obesity and eating exercise cals back

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  • Lyra89
    Lyra89 Posts: 674 Member
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    It hugely depends also on WHAT you eat. 2000 calories of processed food and 2000 calories of whole foods like brown rice, beans, fruit and veg have ENTIRELY different effects on your body.
  • Lyra89
    Lyra89 Posts: 674 Member
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    -> I just checked out your diary. Seems quite healthy! Are you sure you don't have any underlying medical conditions?
  • phatty4dayz
    phatty4dayz Posts: 125 Member
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    I don't like to give general advice on the forum, but I do like to share my experiences. I was losing weight at a rate of 2lbs per week consistantly (using MFP) before I started exercising. When I started exercising, I stalled out for about 3 weeks. For the life of me I couldn't figure out why. Then I raised my calories (MFP recommended 1200, but I upped it to 1300) and I made sure I ate every single calorie. I also started eating back as much of my exercise calories as I could, which is something that isn't easy for me. Since doing that, I've started losing weight again. So basicly, it works for me. I'm going to continue to do it until it stops working. Hopefully that will never happen because I love to eat lol.

    And FYI, I am 5'4", 223lbs.
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
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    please someone answer this i was wondering about the calories burned and eating them too. if we have to burn more than we take in does it mean the 1200 calories my body needs i have to burn more than than that to lose weight or burn anything over the 1200 helppppp

    If your total expenditure is 2200 and you eat 1200 then the deficit of 1000 is supplied by burning fat from your reserves.

    If your MFP target is 1200 and you've set a weight loss goal then eating 1200 will give the calorie deficit to meet the goal. If you then exercise another 500 you'll either burn 500 more from fat or you can eat another 500 ( the "eating back" notion) and get back to the original target deficit.

    HTH
  • sabawden
    sabawden Posts: 15 Member
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    thanks...my dr has been checking for hypothyroidism but i regularly get conflicting results from my dr and endo (on 2 occassions they took the same blood test a couple days apart and the T4 (i think) was 6 for one blood test and 3 for the other- which is the diff between slightly above normal, and normal).... my endocrinologist said no meds were necessary and she'd just monitor it annually. no probs with that in my family or with my identical twin, who just lost 30lbs btw. ive never had issues losing weight before (and was always super athletic before i initially gained). And since my drs cant conclude anything, i woiuld like to guard myself against using it as an "excuse" for me being overweight....... its a motivation thing. :smile:
    -> I just checked out your diary. Seems quite healthy! Are you sure you don't have any underlying medical conditions?
  • LatinaGordita
    LatinaGordita Posts: 377 Member
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    This is a great question, I would like to hear more insight from shorter females who were or are 200+. I am 5'1

    I started at 226 on January 9, 2012 and today I am at 183lbs. MFP set me to 1200 cals as well, however I rarely touched/touch my excercise cals. I do zumba 5 days a week and burn an avg of 450 to 550 cals for 1 hour (per my HRM). Just today I increased my cals to 1350 just because I feel somewhat pressured by these forums with the scare tactics of slow metabolic rate and so forth.

    I read in another forum that if you are going to increase your cals to do it 100 cals increments. My personal opinion is when you are in an obese category that your body will not go into starvation mode, I mean we have so much stores of fat! However, I am not an expert. I do pay attention to my macros and eat 35% carbs, 40% protien and 40% fat.

    It has worked for me, and I'd say to you, do what works best for you. If increasing your cals is not working, go back to what you were doing, and when that doesn't work try something else.
  • mzhokie
    mzhokie Posts: 349 Member
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    I try to NET at least 1200-1300 calories (my daily is 1400).... so yes, eating back some of my exercise calories every day. When I started I was only working out maybe 3 times a week and barely 30 mins on the treadmill. I figured that on some days it was great that I would eat a lot of low calories stuff through out the day and not get hungry but I was barely eating 1000 calories total. My weight loss stopped as I was increasing my exercise but not my food intake. I read about eating my exercise calories back, BMR etc. and made some changes. The weight started dropping again.... 1 - 1 1/2 lbs a week.

    If you are now exercising more, then look into changing your profile. You probably aren't sedentary anymore. The more you work out, the more you should eat for fuel.
  • monty619
    monty619 Posts: 1,308 Member
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    it shouldnt apply to anyone... the whole point of exercise for weight loss is to burn extra calories, if you eat the calories back that you burn there is no point to do cardiovascular exercise besides heart health. weight and aesthetics can be controled solely by monitoring your diet and caloric intake and cardio is just a quicker way to get leaner and lose more body fat.

    and if you want to raise your BMR start to train with weights because building muscle burns many more calories at rest than fat does.
  • jenniferret
    jenniferret Posts: 4 Member
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    you are very active, and since you are using the hrm you can be sure the accuracy of your calories-out is correct in your workouts. i know when i was at a plateau, i was working out 1-2 hours a day, 5 days of the week and eating net my bmr. i got frustrated that the scale wasnt moving, and i felt like i was overdoing it with my excercise, so i cut back my workouts to just 3 days a week, and that next week is when i started losing a lot of weight- over the next 1-2 months i lost 15 lbs. looking back, even though i was netting by bmr, it was as if i wasnt eating enough calories for the workouts that i was doing.
  • sabawden
    sabawden Posts: 15 Member
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    thanks. i dont log ALL my exercise activity ( i do walk every day and dont log all of it, per my nutritionist's advice). but maybe i should start doing that since walking is a big part of my daily routine.
    thanks for the input. i dont want to take the shortcut way of losing weight, b/c im in no major rush. the only thing im getting "rushed" on is seeing progress. lets face it, progress is the biggest motivator!
    you are very active, and since you are using the hrm you can be sure the accuracy of your calories-out is correct in your workouts. i know when i was at a plateau, i was working out 1-2 hours a day, 5 days of the week and eating net my bmr. i got frustrated that the scale wasnt moving, and i felt like i was overdoing it with my excercise, so i cut back my workouts to just 3 days a week, and that next week is when i started losing a lot of weight- over the next 1-2 months i lost 15 lbs. looking back, even though i was netting by bmr, it was as if i wasnt eating enough calories for the workouts that i was doing.
  • jenniferret
    jenniferret Posts: 4 Member
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    you walk a lot, and always have. i have seen your legs, they are quite muscley if i may say so myself :love: maybe throw in some swimming- you were swimming a lot when you lost weight before, i think that is a great overall workout. perhaps your muscles could use the new challenge
  • sabawden
    sabawden Posts: 15 Member
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    LOL, well, thank you sis :) and i think mixing it up, like adding swimming again, is an excellent idea.
    you walk a lot, and always have. i have seen your legs, they are quite muscley if i may say so myself :love: maybe throw in some swimming- you were swimming a lot when you lost weight before, i think that is a great overall workout. perhaps your muscles could use the new challenge
  • emmiee921
    emmiee921 Posts: 224
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    I never eat my exercise cALS.. Yesterday I ate much more then I do 1800 compared to 1200 so I felt guilty and did 1hr walk and 20min jig but I still gained so i don't think for me it's a good idea
  • mmapags
    mmapags Posts: 8,934 Member
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    It hugely depends also on WHAT you eat. 2000 calories of processed food and 2000 calories of whole foods like brown rice, beans, fruit and veg have ENTIRELY different effects on your body.

    From a health point of view, you are totally correct. From a weight loss point of view, you are totally wrong. Your body does not distiguish between calories from healthy sources and less healthy sources. All it sees is the marco nutrients and the calories and deploys them based on your physiology. If you don't believe me, google Twinkie Diet.

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