Hi! I've a quick question. I am wet behind the ears on this calorie counting business. I have been using thedailyplate.com to record my cals and exercise. Any of you familiar? It gives me a total of net cals, I figure it is calories ate minus calories burned. Anyhoo, am I supposed to count the net cals or my intake before calories burned?

Any words of wisdom on this and/or thedailyplate.com are welcome.

Oh, also, being a book nerd, I feel I need a good book for everything I do. Any recommendations on books for calorie counters would be appreciated!

~Cheers!

Olivia, this is something about which reasonable people can disagree. Personally, when I'm losing, I don't want to eat up the calories I've burned during exercise. If I'm eating 1500 today, then I'm eating 1500 regardless of whether or not I went to the gym. It's all about creating a nice big calorie deficit and I personally don't see the point of eating up the exercise calories, particularly since most activity calculators are very generous with the calories-burned estimates.

On the other hand, now that I'm maintaining, and wear a HRM when I exercise, I do allow myself to eat up exercise calories, because I'm not looking for a deficit.

Thanks! That is what my gut is telling me, but I wanted to make sure. I suppose there isn't really a need to log exercise then?

I am afraid of starting off too strong. It has been weird coming up with a goal because I have never really ate badly (never been in to fast food and have not drank sodas for a couple of years now)--so I have been eating around 1200 a day and walking 3-4 miles each day. We shall see!

Congrats on being a maintainer!

I would log exercise just on the basis of it is encouraging to look back at your stats. I have my exercise tracked for 2 years at least. I can look back and see why. Like March, 220 minutes of walking, july, 2070 minutes of walking. Guess who lost in July and didn't in March? lol It just helps and it is something to be proud of.

You're right, Jasmine! Looking back, last week I walked over 300 minutes! That's insane! You know, I have only completed two weeks; it helps so much to see someone with over two years and still going!

Everyone does it differently I used MFD (MyFoodDiary) which goes by net calories. I think the theory is the more work you do the more fuel you need for it, but I don't eat all of them back... maybe about half. I think also it gives you more wiggle room to lower your calories as you loose.

Some people ignore net calories and go for the quickest way possible. For me though I am for only 2lbs a week.

Just listen to what your body, and what it needs.

I log my exercise, and my food, but I don't necessarily link the two.

These days, I *assume* I will be doing X amount of exercise and eating roughly Y amount of calories. The one is not dependent on the other per se -- that is, just because I exercise more or less on a given day doesn't mean I eat more or less on that particular day.

But I do know that if I'm exercising less than planned over the course of time, that this will affect how much I should be eating.

Also, know that the calories burned estimates on many of these sites seem to be way off. I log my exercise just to see how much I'm doing, not because the calories burned are accurate...

I log both but just to keep a record and when I see all the little exercise icons it helps motivate me. I use Fitday but I'm not loving it so I'll have to check out tose other links.

I don't neceassarily equate the two because exercising alone not only burns up calories but increases metabolism so there's no way to really compare apples to apples. I do admit to eating a couple of hundred of calories more on work out days but that's because I find myself hungrier. I usually average out at 1400-1500 calories on non-workout days and 1600-1700 calories on workout days.

This is interesting. I had to sign up for Daily Plate just to see this "net calories" deal. I was using spark people, but I think I like daily plate better. They seem to have more food choices.

I have always just stuck to a certain number of calories each day, whether I exercised or not. However, I can see how the net calories can be useful when maintaining.

FWIW, I use a heart rate monitor during workouts, mainly to see how many calories I've burned. I entered my exercise into the daily plate and they were about 30 calories more than what my HRM told me.

I see so many people saying they don't eat them back I start to feel really stupid for eatting most of them back, but I need to keep in mind that my calorie level is probably not far off from other people the same weight as me who say they pick a consistent calorie level, because I have my activity level set to the lowest level.

I guess I'm eating 1500-1700 most days I work out and about 1300 on the off days, and I've been losing about 2.5ish on average I guess so I must be something right, but its hard not to start feeling guilty.

Hah. Sorry I just had to get that out of my system! I know I'm a goof.

Lol, you're not a goof! After reading your post, here's what I think - essentially, it all averages out. If you ate 1500 calories 3x a week and 1300 calories 4x a week, you're still averaging about to almost 1400 calories a day. No different than someone that eats 1400 calories either way.

Not to mention, I'm supposed to eat around 1500 calories a day and I RARELY ever hit it right on. Some days it's 1300, some days it's 1600-1700. Sometimes even as high as 1900 a day (can we say weekends, anyone?) But I try to stick with that average of 1500, at that calorie level, I will see a loss as well.

The reason why *I*, personally, don't use up the net calories is because I would go overboard and probably not stop. I would see that I have an extra 500 calories and go "YES!!! TACO BELL!!!!" but I know it wouldn't stop at just one taco.

Alright! A nice, algebraic equation to make things simple for me. Thanks! I will keep them separate and boost on high energy days.

One, more quick question from the new girl

Anyone get headaches their first couple of weeks of counting (not a lot of) calories? I know I am supposed to listen to my body, but I expect some repercussions. Similar stories?

You all rock!

I have read a couple of articles questioning the method of subtracting exercise calories. Here is the general idea.

Most people prefer to count the calories they burn while exercising as “extra” calories, but there is a difference between calories burned while exercising and “extra” calories burned while exercising!

Consider this example: you burn 300 calories by walking on the treadmill instead of your usual activity (watching TV). In reality, you need to subtract the calories you would have spent watching TV from these 300 calories in order to calculate how many additional calories you have burned.

Let’s say that if you watched TV you burned 80 calories. In this specific case, you have expended 300 calories while exercising, along with 220 “extra” calories.

Calorie counters often add the calories burned exercising as “extra”, and in some cases this practice can significantly influence the calorie calculations. Thus, calorie software usually counts the part of your usual activities that overlaps with the extra activities twice.

Don't feel stupid for eating them back. Sometimes, I do it myself, if I've had a very vigorous workout and am famished. As a matter of fact, there was a couple of days last week that I went over my calorie allotment three days in a row, because of an increase in exercise, to which made me very hungry. This always happens when I increase my exercise and lasts about a week or two, then my appetite goes down again. So, I ate some calories back when I was hungry to keep my energy level up.

When I am not hungry, I leave them separate like Robin does. It's not something I do all the time, but if I am really hungry, I listen to my body- that's after drinking lots of water and waiting to see if it's really hunger (for no less than 20 minutes) or just me wanting to eat.

I am glad that helps. I have had my ups and downs but I feel it is a key aspect of my life and even when I slip up I know I have to get back at it. I actually started in 2005 in June when I was 280 pounds but I would have to dig deep to find the stats from that year. The low months are always when there is serious stress going on. Get a ticker to track your monthly minutes too. That is actually alot of fun. We can't control the scale, but we can control what we eat and how much we exercise.

Walking minutes for 2006

April 220
May 760
June 1060
July 1730
August 1185
Sept 1695
Oct 2080
Nov 2465
Dec 1639

Walking minutes for 2007

Jan 865
Feb 285
March 430
April 300
May 920
June 1128
July 2090
August 510(so far)