Hell, it could potentially even put you into a caloric surplus and cause you to gain fat. So if you “eat back” these calories, or even just assume you can eat more one day because of how much you supposedly burned during your workout (which happens all the time )… chances are pretty good that you’re going to end up eating more calories than you should be.įor example, you might eat back 500 calories when you really only burned 300.Īnd if this happens regularly, as it typically does, it can easily cancel out your entire caloric deficit and prevent fat loss from happening (details here: Why Am I Not Losing Weight?). It’s all just giving you estimates, and research and real-world experience has shown us that these estimates are high. The same goes for the cardio equipment you’re using that tells you how much you’re burning, or the calorie calculator you found on some website, or the app you’re using to track your diet or workout. It’s just giving you an estimate for how many calories you’re burning, and it turns out that this estimate is high in the majority of cases. The reality is that it’s NOT accurately tracking how many calories you’re burning (sources here, here, here, and here). This includes the number you’re getting from your fancy smart watch, smart bracelet, smart necklace, smart earrings, smart sunglasses, smart nose ring, smart whatever-the-hell device you’re wearing on your body to accurately track how many calories you’re burning. There’s something else you need to know about the calories you’re burning and thinking about “eating back.”Īnd that is, it’s probably being overestimated.
Now I’m not sure if MyFitnessPal or whatever diet app you happen to use does things this way (I’d certainly hope not), but if it does, that’s a big problem.Īnd if it doesn’t? That’s still a problem, but for a whole other reason… 3. It means the calories you’re burning during your regularly scheduled workouts each week are typically ALREADY factored into the calorie intake you calculated.īy eating them back, you’re essentially factoring in those calories a second time. Whatever it was, virtually every calorie calculator in existence will take your activity level into account in some way. Or do you have 1 workout per week, 2-3 workouts per week, 4-5 workouts per week, etc. You know… are you sedentary, lightly active, moderately active, etc. When you calculated how many calories you need to eat per day, I bet that whatever calculator you used for this purpose asked you about your activity level. Your Activity Level May Already Be Factored Into Your Calorie Intake One day, someone is going to build something significantly better, that’s designed significantly smarter.īut let’s get back to the question… 2. The list goes on and on and on (and on), and you’d be surprised at how often these apps do more harm than good as a result. Telling you to eat back tons of calories that you probably should NOT be eating back.Letting inaccurate user-generated nutrition info into the public database.
Making you focus on getting to a specific “goal weight,” which is often detrimental to actually reaching your goal.Emphasizing the meaningless day-to-day body weight fluctuations that only stress you out and cause you to misinterpret what’s actually happening.Telling tons of women to eat 1200 calories a day.There are dozens of similar apps that are problematic for similar reasons. In fact, I’ve previously pointed out problems with MyFitnessPal specifically, like how they frequently recommend that women should eat 1200 calories a day even though that’s WAY lower than most women will ever need to eat.īut MyFitnessPal isn’t the only app getting things wrong. Most of the diet, workout, and progress tracking apps out there are fine for helping you track a few basic things each day.īut for damn near everything else? They suck. There are 4 important things you need to know… 1. Why is this, you ask? You’ll see in a second. My diet tracking app (MyFitnessPal) makes it seem this way, but I just want to be sure.ĪNSWER: Ah yes, the “should I eat back the calories burned during exercise” question.ĭon’t take this personally, but I hate this question. QUESTION: I calculated that I need to eat 2000 calories a day to lose weight, but what about the calories I burn during my workouts? Should I be eating back those calories?įor example, if I burn 500 calories during my workout today, does that mean I can eat 2500 calories instead of 2000 and basically eat back the 500 calories I burned?
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