Should you eat back your calories on workout days?

sarthakmani
sarthakmani Posts: 1 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Hi y'all! So I'm trying to lose weight and build muscle at the same time. I also do a HIIT workout every other day. The app says I should eat about 2300 cals every day but on my workout days, it adds 700-800 because that's how much I burned on my workout. Does that seem right? It just seems odd that I would eat 2300 on one day and 3100 the next.

Replies

  • Retroguy2000
    Retroguy2000 Posts: 1,848 Member
    Yes, you should eat at least some of those calories back, otherwise you're just leaving yourself in a bigger deficit on those days, which is potentially counter to your goal of hopefully building muscle too. There are a couple of caveats though.

    First, are you sure that 700-800 is accurate? Calorie burn estimates can often be inflated. Some people suggest eating back maybe half the estimate burned, and track how you go for a month.

    Second, bear in mind your net calories burned is your workout minus your RMR, i.e. the calories you would have burned just doing nothing instead of working out. Assuming an MET of 1 for that (lack of) activity, that would be 1 (MET) * 1.05 * bodyweight (kg) for your calories per hour just sitting around doing nothing. In other words, yes you might have burned 700 calories working out for an hour, but if you would have burned 80 just watching Netflix, then you shouldn't eat back more than 620.

    Make sure to get enough protein too. 1g per pound of lean body mass is a good minimum target. Depending on your body fat that's maybe around 0.7-0.85g per pound bodyweight.
  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,841 Member
    sarthakmani wrote: »
    Hi y'all! So I'm trying to lose weight and build muscle at the same time. I also do a HIIT workout every other day. The app says I should eat about 2300 cals every day but on my workout days, it adds 700-800 because that's how much I burned on my workout. Does that seem right? It just seems odd that I would eat 2300 on one day and 3100 the next.

    Aside from the good advice given above, I'd like to add that it isn't really strange to eat more on more active days. That's what I like about MFP, because it cements the idea that being more active requires more calories and being less active requires less calories.

    That being said, you don't have to eat exercise calories on the same day necessarily. Some people are more hungry on the days following their workouts, for example - it's fine to eat them the next day too.
    You can select a weekly view in MFP (on the app at least) if you prefer to be flexible and just check if your intake is OK for the week instead of daily

    You could also opt to eat at the same goal every day: TDEE method including exercise upfront in your calculations of your calorie needs, and just dividing your weekly calorie allotment evenly over 7 days).
    My exercise is too irregular for that, and as I said, i prefer the 'move more, eat more' approach.
  • jjlbrick
    jjlbrick Posts: 238 Member
    I work out everyday cycling. I don’t eat the work out calories every day once in a while like yesterday .
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,420 Member
    edited October 2022
    I always ate (and still do eat) all the exercise calories. I lost 80 pounds and have kept it off.

    All the numbers you use are estimates. You have to run your own experiment on intake numbers, exercise numbers and weight changes.

    Pick a method, stick to it for two months. Re-adjust at the end of that experiment duration. Some people eat all, some half, some XXX amount. All of this depends on your personal accuracy in tracking your food.

    Work on getting that part right and the rest will be easy. https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1234699/logging-accurately-step-by-step-guide/p1
  • serpentegena
    serpentegena Posts: 43 Member
    I actually had the same question a short while ago, and I bookmarked this link which shows some useful calorie burning estimates. https://crosstownfitness.com/blog/how-many-calories-does-a-hiit-workout-burn/
    Now, keep in mind I'm not an expert in any way, I'm just like you, trying to figure out things that work for me. But I just think 700-800 calories is a very high estimate. Unless you're doing over an hour of HIIT (which might not be the most efficient way to do HIIT, as that link mentions), it's not very likely that you're burning 800 calories in one session.
    Finally, we rely on all these different apps and electronic trackers for insight into our bodies, but none of them are 100% accurate. With MFP, it might be the portion sizes. With fitness, it might be the app's formulas, that are different to what you expect (I remember trying to calculate my BFP by myself, and getting a wide bracket from 20-38% depending on the formula). You can't take the information you get out of them for absolute certainty. Listen to your body directly, bypassing the apps. How do you feel? Drained and exhausted? Eat! Are you feeling energetic and balanced? You're probably getting the right food intake, so hold off on that snack for now.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    sarthakmani wrote: »
    Hi y'all! So I'm trying to lose weight and build muscle at the same time. I also do a HIIT workout every other day. The app says I should eat about 2300 cals every day but on my workout days, it adds 700-800 because that's how much I burned on my workout. Does that seem right? It just seems odd that I would eat 2300 on one day and 3100 the next.

    If you set up your profile as MFP designs, your activity level does not include exercise which is therefore unaccounted for activity. Exercise needs to be accounted for somewhere just like all of your other calorie (energy) needs. TDEE calculators account for exercise up front in your activity level and thus one would typically get a higher calorie target. MFP accounts for exercise on the back end when you log it and get additional calories. MFP isn't trying to trick you or something.

    That said, estimating calorie expenditure with exercise can be tricky and I'd wager that 700-800 calories on your exercise days is quite possibly if not probably an overestimate depending on what you're doing and how you're arriving at that estimate. Also, it is in no way odd to consume more calories on more active days...calories are energy (fuel)...the more active you are, the more fuel your body needs. Just like driving a car...you need more fuel to do a 120 mile round trip commute than you do to drive around the corner to the grocery store.

Categories