Not Using your workout calories?

Hroake
Hroake Posts: 3 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Someone was telling me to eat 1200 calories a day and workout but dont add the burned calories onto your daily allowance. Would this be more effective way to lose pounds?

Replies

  • KaedenRose
    KaedenRose Posts: 4
    Honestly I think that's how you lose weight. It's all just math. If you burn more than you consume you lose weight. If you eat more than you burn you gain. If you consume the same as you put out you will maintain.
  • ♥_Ellybean_♥
    ♥_Ellybean_♥ Posts: 1,646 Member
    Just eat when your hungry keeping an eye on your calories.. you defiantly don't want to eat more than you burn. But if you don't eat them that is fine too.

    You need to eat less and workout more to lose.
  • pussycat626
    pussycat626 Posts: 129 Member
    I've been reading A LOT of posts on here lately and almost all the people who have had huge weight losses have said EAT your exercise calories you earned. It must be working because I see a lot of people on here with like 100 lbs lost and majority have said the same thing.
  • agthorn
    agthorn Posts: 1,844 Member
    Someone was telling me to eat 1200 calories a day and workout but dont add the burned calories onto your daily allowance. Would this be more effective way to lose pounds?

    No, because you only have 12 pounds to lose. Also, unless you're tiny, you probably shouldn't even be at 1200.
  • ♥_Ellybean_♥
    ♥_Ellybean_♥ Posts: 1,646 Member
    I've been reading A LOT of posts on here lately and almost all the people who have had huge weight losses have said EAT your exercise calories you earned. It must be working because I see a lot of people on here with like 100 lbs lost and majority have said the same thing.

    I think it goes both ways. For me I've lost almost 40lbs and NEVER eat my exercise calories. And most days I don't even hit 1200.
  • darlandbaird
    darlandbaird Posts: 103 Member
    I never eat all my calories or my workout ones.
  • kellyscomeback
    kellyscomeback Posts: 1,369 Member
    I've lost 10 lbs a month by eating back most of my exercise calories.
  • judkinsjenny
    judkinsjenny Posts: 220
    pretty much this. you will lose more if you dont eat your workout calories, just make sure you are not burning huge numbers like 1000 and then not eating them. that will make you REALLY hungry and youll gain cuz you ownt be able to control it and your body will hang on to it. i eat back 200 cls if i burn more than 500. if i burn less than 500 i dont et them back unless im hungry cuz that means i need it.
  • rfarinha
    rfarinha Posts: 388 Member
    Actually there are 2 schools of thought when it comes to eating exercise calories.

    1) Don't eat them to lose weight more quickly - which is what KaedenRose said.

    2) Your 1200 calorie per day alotment is already a calorie deficit, and just like MFP warns against eating too few calories, I believe that the same argument can be made for not eating your exercise calories. The reason being is that if you are exercising, then your body is going to "require" more calories, otherwise you run the risk of your body breaking down muscle for protien.

    Therefore, I tend to be more moderate... I will eat some of my exercise calories, but not nescessarily ALL of them.

    Good luck. I would love to hear if there is any "scientific" answer to this question. Any Dr.'s or Nutritionists out there?
  • KelsterNZ
    KelsterNZ Posts: 12
    This is the first time I've ever counted my own calories instead of following diet plans etc, and I am eating about half of my exercise calories on top of the daily allowance (only because I'm full and don't need any more food!). I'm eating so much more good food than I have ever done on any "diets" and the weight is coming off faster than it ever has.

    No idea what the scientific answer is but I say just eat healthily when you are genuinely hungry and log it just to check its under your total allowance, and it will work. Don't ever let yourself go hungry, but don't force yourself to eat the extra calories either, they are there if you need them, a mid balance seems to work well! Try it either way and see what works best for you?

    Good luck!
  • agthorn
    agthorn Posts: 1,844 Member
    I've been reading A LOT of posts on here lately and almost all the people who have had huge weight losses have said EAT your exercise calories you earned. It must be working because I see a lot of people on here with like 100 lbs lost and majority have said the same thing.

    I think it goes both ways. For me I've lost almost 40lbs and NEVER eat my exercise calories. And most days I don't even hit 1200.

    You have a larger weight loss goal than the OP. When you are dealing with larger goals, you will have more wiggle room for a bigger deficit. When you have a small weight loss goal, your body doesn't care about you fitting into a smaller size of jeans or having more toned thighs. It cares about survival, and if your deficit is too big it WILL hold on to every bit of fat stores it can because it thinks that you are in danger of starving.
  • jlikennedy3
    jlikennedy3 Posts: 15 Member
    I do not agree. The healthy way to lose weight is to reduce your calorie intake. If you eat 2000 calories to maintain your weight, then you reduce your calorie intake to lose weight. That means on a normal diet you burn 2000 calories. If you choose to reduce to, say 1200, to lose 2 lbs per week and workout on top of that, you should still eat 1200 calories + the workout. If you eat too few calories, it can put your body into starvation mode which will actually cause you to have the reverse effects of what you are looking for. Your body will compensate for the calories that you are not comsuming in which it requires just to function. For example, if you did nothing all day but sat on your behind, your body would still roughly require 1000 calories to pump blood, breathe, and sustain life. If you decided to reduce that calorie intake, your body would then begin to store some of the calories you consume to help offset the effects of starvation which would prevent you from losing weight. Your metabolism will decrease. Eventually, if you chose to remain on that low calorie intake, your body will begin to pull from other sources to make up the difference. That is why anorexic people tend to lose their hair and nails because the body begins to eat itself. (Trust me, I have been through it all... you are welcome to read my profile! My have suffered the consequences of this and I will be paying for it for a long time, but I am working on re-training my body.) Best of luck!
  • Rebroland
    Rebroland Posts: 92 Member
    My understanding of this is that you should not eat below a NET of 1200 calories to be healthy. IE you should eat your exercise calories that you burned back.
  • nikolli2000
    nikolli2000 Posts: 10
    I just find that eating most of your alloted calories, you don't feel like your dieting. However, I do make good food choices to fill in the calories lost during exercise. The one thing I've noticed also, I don't feel like binge eating at all and I have TONS of energy. I now can run 4 miles in 39 minutes with no problem, where as before I had to stop in between. My body went into starvation mode for years. I spent 3 months exercising like a mad woman a few months back and didn't lose a pound. I mean i was burning somewhere in the neighborhood of 1000 calories. I ran, lifted weights, yoga, you name it, but I wasn't eating enough so what i did eat was stored as fat. I couldn't figure it out until I read the post about eating all your calories so I tried it and sure enough the weight is coming off slowly, but I'm eating..alot..haha. I get to enjoy baked potatoes and whole sandwiches, whole wheat pasta and stuff that i deprived my body of. I say try what works for you.
  • agthorn
    agthorn Posts: 1,844 Member
    I would love to hear if there is any "scientific" answer to this question. Any Dr.'s or Nutritionists out there?

    Disclaimer that I am a PhD, not an MD, and not in nutrition. BUT having said that, the answer is because our bodies have a prehistoric adaptation to scarce food resources. Our digestion and metabolism, the enzymes that store and release energy are all uniquely fine tuned to keep us alive as long as possible in the face of inadequate food.

    Except that most of us in the US (and I'd certainly say everyone on this site) do NOT lack for food. So what does that mean for weight loss? Well, when you have a lot of weight to lose, your body is okay with a big caloric deficit because it knows it has plenty of reserves. Think of it as a big fat (literally and figuratively) "emergency fund" of sorts. It doesn't have to make a lot of changes to its metabolism because it can draw on the emergency fund - your stored fat.

    When you get into the 20-30 pound range though, these are what I call "vanity pounds" - you're probably at or close to a normal BMI at this point. When you have big deficits here, either through a very high calorie restriction alone, a LOT of exercise, or (what usually happens on this site) a combination of the two, your prehistoric body freaks out. It says "All the antelope are gone and everyone else picked all the berries within walking distance of my cave!!" And then it goes into survival mode because you've got a big calorie deficit and it doesn't know when you'll get adequate calories again. So it conserves resources (your smaller fat reserves) as much as it can, to keep you alive as long as it can. Because as I said before, your body doesn't care about you fitting into smaller jeans - it cares about survival.

    So to summarize - when you have a lot of weight to lose, you can "get away" with not eating your exercise calories. When you have a small amount of weight to lose, you have to lose it very slowly in order to reassure your prehistoric body that yes, there are plenty of antelope and berries still around and it's okay to let go of a little more of that fat reserve. This means smaller goals (1/2-1 pound a week) and not making your deficit too big by neglecting to eat your exercise calories. The problem is that too many people on this site a) have bigger goals than are realistic or healthy (a lot of people just pick the 2lbs per week because they think it will get them there the fastest) and b) don't realize that their deficit is already created through diet alone and exercise is only counted when you actually log it. You could avoid exercise entirely and still meet your weight-loss goal on this site. Exercise will let you eat a little more, make you look better, and make you healthier.
  • rfarinha
    rfarinha Posts: 388 Member
    Thanks agthorn!

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