Earning Calories With Exercise??

Dnarules

fad_sin26 wrote: »

DO NOT LOG EXERCISE! It will just give you more of a reason to eat more. Not sure why this app even offers that because they ask you what your activity level is. Just my suggestion.

Your activity level is just for normal, daily activity. Exercise gets added in separately.

Dnarules

jaga13 wrote: »

Yes! I rely on exercise to earn more calories every day! I actually enjoy the challenge and always eat back at least some of those calories. Exactly how much varies. If I run 5 miles, I will probabyl eat a good portion back. If I earning exercise calories through many easy walks peppered throughout the day I don't really need the fuel, but will eat back just depending on how hungry I am.

This is pretty much what I do.

kami3006

Dnarules wrote: »

fad_sin26 wrote: »

DO NOT LOG EXERCISE! It will just give you more of a reason to eat more. Not sure why this app even offers that because they ask you what your activity level is. Just my suggestion.

Your activity level is just for normal, daily activity. Exercise gets added in separately.

Exactly.

This app does not include exercise in the calculation. It only asks for your exercise level so you have a set goal for yourself. It is designed to give a base and to add exercise as it's done. Other calculators give you the exercise calories up front but average it across your week.

Since MFP uses the former system (NEAT), you need to eat back at least a portion of those calories to fuel yourself for the extra work.

Jruzer

fad_sin26 wrote: »

Don't exercise for food! Exercise for your goal!

What if your goal is to eat more food?

jaga13

Jruzer wrote: »

fad_sin26 wrote: »

Don't exercise for food! Exercise for your goal!

What if your goal is to eat more food?

I love you.

jaga13

Just to clarify, if you are consistent in your daily activities, you can include this on MFP, and therefore don't have to log exercise calories if you don't want to. So rather than sedentary, you can select slightly active or whatever you typically are, and you will automatically get more calories to eat. This could work well if you are really consistent.

However, I chose to select sedentary and then log exercise for two reasons:
- I don't have consistency. Today I ran 2 miles but tomorrow I will not.
- I kind of enjoy the challenge of earning more calories. Without any exercise, I only get a mere 1220 calories (.5 lb loss). That's just not enough, so I make sure to take a lot of extra steps and find ways to sneak in exercise. I log it throughout the day and I like seeing the number go up. It's very motivating to me, but that's very individual.

cwolfman13

fad_sin26 wrote: »

DO NOT LOG EXERCISE! It will just give you more of a reason to eat more. Not sure why this app even offers that because they ask you what your activity level is. Just my suggestion.

you will note that MFP's descriptors for activity level make no mention of exercise activity...just day to day hum drum. this is because the MFP utilizes the NEAT method for which you account for exercise after the fact. Yes, it can be customized to use the TDEE method, but that is not the default.

without exercise I'm light active and MFP gives me about 2450 calories to maintain...I assure you I maintain on more than that...so if I was using MFP according to design and I didn't eat back exercise calories I would continue to lose weight and be all WTF if I took your advice.

Personally, I use the TDEE method, but that is not the default for MFP.

brynnsmom

fad_sin26 wrote: »

DO NOT LOG EXERCISE! It will just give you more of a reason to eat more.

I truly enjoying exercising, but I also DO need a reason to be able eat more... I'm small! I could not live on 1500 calories per day, even if I did nothing!