Lost On Calorie Intake And Set Up

BethanyFrerichs

Decided I wanted to lose weight for a cycling goal. I put the data in and it spit out a few numbers. I wanted to lose 1.5 pounds a week and do an hour of exercise each day. However; if I read the stats correctly it looks like I need to burn nearly 500 calories a day. One hour of walking doesn't burn that many calories. Even 7 miles on a stationary bike only comes to 333. I can't physically do 7 miles on a bike every single day and it would be considered overtraining.

Do I need to readjust my goals?

DemoraFairy

What makes you think you need to burn 500 calories a day?

What's your height, current weight and goal weight? What's your activity level? What calorie goal has MFP given you? Using MFP you don't need to do any exercise to lose weight, so you shouldn't need to burn 500 calories through exercise a day.

4legsRbetterthan2

I think you are getting a little confused somewhere, I am not sure exactly where so here is a basic lesson using the my fitness pal calculation method, hopefull it helps. This is an example and not YOUR actual numbers since I don't have enough information to use them.

Based on your current height, weight, and selected activty level (you should not include intentional exercise in this level, just your daily routine) MFP will estimate how many calories you burn in a day. For this example lets say you burn 2000 calories a day.

You then tell MFP you want to lose 1.5 lbs a week. This requires a 750 calorie a day deficit to achieve. MFP will give you a daily goal of 2000 - 750 = 1250 calories. This is what you should eat if you stick to your normal daily routine (no exercise included here); if you are logging accurately you should see about 1.5lbs of weight loss every week.

When you exercise you would log that in the cardio section of your diary. So say you biked today and burned 200 calories. You log that and it would get added to your calorie goal for the day, so you should eat 1250+200 = 1450 calories today. If you want to not eat back exercise calories this will increase your deficit and you will lose a little bit faster. On the other hand sometimes too large of a deficit can have negative effects as well: uncontrolable hunger, fatigue, mood swings to name a few, so if you do this make sure to listen to your body if it tells you you are not eating enough.

I found these posts very helpful when I was starting out, they cover the system, realistic goal setting, and accurate logging.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1080242-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1234699/logging-accurately-step-by-step-guide#latest

~Best wishes

StaciMarie1974

The way MFP works:

1) You put in your stats and goal weight loss, and indicate if your lifestyle is sedentary, lightly active, etc. Activity level does not include your exercise.
2) MFP tells you to eat XXXX calories per day.
3) If/when you exercise, you log it. Be careful not to overestimate calories burned. You then eat additional because the calories given in #2 includes a deficit before exercise.

You can set your goal as you see fit on what you'd like to burn thru exercise. It sounds like you're being reasonable in understanding exercise only burns so much. For me, I can burn ~200 in 30 minutes of brisk walking. I see some burn #s in my feed and wonder how someone thinks they burned 1000 calories in an hour...

futuremanda

In addition to what's been said: When you do the guided setup, MFP does ask you about your exercise goals. However, it will only use this information on the exercise page, where it will tell you how far into your weekly exercise goal you are. It doesn't use it to calculate your target calories at all, it isn't used to help you get to your goal at all. Meaning, you could totally do 0 exercise, and still get the goal weight loss you told MFP you wanted, as long as you stick to the calorie target it gives you. I found this confusing at first! I kept trying to change my exercise plan in the setup to see if I could change my calorie goal. Nope.

If you don't like the calorie target it gives you for 1.5 lbs per week, you could aim to burn 250 a day and eat that back. (As others have pointed out, you get to eat your exercise calories.)

BethanyFrerichs

Thanks for the help. I filled everything out when I started. 215 to 175 with sedentary. My daily limit is 1390. I wanted to get an hour in on the days I'm not riding. It's hard to ride a lot of miles when you are overweight and if you don't eat enough before/after a ride you get sick. It's easy to overeat because of it creating a vicious cycle. Being home all day leaves to a sedentary lifestyle when you mostly sit at a sewing machine or the computer.

It's been eye opening to account for all the food/drink you eat every day. Some days I'm actually deficit 800 calories because I've been quilting for hours and forget to eat. Making myself eat breakfast and lunch has been challenging.

Starting to get the hang of the site and the app for tracking.

SezxyStef

BethanyFrerichs wrote: »

Thanks for the help. I filled everything out when I started. 215 to 175 with sedentary. My daily limit is 1390. I wanted to get an hour in on the days I'm not riding. It's hard to ride a lot of miles when you are overweight and if you don't eat enough before/after a ride you get sick. It's easy to overeat because of it creating a vicious cycle. Being home all day leaves to a sedentary lifestyle when you mostly sit at a sewing machine or the computer.

It's been eye opening to account for all the food/drink you eat every day. Some days I'm actually deficit 800 calories because I've been quilting for hours and forget to eat. Making myself eat breakfast and lunch has been challenging.

Starting to get the hang of the site and the app for tracking.

You know that's not healthy right? You need to eat at least 1200 a day to be getting in enough nutrition let alone calories....

As for being sedentary you don't have to be...set a timer for every hour and get up and move around...

BethanyFrerichs

That's why I started this. It was both shocking to realize I'm not getting enough or too much. I got the Fitbit app for my phone (found out I'm allergic to the Charge) and set it up. I carry my phone everywhere so it's easy to use and a whole lot more accurate. Add in the cycling workouts manually and take one mile walks twice a day. Looks like you can add Strava or Polar Beat to the MFP.

Only thing that truly sucks is that I had to sell my mountain bike last year and was hoping to get a new one this year. Medical bills took that away when I got sick in December. I have a road bike, but mountain biking is tons more fun and miss it terribly. Hubby said maybe next year.