Why doesn’t this calories in-calories out equation work for me?

[PinkVelvett]

If I eat 1500 calories a day, I lose weight.

If I eat 1800 calories a day and also increase my activity such that I burn 300 more calories through exercise each day… I stay the same or put weight on!

Why?!

I find this too. I think lots of tools like MyFitnessPal are too generous with the calories they give you for exercise.

Yeah it’s weird I don’t get it either
unless exercise makes muscle that’s heavier but you look toned and slimmer?

The exercise probably isn’t 300 calories

Or the extra 300 calories is actually 4-500.

Because human metabolism isn’t as simple as calories in calories out.

There are literally thousands of metabolic variables that determine what will work for you for weight loss.

I suggest low carb. Works for many people with relative ease. If you hate counting calories go keto.

I recently read the book "why we eat (too much)" and he explains that our metabolism adjusts if our bodies think we're starving/in a famine. It's completely changed my understanding

here we go with the posts 'bodies are more complicated, you have adjusted metabolism..no - sorry
your body can't create energy from nowhere.
it can't store energy you didn't take in
it can't hold on to stored energy - fat - if you are expending more energy than you take in. It really is that simple. If you eat less calories than your body needs for the day you will lose weight. If you don't, you won't

My guess: more exercise makes you hungrier. are you counting carefully, weighing your food, counting drinks and snacks honestly?
the exercise you are doing also may not be expending as many calories are you think. stick to your 1500 if that works

See, that’s the thing. Calorie counting works brilliantly for me. I’ve tried all the fads over the years but ultimately failed. Finally I have learned that all I had to do was just eat fewer calories!

My guess: more exercise makes you hungrier. are you counting carefully, weighing your food, counting drinks and snacks honestly?

Yes, militantly. 😁

It’s as though my body completely ignores the increase in calories burned in the daily equation!

“it can't hold on to stored energy - fat - if you are expending more energy than you take in”

Yes it can, it’s called insulin.

Eating back exercise calories doesn't work for everyone.

Just stick to 1,500 calories and exercise for your overall health, not to lose weight.

I suggest it's because whatever exercise you did wasn't 300 calories worth - it takes more than we think to burn up the fuel.

When I'm slogging around the park I think not having that piece of toast would have been easier than trying to walk the bloody thing off!

It will be this.

Just decrease the calories and/or up the exercise till you start to loose.

If low carb works for you, that’s lovely. Keto is too restrictive for most people to tolerate long term.

But I think the OP likes calorie counting or she’s be asking for something else.

Read Burn by Herman pontzer.

Or just Google - explains it all!

The research seems to be becoming increasingly clear that unless you’re an elite athlete, exercise doesn’t help much with weight loss. It helps in endless other ways, but if you want to lose weight you have to eat less.

chances are you’re not burning an extra 300 calories a day tbh, that’s a 3 mile run or about 40 minutes rowing... no breaks, no slowing down and on top of what you’d normally do in that day.

If I run such a distance, I burn say 300 calories. But that's not 300 extra calories. I would have burned 100 if I had been asleep or 200 if I had spent the time pottering around the house. You shouldn't be eating back the calories burned, but the extra calories burned, which will be much less than the total number of calories.

Because either your exercise isn't 300 kcal, or your diet is no longer 1500 kcal.

What are you using to track food and exercise?

Because calories have no correlation to weight gain or loss

I understood that unless you’re exercising a huge amount per day, your body adjusts to the exercise by reducing your basal metabolic rate - sleeping more deeply, heart rate slows, BP reduces etc. All healthy stuff but that’s why exercise doesn’t really help with weight loss.

A) it takes a lot of effort to burn 300 calories so you might be over estimating, fitness watches tend to do that.
B) if you're feeling achy after the exercise then you're muscles will be in recovery, they use water to do that which means that you retain water. To combat that you need to drink more. If you aren't upping your water when you up your exercise then you'll have a week where your weight stays the same.

Exercise trackers are huuuuuugely inaccurate when it comes to kcal.

Today I did 50 minutes of very intense interval training. My on-chest heart rate monitor says I burnt 530kcal, my Apple Watch says I burnt 320kcal.

Im 5ft and weigh under 50kg, so I highly suspect even the lower 320kcal reading an over estimate.

There is also the possibility that on days you do an extra 300 calories of exercise, you are more tired and do slightly less “everyday” normal movement, meaning your total increased calorie burn over the day isn’t 300 over a non-exercise day.

Yes I agree with @LimeCheesecake . I think there's some evidence that some people, when they exercise more, tend to rest more from every day activities, so don't burn many extra calories overall. Think that's true for me.

My DH does ultra running - serious mileage - so his exercise does take him into a calorie deficit. I can't do that extreme exercise, so if I want to lose weight I need to reduce my calories.