Exercise and Calories

williamsr29
williamsr29 Posts: 2 Member
edited November 2024 in Fitness and Exercise
My question is for those that have lost weight. Do you eat back your calories from exercise or do you only eat the calories before exercise is added. I keep getting conflicting information about this. Confused.

Replies

  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    When I did MFP I did (adjusted for estimation error)

    It is the way this tool is designed. If you appropriately set your activity level, it does NOT include exercise...wouldn't common sense dictate that you would need to include some estimate of exercise somewhere? If it isn't accounted for in your activity level, it has to be accounted for somewhere right?

    Other calculators include some estimate of your exercise in your activity level and thus those calories are included in your goal...with MFP, they aren't...you get credit for that activity when you actually do it and log it and get those calories to "eat back". Either way, you're accounting for those calories and that activity...the only difference is you do it on the *kitten* end of the equation with the MFP method and up front in the equation with other calculators.
  • SueInAz
    SueInAz Posts: 6,592 Member
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    Other calculators include some estimate of your exercise in your activity level and thus those calories are included in your goal...with MFP, they aren't...you get credit for that activity when you actually do it and log it and get those calories to "eat back". Either way, you're accounting for those calories and that activity...the only difference is you do it on the *kitten* end of the equation with the MFP method and up front in the equation with other calculators.

    This is correct.

    When MFP gives you a calorie goal, it is not giving you a calorie "credit" for exercise above and beyond your set activity level. Instead it derives a calorie goal based on your activity level without added exercise that takes your average daily calorie burn - based on your height, weight and age - and then subtracts 500 calories for each pound of weight you say you want to lose each week. So, your weight loss goal is already built into your daily calorie goal. When you add exercise into MFP it gives you those calories to eat so you maintain the goal deficit. Not eating most of them back may have you losing weight at an unsafe rate.
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