Calculating exercise calories

bathmatt12345

I see my MFP friends reports of exercise and wonder where they get those numbers, seen 30 minutes of slow walking 400-500 calories? Clearly that is an over statement. Also, what MFP suggests is an over estimate on a lot of things. Looked up kickball, 550 cals/hour? Maybe if you are running the bases. Fishing, 237/hour? Those seem very high.

I typically take what MFP suggests and half it, what do people typically do?

Ready2Rock206

I find MFP exercise numbers to be extremely high. I also see a lot of people who think they burn a lot more than they probably really are. Those are the same people who tend to post about how they aren't losing any weight and can't figure out what the problem is.

I wouldn't eat back more than 1/2 my exercise calories if using MFP numbers. What I actually did though is calculate my TDEE, took off a percent of that and changed by goal on MFP to that amount and don't even bother with exercise calories.

peaceout_aly

Everyone says to eat back ONLY half. Personally, I disregard that and still maintain perfectly fine, but the burns also seem to be accurate for the particular styles of cardio/working out that I'm doing.

murp4069

I also find the MFP exercise calorie burns very high, and like you I assume my actual burn is about half of what MFP says. If I eat back the calories, I try to eat back no more than 1/3 of what MFP says I've earned for the exercise (depending on the calories I think I've burned, what time it is, what I've eaten that day, whether I'm hungry, etc.). Using this method I've lost at a pretty steady rate of 1.25 lbs/week.