Does the Common board recommendation of eating 50% of exercise cals apply to

CoachJen71

a) FitBit users in general, and b) people in maintenance? (I am still trying to sort out my own numbers for going into maintenance. I will have to be a Neat person, as my steps and exercise vary from day to day. I do like to bank extra cals for the weekend, so have to work the numbers out for that as well.)

ook_ga

This is a thing? I stop eating when I'm full, and on super active days that can sometimes mean taking in 1,000 fewer calories than my FB says I've burned. Obviously bodies are different, but I was under the impression consensus stated eating fewer calories than you burn will cause you to lose weight. -250 calories a day to lose a pound a week or whatever. Not sure how you'd maintain while eating half of what you burn.

I'm trying to drop body fat % while losing at little weight as possible, and I know (for me at least) that isn't possible if I'm not eating a lot. Healthy food, obviously, but lots of it. If I were to starve myself I'd just get skinnyfat and lose lean muscle mass.

NancyN795

You want to hit as close as possible to your actual calorie burn (minus a reasonable deficit if you're trying to lose). With a Fitbit, the best thing to do is trust it for a month while logging your food as accurately as possible. You don't have to eat all your calories, but don't leave a huge deficit - that's just counterproductive.

After a month go to your Fitbit profile page. There is a graph there showing intake and calorie burn for the last 30 days. It also gives numbers on the graph for average intake and average burn. Use those to compute your actual calorie deficit and from that your expected weight change (3500 calories per pound). Compare that to your actual weight change. That will tell you how accurate your Fitbit is for you and you can adjust accordingly.

ParadiseLost91

Well I for one eat my exercise calories, but that's because I'm doing very low calorie (1200 daily).
I don't want to get below 1200 net, which is why I eat my exercise calories.
Might seem counterproductive, but I'm hungry enough as it is, and if I didn't eat my exercise calories I'd go insane

heybales

CoachJen71 wrote: »

a) FitBit users in general, and b) people in maintenance? (I am still trying to sort out my own numbers for going into maintenance. I will have to be a Neat person, as my steps and exercise vary from day to day. I do like to bank extra cals for the weekend, so have to work the numbers out for that as well.)

While the stat for Fitbit calorie adjustment may show up on the Exercise diary under exercise - it's not.

Read the FAQ in the stickies - 2nd half specifically.

It is merely the difference between what Fitbit says you burned doing everything, and what MFP thought you'd burn doing no exercise.

You could exercise and be lazy otherwise and have negative adjustment.
You could have no exercise and be very active otherwise and have big adjustment.

So eat them all back.

That 50% myth was based on many thinking the database is off that much.
For some doing very low calorie burn stuff, like walking 3 mph or slower for long periods of time - the effect of how the math is done could indeed cause issues and that might be correct.
But less of an issue than many realize.

But these "exercise calories" aren't based on the database anyway.

CoachJen71

Thanks, everyone! I started MFP before I got a Fitbit, so the 50% mantra was pretty well drilled into my head. Going to eat my cals back for a while and see how that goes. Bracing myself for the changes that adding back more carbs into my diet will bring, but as long as my clothes still fit I am going to shrug off what the scale tells me.