, if you were hungry, trust your calculations, and are sure you would meet your deficit target, go for it.3 -
I've done exactly what you're describing, but I don't recommend it. It's a slippery slope, and ultimately, I couldn't outrun my fork.
I changed my calorie goal to a TDEE estimate instead of NEAT so that I wouldn't be tempted to run myself into an injury, trying to allow for more food.5 -
autumnblade75 wrote: »I've done exactly what you're describing, but I don't recommend it. It's a slippery slope, and ultimately, I couldn't outrun my fork.
I changed my calorie goal to a TDEE estimate instead of NEAT so that I wouldn't be tempted to run myself into an injury, trying to allow for more food.
To be honest on a day to day basis, the calorie goal is easily achievable and I tend to be a little under since starting watching it. I do think I'm eating less between meals since watching though which is probably what is making a difference combined with making tweaks to what I was reading which is hopefully leaving me feeling fuller. So on a normal day I don't really need to do anything additional to buy calories.
Next week when I get back into my normal routine, I'll be running and cycling weekly again. I enjoy exercise, it is my way of clearing my mind after a busy day at work. I've always run with a rest day in-between to ensure my muscles have chance to recover but would happily run every day. I was looking at a training programme where the rest days included a slow jog instead of a fast run, and they believed that the slow jog actually aided recovery more than complete rest and helped to build a better base level of fitness.
So I might look into doing a couple of km on the rest days too.2 -
I think your initial OP set off a lot of alarm bells as there are some people that use exercise as part of an eating disorder but your subsequent updates have put a different light on things.
Below that level are also a lot of people who simply make dieting too hard and too unpleasant to be ultimately successful. My approach was/is to make my diet fit my lifestyle rather than shoehorn my lifestyle into my diet.
You clearly treasure enjoying food with your family, you also obviously enjoy your exercise rather than it being a punishment or a penance for eating so-called "bad food".
Your speed is also impressive. Clearly exercise isn't for you just for calories and losing weight, another thing that occurs all too frequently on here.
How you could do that run after chish and fips and a duffnut is amazing. Chapeau!
10
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