Eating Exercise Calories? - I'm not 100% convinced.

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  • sarahkbarnes
    sarahkbarnes Posts: 70
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    MFP does the calculation of the calorie deficit for you, taking into account what you've burned in exercise that day. Trust what it says and eat back those calories!! I ALWAYS do and I have been extremely successful in my weight loss! I'm currently (at 32) the same size I was in high school, which is pretty small. Your body NEEDS calories to function. Trust that MFP is calculating it correctly for your goals and follow it!

    Good luck :)
  • sarahkbarnes
    sarahkbarnes Posts: 70
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    PS It's not about starving yourself, it's about changing your lifestyle and eating habits. If I didn't eat back my exercise calories, I would probably kill someone. Seriously. Our bodies and brains need food.

    :)
  • LorinaLynn
    LorinaLynn Posts: 13,247 Member
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    I eat mine.

    Loosing weight is mostly about calorie deficit. You don't need exercise for that. Exercise actually allows you to eat MORE (who doesn't like that) while maintaining your calorie deficit. It also give yous energy, is fun, preserves some muscle, makes you feel good about yourself, etc.

    Word!

    I feel no more guilt about eating more when I exercise hard than I feel guilt about putting gas in my car after a long drive. Actually, I probably feel more guilt about the car, what with gas prices being what they are. :laugh:
  • joseph9
    joseph9 Posts: 328 Member
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    I don't feel guilty. I don't want to lose muscle, just fat, so I don't really want to lose too fast.

    ETA: I *do* measure my calories pretty conservatively, though. I don't want to end up overeating just because some gym machine says I burned 1000 calories.
  • hottottie11
    hottottie11 Posts: 907 Member
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    Think of it this way.

    I eat my exercise calories, but I don't like to think of it that way.

    In my normal activities (NOT INCLUDING EXERCISE), I have a sedentary lifestyle. MFP estimates my daily calorie burn WITHOUT EXERCISE to be 1740.

    My goal is to lose 1/2 per week. In order to do so, MFP deducts 250 calories per day for me. If I want to lose 1/2 per week, I must eat 1490 calories. This is BEFORE I factor in calories. Now being the gym rat that I am, I workout 6 days a week and measure my calories burned with a Polar HRM (FT4). MFP exercise database overestimates my calories burned.

    Say I took my Zumba class and burned 550 calories. My calories expenditure for the day is no longer 1740...it is 2290 (1740+550). If I want to maintain my 250 cal deficit. I eat must 2040 cals (2290 -250) on this day. Now I realize there some room for error, I eat a little under this (-100)

    You may choose not to eat them back, but you risk running too large of a deficit and stalling your weight loss in the long run depending on how much you have to lose.

    The key to making "eating back your exercise cals" work is to make sure you have set the appropriate activity level (NOT INCLUDING EXERCISE) and getting an accurate measure of your calories burned.

    I eat back my exercise cals and I lose 1/2 to 3/4 lbs per week. I have lost 50lb thus far.
  • Sweet13_Princess
    Sweet13_Princess Posts: 1,207 Member
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    I have a hard time with eating my exercise calories too. I've finally adopted the attitude that, if I'm hungry, I'll eat them... if I'm not, then I won't. The main thing is that you shouldn't feel like you're starving all of the time. Otherwise, you'll eventually cave in and give up on yourself. We don't want that!:-D

    Shannon
  • llkilgore
    llkilgore Posts: 1,169 Member
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    Trust what it says and eat back those calories!! I ALWAYS do and I have been extremely successful in my weight loss! I'm currently (at 32) the same size I was in high school, which is pretty small.

    Me too, only I'm 58. I lost down to my high school weight on a post menopausal metabolism, without ever hitting a plateau, while eating back my exercise calories. It does work.
  • hannata86
    hannata86 Posts: 57
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    PS It's not about starving yourself, it's about changing your lifestyle and eating habits. If I didn't eat back my exercise calories, I would probably kill someone. Seriously. Our bodies and brains need food.

    :)

    Agreed, I'd go nuts without the extra cals!! And I've done my exercise, so I can have a treat..I think for me its a positive connection with extra food and *earning* it. I can manage it long term and thats the most important thing.

    The deficit is already there, you don't need to increase it, and long term you aren't really likely to lose more.. I've done a vlcd and it doesnt really do that much more than a week of (honestly) counting calories... not only that I felt terrible on it!!! :)
  • heatherhicksfakih
    heatherhicksfakih Posts: 35 Member
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    Think of it this way.

    I eat my exercise calories, but I don't like to think of it that way.

    In my normal activities (NOT INCLUDING EXERCISE), I have a sedentary lifestyle. MFP estimates my daily calorie burn WITHOUT EXERCISE to be 1740.

    My goal is to lose 1/2 per week. In order to do so, MFP deducts 250 calories per day for me. If I want to lose 1/2 per week, I must eat 1490 calories. This is BEFORE I factor in calories. Now being the gym rat that I am, I workout 6 days a week and measure my calories burned with a Polar HRM (FT4). MFP exercise database overestimates my calories burned.

    Say I took my Zumba class and burned 550 calories. My calories expenditure for the day is no longer 1740...it is 2290 (1740+550). If I want to maintain my 250 cal deficit. I eat must 2040 cals (2290 -250) on this day. Now I realize there some room for error, I eat a little under this (-100)

    You may choose not to eat them back, but you risk running too large of a deficit and stalling your weight loss in the long run depending on how much you have to lose.

    The key to making "eating back your exercise cals" work is to make sure you have set the appropriate activity level (NOT INCLUDING EXERCISE) and getting an accurate measure of your calories burned.

    I eat back my exercise cals and I lose 1/2 to 3/4 lbs per week. I have lost 50lb thus far.

    I completely agree with this :) The best way. Even if you speak with a trainer, not saying everyone who is a trainer is great at nutrition, but sometimes you actually find one that is, they will tell you the same thing, however eat a little under the calories burned because nothing is completely dead on unless you have a very very acturate heart rate monitor.
  • maura5880
    maura5880 Posts: 346 Member
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    MFP does the calculation of the calorie deficit for you, taking into account what you've burned in exercise that day. Trust what it says and eat back those calories!! I ALWAYS do and I have been extremely successful in my weight loss! I'm currently (at 32) the same size I was in high school, which is pretty small. Your body NEEDS calories to function. Trust that MFP is calculating it correctly for your goals and follow it!

    Good luck :)

    ^^ this is definitely how I feel too. MFP calculates your deficit so you'd lose weight literally sitting on the couch all day if you still stuck to their calorie goals for you. When you work out, you're creating an even larger deficit (not necessary to your weight loss, and possibly detrimental if you're going way too far under your goal. Thus, eating them back will put you at or close to your original deficit, doing no harm whatsoever. EAT peeps! :)
  • carrie145
    carrie145 Posts: 297
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    I have never understood the concept of eating back your exercise calories. No matter how many times I've read the explanations. I mean, why bust your butt to burn calories and then eat them back. I thought part of losing weight was burning calories..I try not to eat them..
  • LorinaLynn
    LorinaLynn Posts: 13,247 Member
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    I have never understood the concept of eating back your exercise calories. No matter how many times I've read the explanations. I mean, why bust your butt to burn calories and then eat them back. I thought part of losing weight was burning calories..I try not to eat them..

    It's because in the majority of weight loss plans, your daily activity and the amount you exercise is factored in when they give you your calorie goal.

    On MFP, only your daily activity is part of the calculation. They've already deducted the calories you'll need to lose weight, whether or not you exercise. That way, if you have a rest day, or just a bad day, you'll still lose the same amount of weight.

    If you change your goals to say you're going to exercise 10 minutes once a week, or two hours seven days a week, the number of calories they tell you to eat will be the same. That's because it's not added to the number of calories you should eat UNTIL you actually do the exercise.

    You're eating less to lose weight. You're exercising so you'll be strong and healthy, and to keep your lean muscle mass while you lose fat.
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,293 Member
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    I have never understood the concept of eating back your exercise calories. No matter how many times I've read the explanations. I mean, why bust your butt to burn calories and then eat them back. I thought part of losing weight was burning calories..I try not to eat them..

    Usually when setting up a caloric intake to lose weight you would take into account exercise and come up with your Total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) so if you BMR was 1800 and you work a desk job you would multiply that number by 1.2, on top of that you exercise and burn say 500 cals 4 days/week, so your average TDEE would be 2446 (1800*1.2+500*4/7, you workout for 500 cals 4 times per week so to get that average over the week you divide that by 7) so from this to lose 1 lbs/week you would set your calorie goal at 1946 (2446-500).
    MFP on the other hand would give you 2160 (1800*1.2) as your maintenance so to lose 1 lb/week tells you to eat 1660, this is to lose 1 lb with no exercise so on days you burn 500, you eat 2160 (1660+500) as your maintenance on those days grows from 2160 to 2660 so to lose 1lb eat 500 cals less than the 2660. so for the week MFP has you eat 1660 for 3 days and 2160 for 4 days, while the other way using TDEE you eat 1946 regardless if you workout or not and guess what?

    1946*7 = 1660*3+2160*4 = 13,620 you get the same weekly deficit same weekly loss

    So if you don't want to eat your exercise calories, you should change your activity level to active or very active depending on how often you workout, as working our requires fuel, and if you don't get enough your body will burn muscle, not just the fat you are looking at losing.
  • ashimon
    ashimon Posts: 23 Member
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    Why would you not eat back the calories? I went on a 10mi. run earlier this week and burned ~1189 calories according to my HRM/GPS watch. If I didn't eat back some of those calories I would have had very few calories for the day and not had enough energy to function. Instead I did eat back enough to be within my 1000 cal range for the day, which is hard, running is an appetite suppressant in and of itself.

    It is important to stay within that 1000 calorie deficit of your BMR+exercise anything less is not healthy and your likely going into starvation mode which means as soon as you can't take the starving feeling anymore or get depressed because the weight just isn't coming off like you'd like, 'because its hanging on to everything it can' and you go out and get something past what your body needs to function it adds every bit of the extra to your fat stores and you gain your weight back. Instead stay out of that zone by eating more healthy food and staying within that healthy 1000 calorie range. If you do, it is easy to continue to live a healthy lifestyle.
  • samantha_runs
    samantha_runs Posts: 38
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    If I am hungry I eat back some if not then I don't, if I do something like a long run, or an extra kickboxing class I will eat more for extra fuel.
  • pinkpumpedupkickz
    pinkpumpedupkickz Posts: 77 Member
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    Thank you for this reminder; this is what I've been doing, but I was starting to doubt the process a little. Everyone puts so much emphasis on just dive-bombing your calorie intake.. its great to be reminded that I'm doing things the right way. Thanks!

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