Exercise and weight loss - How many calories that you burn should you "eat back"? (lift, treadmill)
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2 months ago I started exercising and eating healthy in earnest again after a long layoff. I am very confused on nutrition, exercise and weight loss. I have used the MyFitnessPal app in the past with great success for meal tracking and ensuring I was eating appropriately. So far I've lost about 15 lbs and I feel great. The transformation to my body has been awesome and my energy levels are the best they've been in years. My current goal is to lose an additional 10 lbs, reassess and then establish a new goal. Losing the intial weight was relatively easy since I can attribute much of it to exercise and cutting out bad habits. I'm running ~3-4 miles a day on a treadmill (Mon, Wed, Fri) and 5 miles on an elliptical (Tues, Thurs). Tracking my steps, I average 14,000 a day. In the next 2-3 weeks, I am planning on phasing out the elliptical for strength training.
I've sort of hit a plateau, which I expected to come after the initial loss, so I started to track my food again. I'm concerned that I haven't been eating enough to compensate for the exercise. I have been aiming for a baseline of 1800 cal/day. Yet, I'm unsure of how many of the calories I burn during exercise I should "eat back". Using yesterday as an example, I had a great run. I was feeling so good, I just kept going and ran 5 miles at 11:15 pace. (No one will ever accuse me of being a fast runner!) It's hard to say how many calories I really burned. I don't believe what the treadmill says, but I found a formula on the runners world site and it suggests I burned about 700 cal during that run.
So if I ate 1800 calories worth of food, yet burned 700 calories, I'm left with 1100 net calories, which clearly isn't enough. Any thoughts on what percentage of the exercise calories I should aim to eat back? I know that exercise will lead to an increased metabolism and additional health benefits, but surely I'm not supposed to eat all of it back, am I? I am not looking for a quick fix, I am in the this for the long haul as a lifestyle change. I am a 42 year old male, 5'8" and 198lbs. I have a stocky build with broad shoulders and chest and thick muscular legs. Pretty much all my extra weight sits around my abdomen, the stereotypical dad bod gut.
If anyone has any advice or can recommend some sites where I can research, I'd great appreciate it. My google searches have really just made me more confused.
I am not looking for a quick fix, I am in the this for the long haul as a lifestyle change. I am a 42 year old male, 5'8" and 198lbs. I have a stocky build with broad shoulders and chest and thick muscular legs. Pretty much all my extra weight sits around my abdomen, the stereotypical dad bod gut.
First, congratulations on your progress!
When I read your post, I already intended to suggest the long-haul approach before I reached the part that I've put in bold above. Since you're already saying you want to take this approach, I'll suggest that if you're in it for the long haul, you don't need to immediately get everything precisely right. That's pretty much impossible anyway, because each individual is a little different in terms of build and energy burned and number of calories needed.
This means that all those fitness apps and websites and all provide approximations of your needs at best. It's only through experience that you will discover precisely what works for you. A truly long-haul approach means that you pursue a solid plan for fitness and then tweak your plan here and there based on the results you get.
With a long-term view you'll know this will work, because your basically sound fitness regimen is doing you good even if you need to adjust the details from time to time. Put simply, if your basic approach is sound, you don't have to get the details precisely right all the time to reap the benefits of exercise.
To get down to some specifics, when you're calculating your caloric needs, you need to look at more than just the calories you burn during exercise. You burn quite a few calories just by living your everyday life, including the basic functions occurring in your body just to stay alive. The calories you burn for these basic functions make up what is known as your basal metabolic rate. You can do a web search of "basal metabolic rate calculator" for websites that calculate this. I entered the info you provided into this calculator:
According to this, you burn 1,878 calories a day just to basically stay alive and go about your everyday activities that do not include exercise. These estimates at websites are just approximations since every individual is different, but this gives you some idea that you already are consuming fewer calories than you're burning, even if you do not figure in the calories you burn from exercise. Everything needs to be figured in if you're going to try to calculate calories.
2 months ago I started exercising and eating healthy in earnest again after a long layoff. I am very confused on nutrition, exercise and weight loss. I have used the MyFitnessPal app in the past with great success for meal tracking and ensuring I was eating appropriately. So far I've lost about 15 lbs and I feel great. The transformation to my body has been awesome and my energy levels are the best they've been in years. My current goal is to lose an additional 10 lbs, reassess and then establish a new goal. Losing the intial weight was relatively easy since I can attribute much of it to exercise and cutting out bad habits. I'm running ~3-4 miles a day on a treadmill (Mon, Wed, Fri) and 5 miles on an elliptical (Tues, Thurs). Tracking my steps, I average 14,000 a day. In the next 2-3 weeks, I am planning on phasing out the elliptical for strength training.
I've sort of hit a plateau, which I expected to come after the initial loss, so I started to track my food again. I'm concerned that I haven't been eating enough to compensate for the exercise. I have been aiming for a baseline of 1800 cal/day. Yet, I'm unsure of how many of the calories I burn during exercise I should "eat back". Using yesterday as an example, I had a great run. I was feeling so good, I just kept going and ran 5 miles at 11:15 pace. (No one will ever accuse me of being a fast runner!) It's hard to say how many calories I really burned. I don't believe what the treadmill says, but I found a formula on the runners world site and it suggests I burned about 700 cal during that run.
So if I ate 1800 calories worth of food, yet burned 700 calories, I'm left with 1100 net calories, which clearly isn't enough. Any thoughts on what percentage of the exercise calories I should aim to eat back? I know that exercise will lead to an increased metabolism and additional health benefits, but surely I'm not supposed to eat all of it back, am I? I am not looking for a quick fix, I am in the this for the long haul as a lifestyle change. I am a 42 year old male, 5'8" and 198lbs. I have a stocky build with broad shoulders and chest and thick muscular legs. Pretty much all my extra weight sits around my abdomen, the stereotypical dad bod gut.
If anyone has any advice or can recommend some sites where I can research, I'd great appreciate it. My google searches have really just made me more confused.
Most of the calculators aren't "net" calories. In other words, they don't count the calories you would have burned sitting on the sofa over the amount of time you spent exercising. So you're not really burning that many calories. Then they're just not accurate. A very gross number for running is .63 calories * weight per mile for net calories, but it depends on level of exertion, level of fitness. So 700 calories would be reasonable for a 3-4 mile run if you weight somewhere between 280-370 pounds. As you do not weight 280-370 pounds, you did not burn 700 calories. Honestly, 700 sounds high even for just total calories burned. I always just call it 100 calories a mile, which is probably low for me but high for a someone who weighs 120 pounds. Whatever. It's a nice number. Unless you're a whale or running with a lot of elevation change or in sand you're not burning 200 calories a mile anyway.
And yes, absolutely the last thing you should ever trust is the numbers on a piece of cardio equipment. They're hilariously overstated. My treadmill desk which I just got back tells me I burned 205 calories in the 1.4 miles I've walked on it since this morning. I actually burned maybe half of that.
When I was more watching weight/calorie intake I just adjusted to the scale. If I was trying to lose a pound a week and I wasn't losing a pound a week over a month or so, I adjusted down until I started either losing weight or my performance tanked. There's so many variables that you're just making wild guesses on in the equation it's not really anything you can do with a high degree of accuracy. Even if you weigh out everything you put in your mouth there's variance as the availability of calories of something varies from person to person as well. Eg, just because the package says 200 calories doesn't mean you get 200 calories of usable energy from it.
Given that, yes, you basically want to eat it all back. If your estimated BMR is 1,800 calories and you're burning another 700 calories on top of that, you should eat around 2,500 calories a day to maintain weight. If you want to lose a pound a week, create a 3,500 calorie deficit or 500 calories a day so eat around 2,000. If over several weeks your weight is staying the same then it's one of three simple things. Your BMR is not 1,800 calories, you're not burning 700 calories a day from your daily activities and exercise, or you're not eating 2,000 calories. Unless you really have some reason to slave yourself to the scale, don't worry about it that much.
First, congratulations on your progress!
...
According to this, you burn 1,878 calories a day just to basically stay alive and go about your everyday activities that do not include exercise.
Thank you, Ogre! The past two months have been very rewarding. Going into it, I knew it would take a lot of time to turn the ship. Years and years of lack of exercise and poor eating can't be erased overnight. I've made a lot of good progress and I want to make sure I am still heading down the right path.
If I consider my basal rate of 1878 cal/day, that implies that outside of exercise, I'd need to eat 1878 calories to sustain my weight, right? So then if I exercise and burn an additional 500 calories, my net calories are 1378 for the day, no? And that doesn't seem to be enough to remain healthy in the long run. Among the many confusing things I've read, "starvation mode" has come up several times. I guess this is really the crux of my question. On a day that I exercise, should I eat more than 1878 cal or run the risk overtime of trashing my metabolism? Do I need to eat 2378 cal to balance the exercise while maintaining enough basal calories? Or is it somewhere in between?
I appreciate that these are approximations, but I just don't want to find out 3 months from now that I went down the wrong road with the best intentions.
A very gross number for running is .63 calories * weight per mile for net calories, but it depends on level of exertion, level of fitness.
I was using the equation found at the bottom of the article to calculate calories burned from running. They suggested .72 x lbs x mileage, which is how I came up with my total (.72 x 198 x 5 = 712). I like your idea of just using 100 cal/mile to simplify things. And I'm burning extra, good for me.
Given that, yes, you basically want to eat it all back. If your estimated BMR is 1,800 calories and you're burning another 700 calories on top of that, you should eat around 2,500 calories a day to maintain weight. If you want to lose a pound a week, create a 3,500 calorie deficit or 500 calories a day so eat around 2,000. If over several weeks your weight is staying the same then it's one of three simple things. Your BMR is not 1,800 calories, you're not burning 700 calories a day from your daily activities and exercise, or you're not eating 2,000 calories. Unless you really have some reason to slave yourself to the scale, don't worry about it that much.
I think this is a very sound approach. I'm going to increase my intake to closer to 2000 cal/day when I exercise and reassess after a month. I think for the past 4-6 weeks, I have probably been eating closer to 1500 cal/day without accounting for exercise. I was surprised when I started tracking how little I was consuming. I was in no way trying to radically cut calories, simply choosing "healthier" foods and I think I severely underestimated how many calories I was truly eating, since I felt great, full of energy and was never hungry.
Well, BMR is the number just to exist. Depends how active your life is. I walk/shuffle around 4-10 miles a day which I don't consider exercise between what the dog demands and work, otherwise I'm pretty damn sedentary and it's a typical office job where the heaviest thing I lift is five pounds. Still that's probably another 200-500 calories on top of my BMR excluding exercise. Exercise is pretty minimal. I go on a short run ~3 miles twice a week, 30-50 mile bike ride twice a month, lift for 20 minutes three times a week.
Eg, using one of those calculators, my BMR is 1,800, little to no exercise is 2,200. I eat around 2,600, sort of. I'm more or less stable at that number on the yo-yo plan. If I get up to high, I start watching what I eat more and target 2,000 for a few months. Comes back off and I get lazy and gain it back.
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It should be noted that some people believe exercise has very little to do with weight loss - that weight loss is caused nearly entirely by decreased caloric intake.
Different bodies handle exercise differently. I don't want to start an argument, but there are some people who pick up weight with increased exercise, because they experience an increase in cortisol hormone - related to adrenaline and an anxiety reaction - with even moderate exercise. Cortisol causes the body to be on alert to reserve caloric burning and store fat because the body is experiencing stress.
Again, I'm not trying to start a fight, just stating a fact. If I exercise very vigorously, I pick up weight in the form of ugly fat in my midsection. Normal body function exercise, like walking two miles on a mild hilly trail daily doesn't cause that fat gain.
I started to track my food again. I'm concerned that I haven't been eating enough to compensate for the exercise.
If you haven't been losing weight, then clearly you are eating enough to compensate.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JustMeEC
I was feeling so good, I just kept going and ran 5 miles at 11:15 pace. (No one will ever accuse me of being a fast runner!) It's hard to say how many calories I really burned. I don't believe what the treadmill says, but I found a formula on the runners world site and it suggests I burned about 700 cal during that run.
The average is around 100 calories per mile.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JustMeEC
So if I ate 1800 calories worth of food, yet burned 700 calories, I'm left with 1100 net calories, which clearly isn't enough. Any thoughts on what percentage of the exercise calories I should aim to eat back? I know that exercise will lead to an increased metabolism and additional health benefits, but surely I'm not supposed to eat all of it back, am I? I am not looking for a quick fix, I am in the this for the long haul as a lifestyle change. I am a 42 year old male, 5'8" and 198lbs. I have a stocky build with broad shoulders and chest and thick muscular legs. Pretty much all my extra weight sits around my abdomen, the stereotypical dad bod gut.
If anyone has any advice or can recommend some sites where I can research, I'd great appreciate it. My google searches have really just made me more confused.
Stop trying to do math. Calories burned are different for each person. If you aren't losing, then you are eating what you burn, period. Eat less, or exercise more.
I agree, stop trying to do the math and go by what your body is telling you. If you are at a deficit OVER TIME, you will lose weight. Do not eat more unless you are consistently losing. I don't believe in "net calories" either. That's a good way to overeat without realizing it.
Same thing with the cardio machine readings. Again, go by your body. When I finish cardio, I'm always sweating, heart rate is up. The furnace is burning.
I'd continue to keep calories low and work out if that makes you lose weight. Let's face it, you're over forty. You're older. It's going to be a tougher outing at the rodeo.
It should be noted that some people believe exercise has very little to do with weight loss - that weight loss is caused nearly entirely by decreased caloric intake.
Different bodies handle exercise differently. I don't want to start an argument, but there are some people who pick up weight with increased exercise, because they experience an increase in cortisol hormone - related to adrenaline and an anxiety reaction - with even moderate exercise. Cortisol causes the body to be on alert to reserve caloric burning and store fat because the body is experiencing stress.
Again, I'm not trying to start a fight, just stating a fact. If I exercise very vigorously, I pick up weight in the form of ugly fat in my midsection. Normal body function exercise, like walking two miles on a mild hilly trail daily doesn't cause that fat gain.
Just something to think about.
Exercise indeed has little to do with weight loss for many people, as discussed in a previous thread below.
The reason why is simple, people tend to way overestimate the effects of their exercise, and in turn eat excess calories that destroys the benefits of their exercise (and then some). This concept is very similar to what the OP is discussing.
For example, some people think that because they spent an hour on the treadmill, this somehow magically overrides any excess calories consumed the rest of the day. One donut can easily negate that exercise session, and let's face it, most of us eat far more in excess a day than one donut. The point being, it doesn't take much to override any exercise induced calorie deficit.
And as pointed out above, these machines are inaccurate in terms of calories burned. So using that erroneous information, and eating excess calories as a result, is a recipe for disaster.
For the OP, I think it's best to ignore the concept of maintenance calories. Don't think that because you burned 500 calories, and you calculated online that your daily required minimum is 1500, that you need to make up that difference. Most humans are perfectly fine with going below their supposed daily minimums. So long as you are not starving yourself at 500 calories per day, and you eat enough to have energy for the day, then disregard this thought that you need to make up those calories burned.
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