Quick and dirty question that I can't seem to find the answer to even though it may be obvious.
Factor calories burned in exercise into your daily I/O or not? If maintenance is 2400 and I'm doing 550cal of cardio on rest days am I doing 2400*.70 + 550 in intake, or just not factoring it in at all. Calories seem low if I don't account for burned calories in exercise.
Thanks for the help.
Posted Apr 11, 2015, 10:57 PM UTC
Do it if you want. Your daily I/O is a guess. You use the scale to monitor progress and tweak caloric amounts based on reality.
I usually overestimate for cutting and underestimate for bulking. After 2 weeks I'm dialed in.
This is also why a 31min set meal plan is fantastic, since you can just tweak your amounts.
Factor that shit in. IF you've calculated your numbers correctly you should be losing a pound to two of fat a week depending on your calorie deficit. The whole point is to be losing weight from the deficit without needing to do cardio. So you need to factor that cardio in.
It depends on the rest of your movement throughout the day. If you mostly sit then I couldn't but if you have a very active lifestyle or job (mailman, ups delivery, etc.) then I wouldn't.
Calculate your TDEE as if you were sedentary. Now instead of using their preset activity markers just estimate how much you burn by walking and activities (other than designated walking/light cardio sessions) and add it in. That's your true TDEE. Now if you want add in the calories you burn. Personally I'd just add in a little to make sure you're not overeating. What are you doing that's burning that many calories?
That is somewhat what I'm doing. I set calculators for sedentary even though I estimate actually daily movement to be around the "lightly active" range of things and just figure the difference is a bit of a buffer for any mistakes I made in accounting.
About 550 calories is what I get as a readout of what is burned from an hour of elliptical training, which is what I do on off days that aren't between lift days. In between lift days I do 45 min and on lift days none. Best guesstimate on lift calories burned is around 120.
Don't worry about lift calories. I'd take the 500 as 400 and eat that much more than sedentary. "Lightly active" just adds what you'd burn if you walked about 5miles/day aka the 10-12,000 steps recommended daily. So if you walk about 6 miles a day then then use lightly active and add in 400. If you don't walk a lot use sedentary then add 400 which probably comes out the just lightly active. Same thing if you catch my drift.