What's one thing you know now...

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  • nxd10
    nxd10 Posts: 4,570 Member
    Macros are important for me. More than 40% carbs and my weight creeps up.
  • justanotherloser007
    justanotherloser007 Posts: 578 Member
    When you say eat back the calories: So many boards say "eat half of the exercise calories back" but since I walk, I find that the calories are spot on. Is this for super intense exercise? Is that why some people say that? The MOST I do is "low-impact cardio" - which I also like and both seem to be pretty spot on for my eating back ALL the calories. I have been subtracting 250 calories from food, and not eating back half my calories: 500 about. For a pound a week, I am seeing how it goes. I want to give it a few months - but so far it seems to track well.
  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,101 Member
    edited May 2022
    justanotherloser007 wrote: »
    When you say eat back the calories: So many boards say "eat half of the exercise calories back" but since I walk, I find that the calories are spot on. Is this for super intense exercise? Is that why some people say that? The MOST I do is "low-impact cardio" - which I also like and both seem to be pretty spot on for my eating back ALL the calories. I have been subtracting 250 calories from food, and not eating back half my calories: 500 about. For a pound a week, I am seeing how it goes. I want to give it a few months - but so far it seems to track well.

    People say that because depending on the source of the number and the type of exercise, the estimates can be inflated. For example: HR based estimate from a fitness tracker for interval training - this will probably be an inflated number, since heart rate isn't really reliable for calorie burns from non steady state cardio.
    Other confounding factors could be that some people don't see weight loss when they eat all of the calories back:
    - because their logging isn't very precise and they're eating more than they think
    - because their metabolism is slower than the population average (MFP calorie goal is an estimate based on statistical averages) so their base calorie goal is actually to high, and they need to eat back less exercise calories to compensate for that

    PS: the correct advice would be to eat back half for 1 or 2 months/menstrual cycles and then reassess, but a lot of people forget that second bit. The important thing is to monitor your weight trend and adjust upwards or downwards if you're losing at a faster or slower rate that intended. Calculators and fitness trackers only give estimates, but your weight trend will tell you how many calories you actually need 🙂
    I ate back all of my exercise calories and lost weight without issues, even a bit faster than intended.
  • dralicephd
    dralicephd Posts: 401 Member
    justanotherloser007 wrote: »
    When you say eat back the calories: So many boards say "eat half of the exercise calories back" but since I walk, I find that the calories are spot on. Is this for super intense exercise? Is that why some people say that? The MOST I do is "low-impact cardio" - which I also like and both seem to be pretty spot on for my eating back ALL the calories. I have been subtracting 250 calories from food, and not eating back half my calories: 500 about. For a pound a week, I am seeing how it goes. I want to give it a few months - but so far it seems to track well.

    What @Lietchi said... I started eating back half the calories that are stated on my HR monitor and it has been spot on for several months. I watched my weight loss very carefully with hope that I could eat ALL the calories back, but alas, half is what works for me. Everyone is different.
  • dralicephd
    dralicephd Posts: 401 Member
    James_Jordan___ wrote: »
    Just my 2 cents 🤗. Maybe there will be people who heartily disagree with what I've said. But, I've been doing this for 4 years now, have gone from 215~217 lbs at my heaviest down to 164 lbs at my fittest and was able to see my abs 😉.

    Can't disagree with observable results. :smile: Everyone is different. I'm happy for you that you can eat all the calories back. (Ok, maybe I'm a little bitterly jealous, but I'll live. :D ) Congrats on the successful weight loss and maintenance! That's fabulous.
  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 7,413 Member
    dralicephd wrote: »
    What's one thing I know now?

    That weight X does not look or feel the same at age 47 as it did at 25. Bodies change with time and age (and babies). Be open to flexibility in your goal weight.

    This!!!!!!

    I was 125 when I got married, and thought that would be my ultimate dream goal.

    At 127, I looked way too thin and fragile, and was losing muscle. The weight sits radically different several decades later.

    I’ve chosen to hover around 135 and look much healthier.

    My wedding dress is loose, even at the higher weight.

    If you’re shooting for a “historic” weight, make sure you have trusted people giving you honest opinions. It may just be too, too much, and our hearts don’t want to acknowledge what our eyes refuse to see.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 31,974 Member
    James_Jordan___ wrote: »
    dralicephd wrote: »
    James_Jordan___ wrote: »
    Just my 2 cents 🤗. Maybe there will be people who heartily disagree with what I've said. But, I've been doing this for 4 years now, have gone from 215~217 lbs at my heaviest down to 164 lbs at my fittest and was able to see my abs 😉.

    Can't disagree with observable results. :smile: Everyone is different. I'm happy for you that you can eat all the calories back. (Ok, maybe I'm a little bitterly jealous, but I'll live. :D ) Congrats on the successful weight loss and maintenance! That's fabulous.

    Thank you, stranger. Different devices will vary. I've tried other devices while still wearing the myzone band, and other ones would give me drastically higher rates of calorie burn that seemed dubious. So I just kept using the myzone since that's the first one I ever tried and it seems to be working. If I ate all the calories that the other devices had told me, no doubt I would have been spinning the wheels, or even gaining weight 😕

    It isn't just devices that vary.

    Aaaallll of those devices are just producing estimates. They don't measure calories, they measure other things that don't correlate precisely with calories, like heart rate, arm movements, distance, altitude, etc.

    The devices use algorithms based on population-level statistics. Do some have less well-designed algorithms? Sure.

    But some people aren't average, and a rare few can be pretty far from average, for reasons that may not be obvious. In any particular person's case, it's pretty impossible to tell which is in play, if we're talking about a device that seems to work adequately for other people, outside of a metabolic chamber, anyway.

    That "monitor and adjust" process will get most people to a point where they can achieve results, but every single part of the process is estimates, and can be inaccurate: Calorie logging from food, exercise calorie estimation, estimation of BMR/RMR on which trackers and calorie "calculators" both rely. Do people focus on the exercise part because we add that explicitly and often, in effect estimating it ourselves, rather than some technological invisible hand doing the spitballing?

    On top of that, any of the calorie estimates can be either too high, or too low. Around here, there's a pattern of people worrying that exercise calories will be estimated too high (rather than too low), and not much attention to whether BMR/RMR (therefore TDEE) may be estimated too high (or too low). I find that an odd bias, from an intellectual standpoint, but quite understandable from a psychological standpoint.
  • dralicephd
    dralicephd Posts: 401 Member
    +1 to everything @justanotherloser007 said!!!

    I'm not sure why it took me this long to realize that, yes, I HAVE to weigh and log everything. Period. For life. Otherwise, calorie creep will get me just like every other time I've regained weight that was lost. Also, like you, I don't know why I ignored my protein intake for so long. Making sure I get enough protein is really key to keeping the munchies away.

    I like your idea of eating back all your exercise calories in one day. I don't think that is something I would do regularly, but it can be certainly helpful when I know there is a holiday or party coming up. I'll have to file that trick away for later. :smiley:

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