i hate to even ask ... eating excercise cals
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_snw_
Posts: 1,305 Member
I don't want to bring up a subject that has been talked about a zillion times, but I've been clicking around and i can't find a good thread about the topic. (i also don't want to start up a could-be controversial topic)
If someone could point me in the direction of a thread if you could - it'd help. thanks!
Excercise calories. So, I'm not a nutritionist - I don't understand the aspect of "fueling your body" when you are excercising a good amount. I mean, I get that you shouldn't be starving yourself, that without a good amount of calories to begin with, your not going to be able to have good energy. But that's all I get.
This is what I need explained so I understand it ---> I'm eating at a 500 basal calorie deficit. I burn about ~700 calories per day (on average) doing hard cardio. Which would bring me up to a 1200 calorie deficit. While I understand that is too much of a deficit, if I ate ALL 700 calories back, I would only have the 500 deficit again. Wouldn't that totally negate my entire workout? Can someone please give me the pieces of the puzzle I know I'm missing?
If someone could point me in the direction of a thread if you could - it'd help. thanks!
Excercise calories. So, I'm not a nutritionist - I don't understand the aspect of "fueling your body" when you are excercising a good amount. I mean, I get that you shouldn't be starving yourself, that without a good amount of calories to begin with, your not going to be able to have good energy. But that's all I get.
This is what I need explained so I understand it ---> I'm eating at a 500 basal calorie deficit. I burn about ~700 calories per day (on average) doing hard cardio. Which would bring me up to a 1200 calorie deficit. While I understand that is too much of a deficit, if I ate ALL 700 calories back, I would only have the 500 deficit again. Wouldn't that totally negate my entire workout? Can someone please give me the pieces of the puzzle I know I'm missing?
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I read somewhere if you eat them only eat half. I guess I can't say I'm a credible source seeing as I can't remember where I heard it lol.
Try to figure out what works best for you though. For some eating them back works, for others it doesn't.0 -
I dont understand it either. I tried eating my calories back and I felt more tired and didnt lose weight. I think some peoples bodies need it more than others... Fat is stored energy... so why not eat enough to get by and any extra be takin from my butt or thighs?! lol0
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It all comes down to simplifying the calculation for your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE). It's pretty hard to calculate it outright because everyone's activity can vary so much from day to day. So instead they have you calculate a baseline which is based on your normal activity (the part where it asks you about your lifestyle whether it's active, sedentary, etc). Then from there as you add additional calorie burning activities over an above that baseline it's easier to calculate those individually and add them to your total expenditure. Now from that you can see how many calories you need to eat in order to hit the specific calorie deficit that will meet the weekly goal needed for your weight loss goal (i.e. .5, 1, 1.5 or 2 lbs per week). So the idea of eating back exercise calories is to make sure your body has enough energy for each day (since it's generally recommended that you not lose more than 2 lbs per week on a long term average).
No mystery, no secret, just MFP's effort to make things as accurate and easy to follow as they can.
EDIT: Personally I recommend starting by eating back your exercise calories but be flexible and ready to change. If you're really just not hungry, don't force feed. If you don't lose weight you might be over-estimating your calorie expenditure so either be more conservative with those calculations or eat back only half of your exercise calories. Some of this is trial and error because many of the numbers in MFP are estimates based on averages.0 -
first.. you have to eat healty and not starving yourself - for your body, heart, health etc.. but answering your question, you have to eat at least 1200 cals a day! because you burn 700 cals by doing workout, but you also burn calories just by living! e.g your body is burning calories while sleeping, walking, whatever you are doing.. so if you eat in moderation (e.g those 1200 in a day) and workout too, then you will start losing weight.. ok my explanation might be little bit confusing.. but if you starve yourself, then your body goes into "starving-mode" which means that it keeps all the cals and fats, because your body is "scared" and confused what's happening, and it thinks it needs to gather all the possible fat.. and hence your body starts burning muscle instead of fat.. but it's known that if you have muscle, it burns 50% more fat, even if you're just sitting around.. so its important to train too.. and (it's getting so long, sorry :happy:) by starving your metabolism slows down too.. but fast metabolism is the key of losing weight.. so drink lots of water and eat LITTLE portions in every 2-3 hours (preferably 5 times a day)
hope it wasn't too confusing
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Your body needs calories to perform basic functions as well as intentional exercise.. Just because you don't realize you are burning calories, your body is always working. You still need to eat enough to sustain your body's natural functions. When you do hard exercise, your body burns your nutrients faster than just day to day activity. You lose a lot of minerals and electrolytes through sweat and muscles function. Your body will also burn the protein in your muscles as an energy source. It doesn't just burn fat so you need to make sure you are replenishing your body with the nutrients you lose from such vigorous exercise. It's not healthy to lose more than a few pounds per week. If you do, you're probably burning up protein rather than fat. You'll see better long term results if you give yourself reasonable diet and exercise goals that you can commit to rather than depriving yourself and then ending up binging like crazy.
If you don't put enough gas in your car, you wont be able to drive as long as you want. And if you don't watch your levels, your car breaks down all together. Your body works the same way.0 -
To answer your question, yes and no. You wouldn't completely negate your workout by eating your exercise calories back since your get other benefits from exercise, but as far as a calorie deficit goes, then yes you would be. Depending on how much weight you're wanting to lose in a week will depend on your deficit. It's recommended not to lose more than 2 lbs a week (which I'm sure you've read or heard), but keep in mind that 1 lb = 3500 calories. So to lose 1lb a week, you have to have a 500 calorie deficit everyday for 7 days. If you're wanting to lose 2lbs, then that's 1000 calorie deficit everyday. If you're eating back the extra 200 calories from your burn to bring your deficit to a 1000 calorie deficit, you should lose approximately 2 lbs a week and be within the healthy range from ACSM guidelines. If you don't eat back that 200 calories, it's not the end of the world...the studies just show that most people are more successful at keeping the weight off if they don't lose too much too fast, because in the end you're teaching yourself a healthy balance between food and exercise and developing healthy habits rather than focusing on only losing the weight as quickly as possible.
So in essence, you're taking in 500 calories less than your recommended maintenance caloric intake already, which should have you lose approximately 1 lb per week. If you eat back all your exercise calories, you would still lose 1 lb a week. If you keep doing what you're doing and don't eat them back, you should be at around a 2 lb per week loss. Does that help?0 -
What is your calorie goal per day before excercise? You should never eat less than 1200 calories per day because it is nearly impossible to get all of your vitamins, minerals, nutrients... with less than 1200. You don't HAVE to eat your exercise calories if you are eating at least 1200 calories per day. If you are on a 500 calorie per day deficit, that would equal 3500 calories per week which is 1 pound weight loss. However, calorie burning does not stop as soon as you stop exercising... Your heart rate is still up, your metabolism increases (you burn more calories just doing nothing than you previously did), and you've built muscle which automatically burns more calories just to sustain itself. Building muscle or strengthening muscle turns your body into a calorie burning machine. Your basal metabolic rate increases and you burn more calories all day long. If you are not getting the appropriate nutrients, your muscle can't build and will break itself down. No one wants to lose weight from loss of muscle rather than loss of fat. Moral of the story, always eat at least 1200 calories. Try to eat half your exercise calories back, preferably with something high in protein which your muscles need anyway, and you will begin to see great results.0
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Frankly exercise is not particularly useful for weight loss. It was only in say the past 30 years that those who specialized in weight loss changed from a diet focus including discouraging people who wanted to lose weight from exercising, to seeing exercise as the way for people to lose weight. Now the shift is happening again as the research comes in showing more and more that losing weight is mainly about diet and having a moderate deficit (no more than 1000 calories a day even for obese people [NOTE: For those who are morbidly obese a much larger deficit is possible under medical supervision for a short period of time] but for most around 250-500). That is why since your deficit is already established through your calorie allowance without any exercise, you need to eat your exercise calories back to keep that deficit in that moderate range.
This does not mean exercise does not benefit you, or that eating your exercise calories makes it a waste.
First of all it helps keep your metabolism up. Diet will slow your metabolism over time. Vigorous activity works against that.
Second, if you strength train it will preserve your muscle mass thus also helping keep your metabolism up since muscle is more metabolically active than fat.
Third, exercising teaches you to be active. For most of us our fat came on both because of eating too much, but also because of doing too little. We were the standard sedentary people of the developed world with lots of fairly inexpensive food available to us. We did not more in keeping with what we ate. Exercise gets you into the habit of eating in keeping with your activity. For that matter, eating your exercise calories just re-enforce that approach.
There are other approaches to calorie counting that do not have a person eating their exercise calories, but then they eat more calories than what MFP tends to assign. For example it is possible to lose weight by eating at your maintenance calories before adding any exercise and establishing your deficit through exercise. You would be eating a lot more every day doing that than what you do now since you would not have a calorie deficit from food, but only from exercise.
I exercise for the above reasons, and primarily for my health to keep my heart and body strong. I find I have much more energy, and am much more active largely because of the exercise I do.0 -
Simply stated MFP has already figured out your total calories you need to eat per day to lose 1lb etc. a week. That's WITHOUT exercise. You'll notice that when you actually add exercise in, the calorie limit goes up. Why? Because it's telling you to eat your exercise calories. Large deficits aren't really good to do because while you will lose weight, what kind of weight will it be? In many cases you'll lose lean muscle tissue which LOWERS your metabolic rate even more. Then you have to eat even less to compensate for less of a calorie burn to continue to lose the same amount of weight each week.I don't want to bring up a subject that has been talked about a zillion times, but I've been clicking around and i can't find a good thread about the topic. (i also don't want to start up a could-be controversial topic)
If someone could point me in the direction of a thread if you could - it'd help. thanks!
Excercise calories. So, I'm not a nutritionist - I don't understand the aspect of "fueling your body" when you are excercising a good amount. I mean, I get that you shouldn't be starving yourself, that without a good amount of calories to begin with, your not going to be able to have good energy. But that's all I get.
This is what I need explained so I understand it ---> I'm eating at a 500 basal calorie deficit. I burn about ~700 calories per day (on average) doing hard cardio. Which would bring me up to a 1200 calorie deficit. While I understand that is too much of a deficit, if I ate ALL 700 calories back, I would only have the 500 deficit again. Wouldn't that totally negate my entire workout? Can someone please give me the pieces of the puzzle I know I'm missing?
Be efficient. Exercise hard and eat back the calories. The hard exercise will RAISE your metabolic rate and burn more fat at rest.
A.C.E. Certified Personal Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition0 -
I eat mine back sometimes, and other times I don't eat them all. I mainly make sure that my NET calories are at least 1200. My intake is set at 1580. If I burn 400 working out, that puts me at 1980, which is a lot of food for me. So I make sure I eat at least 1600 so that my NET is 1200. If I'm still hungry, I can have up to 380 more; sometimes I do, sometimes I don't...just depends on whether I'm hungry or not.
Keep in mind, too, that even if you are "negating" your exercise, the exercise itself still has major benefits for your body--cardiovascular health, retention of muscle mass, development of better endurance, etc. You also want to avoid the "skinny fat" look, which exercise helps to do.0 -
wow. you guys all rule. lots of good information I've heard in bits and pieces through my life.
As for what a few people asked ....
I am targeting one lb / week weight loss. My basal calorie is low enough (i've only got 16~ish lbs to lose) that I hit the 1,200 limit with just a 500 calorie deficit.
Regarding excercise to lose weight - I'm with the old school thought - excercise is teaching me to be active. Yes, I'm working cardio a bit harder than strength training right now because I'm going for thelarger burn, but I also understand how good muscle is - so I'm slowly trying to get myself to up the strength training and chill on the cardio. I'm probably 75%/25% now. As my weight goal comes into view, I'll settle into a much better ratio to continue to stay active/healthy. I have ZERO plans to stop excercising when I get to where I want to be.
Let me simplify the issue I'm having ....
With diet, I'm kind of stuck with "only" a 500 cal deficit per day based on my daily caloric needs (i'm a computer programmer so i'm sedentary all day, even though I work out daily and am pretty active otherwise). My mindfu@k is that I WANT to get up to the 2 lbs / week loss limit, generically speaking, which means I need to deficit myself another 500 calories/day. So I'm hard pressed to eat back those last 500 calories I got from excercise. But maybe my body simply can't afford to have a 1,000/day deficit with a 1,700 cal need + 700 excercise need. Maybe I'm just chasing a too quick of a fix.0 -
My quick and simple solution for you, target burning 1000 cal / day with cardio and then eat back about 500 of those calories and you'll be good to go for your goal.
Others may argue that if your TDEE without exercise is only 1700 as it is, that means you're already close enough to your ideal weight that you should not be trying to lose at a rate of 2 lbs/week. I don't necessarily disagree with that but without knowing all of your details I can't say one way or the other.0 -
What is so hard about this?I don't want to bring up a subject that has been talked about a zillion times, but I've been clicking around and i can't find a good thread about the topic. (i also don't want to start up a could-be controversial topic)
If someone could point me in the direction of a thread if you could - it'd help. thanks!
Excercise calories. So, I'm not a nutritionist - I don't understand the aspect of "fueling your body" when you are excercising a good amount. I mean, I get that you shouldn't be starving yourself, that without a good amount of calories to begin with, your not going to be able to have good energy. But that's all I get.
This is what I need explained so I understand it ---> I'm eating at a 500 basal calorie deficit. I burn about ~700 calories per day (on average) doing hard cardio. Which would bring me up to a 1200 calorie deficit. While I understand that is too much of a deficit, if I ate ALL 700 calories back, I would only have the 500 deficit again. Wouldn't that totally negate my entire workout? Can someone please give me the pieces of the puzzle I know I'm missing?
You eat back ALL YOUR CALORIES!
And the purpose of exercise is to strengthen your body and rev up your metabolism - not just burn calories.0 -
My quick and simple solution for you, target burning 1000 cal / day with cardio and then eat back about 500 of those calories and you'll be good to go for your goal.
That is a big goal! I have done P90X and I am doing insanity now and only have burned 1000 on a couple of occasions!
I eat as much as I need to in order to feel full... that requires a good calorie burn. All that said, I like to go to bed with a couple hundred calories on the table.0 -
Others may argue that if your TDEE without exercise is only 1700 as it is, that means you're already close enough to your ideal weight that you should not be trying to lose at a rate of 2 lbs/week.
This is probably truer (is that a word) than not, but I will completely admit it screws with my mind. SAME type of thing as if I try on 2 pairs of jeans which fits exactly the same, and one is a size4 and the other is s size6, I'd buy the size4 ~just because~ it's the lower number. That's years of american propoganda being shoved into my brain right there.0 -
Just for me personally - I don't eat my exercise calories back. I didn't read all the responses so I'm sure you'll get a variety of answers - just do what works best for you.0
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If I'm hungry, I eat them.
If I'm not, I don't.0 -
MFP already has your daily goals set at a deficit.Just for me personally - I don't eat my exercise calories back. I didn't read all the responses so I'm sure you'll get a variety of answers - just do what works best for you.
You eat back your calories to keep daily intake right at that number represented by that 1 lb per week weight loss.
It's not as sexy as losing 10 lbs per week like some diet scam, but it's realistic, healthy and about lifestyle - not quick weight loss.0 -
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Simply stated MFP has already figured out your total calories you need to eat per day to lose 1lb etc. a week. That's WITHOUT exercise. You'll notice that when you actually add exercise in, the calorie limit goes up. Why? Because it's telling you to eat your exercise calories. Large deficits aren't really good to do because while you will lose weight, what kind of weight will it be? In many cases you'll lose lean muscle tissue which LOWERS your metabolic rate even more. Then you have to eat even less to compensate for less of a calorie burn to continue to lose the same amount of weight each week.I don't want to bring up a subject that has been talked about a zillion times, but I've been clicking around and i can't find a good thread about the topic. (i also don't want to start up a could-be controversial topic)
If someone could point me in the direction of a thread if you could - it'd help. thanks!
Excercise calories. So, I'm not a nutritionist - I don't understand the aspect of "fueling your body" when you are excercising a good amount. I mean, I get that you shouldn't be starving yourself, that without a good amount of calories to begin with, your not going to be able to have good energy. But that's all I get.
This is what I need explained so I understand it ---> I'm eating at a 500 basal calorie deficit. I burn about ~700 calories per day (on average) doing hard cardio. Which would bring me up to a 1200 calorie deficit. While I understand that is too much of a deficit, if I ate ALL 700 calories back, I would only have the 500 deficit again. Wouldn't that totally negate my entire workout? Can someone please give me the pieces of the puzzle I know I'm missing?
Be efficient. Exercise hard and eat back the calories. The hard exercise will RAISE your metabolic rate and burn more fat at rest.
A.C.E. Certified Personal Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
THIS!
Discussion over....
Good luck with your goals!0
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