Weight loss and exercise

[Chunkymonkey13]

Might be a silly question but struggling to get an answer as it seem to differ.

If I am on a 1500 cal diet if I burn 200 cal at the gym would you allow yourself another 200cal in food or not?

I don't, but I have a higher calorie allowance.

I allow 1750 calories a day, but with that it has to include 140g protein/day. I am still losing weight with this with the gym exercise I do. I am into strength training as I'd like to think the days of diets and endless cardio for women are over. You can't get strong/fit if you don't fuel your body.

So I have my allowance, it doesn't matter how many calories I burn as I still eat the same.

Yes. That’s the point of exercise .. allows you to eat more cos you’ve burnt some off. You can eat 1700. Be wary, don’t trust the calories on the machines at the gym. They are wildly inaccurate. Use a fitness watch where you’ve entered your personal height/weight and it tracks your heart rate etc

I'd be careful, it depends what your BMR is because if you eat too little and burn too much and don't reach that too often you could end up under-eating. 200 calories now and again I probably wouldn't eat more, but if you were exercising more and doing it every day, or most days, then you will need to eat more.

I’m currently dieting and I’m on a diet of 1,706 calories and aim to burn around 500+ calories a day. I don’t eat into my burnt off calories but I ensure I have filling meals with plenty of veg and carbs etc. I’ve been doing this since the beginning of Jan and have lost 10lbs so far (probably water weight)

Use the James smith calculator to work out your TDEE etc and then try and work out if you would like to eat those extra cals.

I personally wouldnt eat my burnt off calories everyday but a once in a while treat probably wouldn’t harm.

On deficits, if you want to lose weight, I think you just have to 'suck in and see'. There is a margin for error. Different devices measure energy expenditure differently and there are differences with individual bodies. Weight loss is not always linear.

Exercising fasted at a MAF (Maximum aerobic function coined by Dr Maffetone: relates to doing cardio at a gentle level whereby which you can still talk) really helps the body's effectiveness and efficiency in burning fat for energy. When your body is efficient at burning fat you can switch to fat burning when the glycogen stores run out without hitting a wall and feeling weak with terrible hunger pangs. Which is the ideal!

So log the data and look for patterns. See what works. Be prepared to switch things up as your body changes.

And added to this you need adequate nutrition and enough protein and energy to build muscle! Timing your meals around strength training you might find makes a difference with this.

Basically fast twitch muscle fibres (targeted in strength training) use anaerobic respiration and feed off glycogen

Slow twitch muscle fibres (targeted in slower longer distance running) use aerobic respiration and feed off fat.

And I would say both types of exercise are useful.

Yes and no. This is part of the problem with MyFitnessPal. You tell it your exercise levels and it adjusts your intake based on that, then you tell it about your completed exercise and it readjusts again. Almost double counting. Luckily their intake levels are incredibly low so it's not too bad.

You need a deficit of 500 cals a day (or 3500 a week split however helps, weekend splurges etc) and it doesn't matter how you get to that, be it exercise or eating less. Use an online TDEE calculator (TDEE.com/co.uk) to find out your basal/resting metabolic rate and deduct 500 and you're on to a winner.

I wouldn't . It is easy to control the calories that go in, but when it comes to calories out, it is far more complex and it is easy to overestimate them.