Trusting MFP when eating back?

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Replies

  • ohnstadk
    ohnstadk Posts: 143 Member
    I usually cut the calories mfp gives for exercise by 150 to 200 for each exercise. And then only eat half of those back if hungry. For example, if I do a 30 minute circuit and mfp says that I burned 450 calories. I will subtract 150 from that total, logging the exercise as 300 calories burned. If I am hungry I will then eat a snack around 150 calories. That way I am not starving myself, nor am I overestimating the calories earned.
  • Joshacham
    Joshacham Posts: 467 Member
    I believe that MFP often overestimates exercise calories so definitely be careful eating them ALL back. I bought a Bodymedia Fit and learned that, in my case, MFP was often doubling what I was actually burning.

    See, that's weird. I would use the Nike Run app and saw that Nike was overestimating the amount of calories burned compared to MFP. I shrug and go with what MFP said I burned in 50 minutes of running at 6 mph rather than what Nike says. It's a head scratcher.

    I've eaten all of my calories and, at times, over the amount now that I'm maintaining and I haven't seen any significant gains or loss when it comes to my weight.
  • LiftAllThePizzas
    LiftAllThePizzas Posts: 17,857 Member
    I have a hard enough time eating my original calories, so I never eat my exercise calories back!!
    Yeah, orthorexia does that to people.
  • stuffinmuffin
    stuffinmuffin Posts: 985 Member
    From getting a heart rate monitor I found that MFP underestimated walking cals and overestimated running cals. I guess this all balanced out in the end.

    Remember this is all 'rough' science not exact to the calorie and that will go for your food input too, so don't take it totally seriously.

    Eat most of the cals back but keep a buffer of say - 50 cals if you're worried. Same on another day if you eat 50 cals over your limit it probably wont make any difference.
  • jwdieter
    jwdieter Posts: 2,582 Member
    Given the OP is a young, thin, man who is working out, eating back the MFP cals is more than likely just fine. He definitely shouldn't be skimping on calories.

    MFP underestimates my caloric burn for a lot of gym activities.
  • acpgee
    acpgee Posts: 7,956 Member
    My experience is that the MFP burn rates are way off. My typical workout is 65 minutes on the elliptical targeting a heart rate of 140-150. According to the heart rate monitor, I burn 500-540. According to the machine itself 750-780. According to MFP its 926.
  • magerum
    magerum Posts: 12,589 Member
    MFP calorie estimations are just that, estimations. For me they're radically low, for many they're very high. Over time and through use of a properly tuned HRM I have been able to eat back all of my exercise calories. The key is measuring your burns the best you can.
  • andresconejo
    andresconejo Posts: 264
    Ok that's so confusing an dim planning on buying a HRM, but not very soon, so, what i'm thinking it's just to eat my calories (i'm maintaining) , i may eat less, but i will never go over them and maybe don´t eat the excrcise cals back because i'm supposed to eat like 2500 calories to maintain my way so i guess it's enough and i don´t need excercise cals.. maybe if i want to "cheat " i will only eat half of them, is this okay??

    Also i have another doubt, i should add the excercise to my daily goal, right? LEt's say, MFP gives me 2500 cals as my daily goal, and if i burnt 700 cals and i want to eat them back i should add 700 to 2500 so i can eat like 3200 on workout days, right?
  • HPLW0705
    HPLW0705 Posts: 102
    I noticed, after purchasing my HRM, that the calorie counts on MFP are highly inflated. I would run 3 miles and it would tell me I was buring over hundred calories more than when I used my HRM. Same with other exercises as well. MFP has me set at 1250 and since I've been doing Insanity and running, I tend to be so hungry that I eat back most of my exercise calories the majority of the time. I usually end up eating around 1600-1700 calories a day, netting around 1250 and I've been losing steadily.
  • TheRealParisLove
    TheRealParisLove Posts: 1,907 Member
    I just wanted to mention that not everyone is going to be way over on calorie burn estimates here. I am very fit, and have a maximum heart rate more like that of a 25 year old, not 43 (my real age). MFP is consistently under estimating my calorie burn due to the standardization of the calories burned formula. I can usually add 10-30% more calories burned to my totals.

    I'm just mentioning this because not everyone is going to fall into the "normal" range that is calculated here. Listen to your body, and if you have frequent hunger pains that last an hour or more, it may be time to increase your calorie consumption.
  • avskk
    avskk Posts: 1,787 Member
    I log my exercise through the FitBit dashboard (and the 'Bit records my movement, of course) and eat back some of my FitBit adjustment sometimes, but not all of it all of the time. It's basically a buffer if I'm legit hungry after an active day or strenuous workout, but otherwise I leave it alone. I don't log exercise through MFP; I did so a couple of times and the calories it gave me to eat back were insane (like 500 calories for ~30 minutes of lazy-assed swimming).

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