I’ve just started out with Huel and I’m liking the shakes!
I’m a keen cyclist but I’ve just started cycling to work 3-4 times a week, generally burning an estimate of 900-1000 calories every day I’m doing this.
I used the calorie calculator Website to estimate my calories with this exercise factored in and it gave me a target of 1700 calories for the day to loose 1kg a week.
Now, when recording in MyFitnessPal it factors in the calories I burned onto my calorie total.
Do I eat back these calories or do I just eat to the goal i was given by the calculator?
As background, I’m 25, female, 164cm and 100kg. Cycling 14 miles 3-4 times a week to work and back.
Rather than looking at it as eating them back. Look at it like this. Your goal is 1700 calories IN at the end of the day. You should try to hit that no matter if you exercise or not.
Eat 1700 cal with no exercise. 1700 in.
Eat 2000 cal and burn 300. 1700 cal in.
Eat 2700 cal and burn 1000. 1700 cal in.
Exactly the same results.
Obviously a little below or above isn’t a big deal as calories burned is always an estimate. But if you eat 1700 and burn 1000 bike riding you’ve only had 700 cal in. That can be very dangerous.
How do you track your exercise? Some apps/devices can hook up to MyFitnessPal to log this. I connect my Apple Watch to MyFitnessPal and it alters my “remaining” based on the food I input + my exercise.
Hold on, xstex… you sure you didn’t miss part of what she said? She was given a target of 1700 including exercise. That target doesn’t then mean you eat more than that for exercise. If so, 1700 would be a sedentary target and it wouldn’t have needed to ask her about exercise.
That said, xstex is right that 1700 in if you’re then burning 1000 more is extreme. However, it’s hard to say you’re really burning 1000 calories from cycling – you often burn less than calculations, and that’s a really high number.
I think I’d go with 1700 as a starting point, but listen to your body. Don’t run a deficit that makes you feel tired – you’ll be miserable and inevitably burn less from activity. If you eat healthy, low calorie dense food, a healthy level of weight loss shouldn’t see you go hungry, either. Tweak the numbers as you learn.
I was just a touch confused, cause I know the calories from exercise are sometimes a shot in the dark when you’re using Garmin/hear rate data.
I’ve been eating 1700-1900, generally not feeling overly hungry so I’m not feeling the need to snack or have extra, so suppose I just got to work out what is best for me!
It’s a high estimate on the calories cause I’m a big girl going up some big hills haha!
I’m in the same boat @KLMHuel - I’m aiming to lose 12KG by consuming my resting calories minus 500 Kcal per day to drop 0.5KG per week. (in my case 2,300 - 500 = 1,800 per day). EDIT: this is the key part - whether your recommended daily calories from the calculator had this built-in, I doubt it. You can dial it up in the calculator to include more exercise & get a higher daily suggested intake …
On Sunday we went for a good long walk & my various exercise apps & gadgets ‘added’ 900 Kcal to my ‘allowance’ in MyFitnessPal - this feature can be toggled on/off in Settings. I’m trying to stick to my daily calorie guidance - whilst also getting more active too - but take all the daily measurements as being only approximate & any exercise calories expended as just a bonus.
I do occasionally go over my daily intake guidance, so take the odd bike ride or workout as being an unofficial offset for a couple of beers or a Saturday pizza … The daily net calories bar chart views for the week in MyFitnessPal are very interesting!
I’d not get too hung up on it, but 1,000 Kcal of cycling multiple times per week is a significant amount, so keep an eye on your scales & adjust accordingly as you go - you don’t want to overdo in the first phase, keep it sustainable.
Hello! This is what I encountered in the beginning. 1700 seems very small, then that you need 1200 just to live. And you obviously need more when you are training. Maybe you need to recount your results. Do you monitor your workouts? It’s important.
