Hey guys I've been hanging around these forums a while but I've yet to stop by the calorie counters part of it...so here i am. I've been counting calories since June of last year and lost 24 pounds so far. It's a little slow but its still happening

I had a question for everyone. How many of you increase your calories depending on your work outs? For example, if your goal is to eat 1,400 and you burned about 300...do you eat 1,700 that day to effectively be at 1,400? And if you do this, how effective is it? I'm always afraid my estimation of calories burned is too high...Just let me know what you guys are doing I can't decide how I should do it.

More speficially someone suggested in another forum that I try calorie cycling. She mentioned that some days you go over and some days you go under. If I can count exercise it would be a lot easier for me on the days I go under.

I eat back all my exercise calories since 1) I am always starving after exercise. 2) When you are only eating 1300-1500 to being with, you want to eat enough to fuel your body.

So pretty much, if my plan is to have a net of 1300 that day but I burn 400, I will eat around 1600-1700 depending on hunger (and this is true hunger, not just bordem hunger).

However, some people choose to eat back 1/3 or 1/2 of their exercise calories. It really depends on if you are not dying of hunger with it or not and are still maintaining proper nutrition. In answer to the question in the other thread, on days you are eating less than 1200, you'd probably want to eat back all of your exercise calories... however on days you are eating more than that, you could eat back 1/3 or 1/2 depending on what you feel like.

My target calorie intake daily is 1,600 and I work out 4 of 7 days a week (I will hopefully be adding more soon!).

I don't even log my exercise in my calorie count because then it encourages me to eat more. The only time I eat after exercise is if I feel like I have slipped below or need to meet 1,200 calories. That is the lowest I am willing to eat a day but that would have to be a heck of a work out for me to burn 400 calories!

I assume that for 30 mins of cardio I burn 150 - 200 calories at my weight.(I go with a low estimate to be safe). Since that puts me above 1,200, I wouldn't eat the lost calories back.

However, if, as like today, I am simply STARVING after I work out...of course I am going to eat! I just make sure it is sensible and that I don't binge.gorge myself.

I think the important is to listen to your body in this case. If you are not hungry after working out, don't eat. If you are, eat something small and see if it holds you over.

Of course, I could be giving terrible advice and doing it all wrong so I hope other people chime in so I can see what they say!

Thanks both of you Especially Candeka since she's the one that was talking to me in the other thread

On the note of how many calories you burn in an exercise...how accurate are estimates on work out equipment? 30 minutes on my elliptical says I burn around 400 but I know it differs depending on your weight and stuff. Do you ever use what the work out equipment says or do you make your own estimate?

I have a heart rate monitor. Well even those are not 100% accurate, they are as close as you are going to get (I think mine was like $50 Canadian at Walmart). I've compared it to the elliptical at my gym and within a 30 minute time frame, the calorie difference was only about 20. So within 30 minutes, you don't need to worry about how "off" it is since the calorie number is so small. However, as time increased on the elliptical, the calorie estimates became farther and farther apart.

So if I didn't have a heart rate monitor, I would just go by what the machine says if you are using it for under an hour, than go home and put the information into one of those calorie/exercise websites and see how close the numbers are. I know one of them is My fitness pal... everyone seems to love that site for calorie counting and exercise tracking.

I gave myself a range to eat at when I was losing. It was 1200-1400 or 1500, and I tried to just fall within that range. Sometimes I would need to go higher and other times I wouldn't. Sometimes these higher days would be exercise days and other times they would be rest days.

Even in maintenance I give myself a range because sticking to ONE calorie amount drove me crazy when I tried it. Sometimes I just need less so I eat less. Other times I feel I need more.

Although now I'm weight training a bit more so I have another need entirely. My calorie range is "above 2000" which sometimes proves to be difficult to reach.

I don't really go crazy with how much I burn because getting too obsessed with numbers will cause me to develop an eating disorder (it's another reason why I don't really weigh my food).

Vol, I use this calculator below.

I am not sure how accurate or not the machines are. There is conflicting data (like about everything else!). However, I know that on machines where you can plug in your weight they are more accurate than ones where you cannot. The ones where you cannot plug in your weight are assume you weight an averege of 150 lbs, so they will be low balling the number.

http://nutritiondata.self.com/tools/calories-burned

One thing you can do to get a more accurate idea of how much you're burning is to put a lighter weight in for the machines that let you plug your weight in. If you're using an app on your phone or on the web you can always put that you exercised less time than you did as well.

I signed up for myfitnesspal and checked out what it says an elliptical does in 30 minutes. it estimates 412 calories so I guess 400 is pretty close. It just confuses me because with an elliptical you can increase resistance and go faster or slower which i'd assume could make a pretty big difference in calories. i've yet to find a tracker that takes those things into consideration except the machine itself, but I guess 400 is a good estimate for what I do

Add me as a friend! my name si srt4852

SugarRomeoTango4852 - love that website. it gives you so much info

sontaikle - my machine isn't fancy enough to let me put a weight in. so if it assumes 150 like Sugar said, i guess its low balling me to begin with.

Sugar - I added you yay for my first friend on there! lol