Eat back calories burned in cardio?

Kraken

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Lets say a person has their diet all set, cutting, maintaining, bulking, whatever. They plan a particular surplus or deficit for the day. They the decide, "wow it's a beautiful day I'm going to a bike ride!" and burn an extra say 300 calories. Should they eat some portion of that back? I understand there is a corresponding reduction in NEAT as a result, but probably not 100%. It seems if you're cutting or bulking, spending those 300 calories is going to mean 300 fewer calories available to maintain or build muscle. Or, it is just 300 calories of fat that was mobilized and made available for muscle?
 

snake

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Unless you're prepping for a meet or show, I wouldn't even worry about a nice bike ride. Big picture: it's not 300 more calories burned in that day, it's 300 calories burned for the week and that adds up to almost nothing.

But if you feel the need to micro manage your diet and exercise, have something carb based when you get back from the ride.
 

buck

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If i was cutting i would do the bike ride as opposed to indoor cardio. When bulking i would just look at it as less fat gained. If it was a daily thing it would be different. I quit micromanaging my body long ago. I look long term.
 
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CJ

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Lets say a person has their diet all set, cutting, maintaining, bulking, whatever. They plan a particular surplus or deficit for the day. They the decide, "wow it's a beautiful day I'm going to a bike ride!" and burn an extra say 300 calories. Should they eat some portion of that back? I understand there is a corresponding reduction in NEAT as a result, but probably not 100%. It seems if you're cutting or bulking, spending those 300 calories is going to mean 300 fewer calories available to maintain or build muscle. Or, it is just 300 calories of fat that was mobilized and made available for muscle?

Also, it's not 300 more Cals than you would've burned had you not gone on the bike ride, you need to figure out the NET extra calories burned.

If you hadn't burned those 300 calories in that hour or so, what would you have been doing otherwise? Just being alive burns calories, so for sake of argument, we'll assume that you would've burned 150 calories during that time anyway doing something else. So you only burned an extra 150 calories from that bike ride.

People mess this up all of the time when they eat back calories. Plus, unless you're hooked to a machine in a lab, you don't know how many calories you've burned anyway.

Don't complicate this shit, don't eat anything back, just carry on with your plan.
 

Kraken

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Okay all great thoughts and advice thanks.

I actually did the ride with a Gramin chest strap and my watch, so 315 calories, 66% of which was in zone 2 (I tried to keep it all in zone 2 but sometimes it bumps up - And I realize this is still not exact at all). It didn't occur to me what @CJ said about I would still have been burning calories anyhow.

Now that its fall I'll probably be doing more bike rides and such, since really like biking. Like @buck said, at what point does it become something to work into the eating plan?
 

CJ

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Okay all great thoughts and advice thanks.

I actually did the ride with a Gramin chest strap and my watch, so 315 calories, 66% of which was in zone 2 (I tried to keep it all in zone 2 but sometimes it bumps up - And I realize this is still not exact at all). It didn't occur to me what @CJ said about I would still have been burning calories anyhow.

Now that its fall I'll probably be doing more bike rides and such, since really like biking. Like @buck said, at what point does it become something to work into the eating plan?


When your body weight is moving in a direction that you don't want, or performance is bad, in which case a macro shift might be warranted.

Zone 2 burns a mix of both fats and carbohydrate, probably close to equal energy from both, maybe slightly higher coming from fats. The point is, that low amount of energy utilization won't move the needle much in terms of needing to fuel specifically because of that activity.
 
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Kraken

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When your body weight is moving in a direction that you don't want, or performance is bad, in which case a macro shift might be warranted.

... The point is, that low amount of energy utilization won't move the needle much in terms of needing to fuel specifically because of that activity.
Got it, thanks!
 

snake

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Also, it's not 300 more Cals than you would've burned had you not gone on the bike ride, you need to figure out the NET extra calories burned.

If you hadn't burned those 300 calories in that hour or so, what would you have been doing otherwise? Just being alive burns calories, so for sake of argument, we'll assume that you would've burned 150 calories during that time anyway doing something else. So you only burned an extra 150 calories from that bike ride.
Do you subtract the calories it takes to eat a donut? Say a donut is 300 cals, I knock off 10 cals for the energy it takes to get the donut from the plate to my mouth. lol

Yeah CJ, that net cal is something everyone seems to mess up. When you explain it they are like, But I walked 2 miles and burned 200 cals. Ugh, forget it!
 

CJ

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Do you subtract the calories it takes to eat a donut? Say a donut is 300 cals, I knock off 10 cals for the energy it takes to get the donut from the plate to my mouth. lol

Yeah CJ, that net cal is something everyone seems to mess up. When you explain it they are like, But I walked 2 miles and burned 200 cals. Ugh, forget it!

🤣🤣🤣

Yup, the energy to walk to the counter and order it counts, too. UberEats and DoorDash indirectly make you fatter!!! 🤣
 

Kraken

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🤣🤣🤣

Yup, the energy to walk to the counter and order it counts, too. UberEats and DoorDash indirectly make you fatter!!! 🤣
We should outlaw drive through windows as a public health measure.
 
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