Exercise earned calories

robbieday98 · February 7

Hi there, I'm at a plateau in my weight-loss and wondering how many of you eat your "exercise" earned calories?

AnnPT77 · February 7

I ate every delicious, carefully-estimated exercise calorie all through just under a year of weight loss (class 1 obese to healthy weight) and for nearly 8 years of maintenance since. It's worked fine for me.

If you're not losing any weight, and it's been at least a month of no loss, you may've found maintenance calories, though. If loss was going pretty well, then stopped suddenly, some weird water retention effect may be in play. If loss gradually tapered off over a period of weeks, then stopped, higher odds that you're eating at maintenance.

Have you lost a lot of weight already? If so, have you adjusted your calorie goal to reflect your lower weight? It takes less energy (calories) to move a smaller body through the world, so unless we increase activity (daily life or exercise), we require fewer calories as we get lighter.

Best wishes!

tomcustombuilder · February 7

I don’t count or track exercise calories. My exercise program is pretty regular so I just figure a normal weekly target including those.

mtaratoot · February 7

I absolutely eat back exercise calories. If I didn't, then I would be in a larger deficit than I want.

How long have you been working at weight loss? How much have you lost? Have you adjusted your goal since you started? If you've lost weight, you need fewer calories to move your body around; it's a good idea to revise your calorie target from time to time.

Also, plateaus just happen. They can be frustrating. Stick with the process, and success will find you. That's the trick though - you have to stick to it. Be patient. If you don't already, also consider using a tailor's tape to take body measurements every month or two. It can provide feedback when the scale seems to be "stuck." It's not. There's many things that go into the number on the scale. The thing you're trying to change if you're trying to lose weight is the amount of fat you're carrying. It can be masked. Just please stick to it!

robbieday98 · February 7

I have just started my weight-loss journey although I am not a newbie but a W.W. flunkie. I'm down 12 lbs for the month with a long way to go which is why I was surprised at the plateau. My daily calorie budget is 1800 but most days I'm below this amount not by much, 100-200 calories. Thank you for the feedback.

AnnPT77 · February 7

robbieday98 wrote: »

I have just started my weight-loss journey although I am not a newbie but a W.W. flunkie. I'm down 12 lbs for the month with a long way to go which is why I was surprised at the plateau. My daily calorie budget is 1800 but most days I'm below this amount not by much, 100-200 calories. Thank you for the feedback.

Holy cr*p! Twelve pounds in a month is super fast loss. If it were all fat (as unfortunately it probably was not), that would be a 1400 calorie daily deficit. If you are well over 300 pounds now, that may not strictly be too-fast loss, but it's very fast regardless.

Here's one normal pattern: Change one's way of eating, see a big scale drop: Partly fat, partly reduced water retention and reduced average digestive-tract contents on their way to the toilet.

A small number of weeks down the road, the person's body decides to re-balance water retention, which makes the scale creep up. It's not fat regain, but the scale goes up.

Reduce calories further? That's a bad plan, taking extreme calorie cuts more extreme. Higher probability of giving up (because it's Just Too Hard), higher risk of health consequences, fatigue, weakness, hair thinning a few weeks down the road, etc. Counterproductive.

Better: Wait it out. Eat your whole calorie goal. Fat loss is happening in the background, just temporarily masked by that increased water retention. Eventually, the fat loss will stop playing peek-a-boo on the scale with water weight, and you'll see the scale drop again.

While you're waiting, calculate what 0.5-1% of your current weight would be, and don't try to lose faster than that. In fact, around 0.5% of current weight being lost weekly is a good plan unless severely obese to start, and under close medical supervision for deficiencies or complications.

Do not try to game the water retention (diuretics, drinking gallons, whatever). Shifts in water retention are part of how a healthy body stays healthy. Our bodies know what they're doing in that realm, so we should let them do it.

Wait it out. If your calorie goal and logging are accurate (and based on 12 pounds of drop in a month!) sometime within the next month you'll see the scale drop again.

Did I say "wait it out"? Wait it out.

Best wishes. Hang in there!

yirara · February 7

Yes, 12lbs per month is massive! Please look at the weightloss goals you can chose here again and notice that you're way above that. Losing weight too quickly is overall not a good idea as you'll lose a ton of muscles and you might start to binge if you eat too little. On the other hand this has probably not all been fat but also quite a bit of waterweight. Usually, if you lose a lot of water there's a period where your body might recalibrate. Basically storing more water again while still losing fat. Result? No apparent loss on the scale.

Scale weight = body mass (bones, fat, muscle, other tissue) + water + clothes + food and fluid in your stomach and in transit.

kshama2001 · February 7

robbieday98 wrote: »

I have just started my weight-loss journey although I am not a newbie but a W.W. flunkie. I'm down 12 lbs for the month with a long way to go which is why I was surprised at the plateau. My daily calorie budget is 1800 but most days I'm below this amount not by much, 100-200 calories. Thank you for the feedback.

Since you lost so fast, you probably saw your weight go down every day, and now you've had a few days of not seeing a loss on the scale? That's not actually a weight loss plateau. I agree with the others that 1. you've lost extremely quickly and 2. you probably have some water rebalancing issues going on.

Here's a reasonable rate of loss:

Once you slow your rate of loss, you're going to see fluctuations. I can't find the chart I prefer, but this works:

https://myfitnesspro.co.uk/2014/10/weight-loss-isnt-linear-reasons-not-to-worry-if-you-dont-lose-weight-all-the-time/

Use a weight trending app such as Happy Scale (iphone) or Libra (Android) and focus on the trend, not the individual weigh-ins. I have Happy Scale and use the “Moving Average” as my official weight.

robbieday98 · February 8

I am quite positive that 75% of that 12lbs was all water. I will BE PATIENT and let the process work. Thank you! I'll keep ya posted on my progress.

yirara · February 8

robbieday98 wrote: »

I am quite positive that 75% of that 12lbs was all water. I will BE PATIENT and let the process work. Thank you! I'll keep ya posted on my progress.

Yeah, good one! Please keep us updated. And compare your weight today to your weight 4 weeks from now at the same moment in your cycle if you have one. If you're still losing so rapidly then eat more.

jjjsroach · February 10

If you are not losing weight, stop eating back your exercise calories. These are notoriously overestimated and can cause you to stall.

mtaratoot · February 11

jjjsroach wrote: »

If you are not losing weight, stop eating back your exercise calories. These are notoriously overestimated and can cause you to stall.

Notoriously overestimated? Perhaps some entries are not correct for everyone, but for the most part they are really close for me. I eat 'em back, and my results match what I would expect. What's notoriously UNDERESTIMATED is serving sizes. It's pretty common for people to be eating more than they think. Getting a better handle on measuring what you eat is a much more useful and sustainable solution than skipping exercise calories.

jjjsroach · February 12

TootaToot, the bottom line is that if you are losing 1-2 pounds per week on average over several weeks, then keep doing what you are doing. If you are not, put down the fork and cut back the calories.

mtaratoot · February 13

jjjsroach wrote: »

TootaToot, the bottom line is that if you are losing 1-2 pounds per week on average over several weeks, then keep doing what you are doing. If you are not, put down the fork and cut back the calories.

I think you may be referencing me, but that's not my name.

If you are trying to lose one pound a week and you are losing two pounds a week, you need to change your goals because they aren't tuned. If that's because you aren't eating back exercise calories, that's one good place to start. It takes logging accurately, completely, and honestly over several weeks plus tracking your weight honestly over weeks to figure out what your actual calorie goal should be. You can start with the estimate from MFP's setup or some other calculator, but you need to fine-tune it for yourself.

Why wouldn't a person want to get better information on their process and how they approach it? If I was used to driving the same car and getting 375 miles from a tank, I'd probably stop and get fuel if the gauge said I was empty even if I'd only been 300 miles. Same thing. Use the tools at your disposal to achieve your goals. Measure it to manage it.

tomcustombuilder · February 13

A lot depends on how you approach your calorie counting and tracking. The less accurate then the more your equation will be off. Bottom line is if you aren’t losing then your equation is off so you may want to not count exercise calories or maybe count like half.

jjjsroach · February 13

Thanks, Tom. That makes a lot of sense.

jjjsroach · February 13

TootaToot, I appreciate your input, but nutrition science is about as flaky as a freshly baked croissant. Just like how the layers of a croissant can crumble and change with every bite, nutrition science seems to shift and evolve with every new study. It's really not ready for primetime. We need to stick to the basics of eating a lot less than we burn and praying we lose weight.

kshama2001 · February 13

jjjsroach wrote: »

TootaToot, I appreciate your input, but nutrition science is about as flaky as a freshly baked croissant. Just like how the layers of a croissant can crumble and change with every bite, nutrition science seems to shift and evolve with every new study. It's really not ready for primetime. We need to stick to the basics of eating a lot less than we burn and praying we lose weight.

As he said above, that's not his name. You continuing to use it after being told it's wrong negates your appreciation.

PAV8888 · February 13

jjjsroach wrote: »

We need to stick to the basics of eating a lot less than we burn and praying we lose weight.

I would have to take issue with the basics as they appear to be depicted.

If we're successfully "eating a lot less than we burn"*
... then no praying would be necessary or required to achieve weight loss in the mid to long term**.

*with the proviso that "eating" includes all drinking, mainlining, and any and all forms of ingesting calories...
**unless you're praying to not screw up because you're overdoing things and making your life too difficult.

mtaratoot · February 13

jjjsroach wrote: »

TootaToot, I appreciate your input, but nutrition science is about as flaky as a freshly baked croissant. Just like how the layers of a croissant can crumble and change with every bite, nutrition science seems to shift and evolve with every new study. It's really not ready for primetime. We need to stick to the basics of eating a lot less than we burn and praying we lose weight.

Can you at least please use my actual name? I find your reply extremely disrespectful if you can't use my name.

You are correct that nutrition science is a young science. At the same time, it is actually science. We work towards a better understanding of what is actually going on. That's how science works. A good scientist will willingly let go of their hypothesis when data shows it was not correct. I used to be a scientist, and I have a deep respect for the process. Yes, we do get it wrong sometimes. That doesn't mean that we should listen to someone who won't publish in peer-reviewed journals and uses shaky methods and pseudoscience.

Or maybe you're just a troll and that's why you won't be respectful enough to actually use my name. So I'm done responding to your drivel.

jjjsroach · February 13

I apologize to this group. There are a lot of good, well-meaning people on here who are doing their best to help others. The sheer number of posts by many users on this thread show the level of commitment they have to making a difference in people's lives.

I was trying to just lighten things up a bit and trying to keep us all from taking ourselves too seriously. If I offended anyone, I am truly sorry. I will keep my mouth shut going forward and let you good people continue to help others in peace.

Exercise earned calories

Answers

Categories