Exercise calories...

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Jensylkat5
Jensylkat5 Posts: 16 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hey guys... Apologies, I do realise this is a frequently asked question, but I just couldn't find an answer on the boards that really answered my question.

So... I have a fitbit (with no HR tracker, so I don't know how accurate/inaccurate that makes it) and it is linked with MFP, so I automatically get calories added for the steps I do. I am 5'6, 81kg and I get 1290 cals a day without added exercise. Now most of these fitbit steps are my walk to work and me walking from one end of the school to the other 10 times a day, so not necessarily purposeful exercise, but they give me 300 or more cals. Should I be eating any of these back, or only eat back some of my actual exercise cals (which doesn't happen too often, to be honest)?
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  • T0M_K
    T0M_K Posts: 7,526 Member
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    Personally, if i'm not really hungry i just don't eat them. if it was some sort of intense exercise and i felt i need the energy, i'd eat my 50%. Additional, you can bank these for times when maybe you didn't do so well on your eating.
  • ashliedelgado
    ashliedelgado Posts: 814 Member
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    Agreed. If you are feeling hungry, eat some of them. If not, save them. My activity tracker gives me between 250-400 calories a day back on work days (I work in a Community Health Clinic and some days are busier than others). Not sure how accurate it is, but I only dip into it if I'm hungry. I lost fine, and now I'm maintaining fine through a pregnancy with a gain that is right in the middle of where it should be at my BMI/stage of pregnancy.
  • Shells918
    Shells918 Posts: 1,070 Member
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    Personally, I wouldn't eat them back. Some people eat 1/2 their exercise calories, but since this isn't purposeful, I'd leave them.
  • Jensylkat5
    Jensylkat5 Posts: 16 Member
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    Thanks guys... I've never eaten them back before, but kept reading people saying I'm not "using the tool" properly if I don't eat the calories MFP tells me I've got. Think I will stick to not eating my step calories from work back, and up to 50% of exercise...
  • kandeye
    kandeye Posts: 216 Member
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    If you have a step counter, set your profile to sedentary and eat back your calories. Of course they can be inaccurate so trying eating 50-70% of them if you don't trust it. After a month or so you can see how your weight loss is progressing to get a more accurate picture of your burned calories.
  • Jensylkat5
    Jensylkat5 Posts: 16 Member
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    EDIT: Throwing your stats into a quick TDEE calculator, at lightly active a calorie goal of 1290 has you cutting at TDEE -42%. It's normally more advised to cut at more like TDEE -20%, so yes you should be eating some back and adjust from there.[/quote]



    I'm going to look really stupid now, but...... What is TDEE??
  • RGv2
    RGv2 Posts: 5,789 Member
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    Jensylkat5 wrote: »
    EDIT: Throwing your stats into a quick TDEE calculator, at lightly active a calorie goal of 1290 has you cutting at TDEE -42%. It's normally more advised to cut at more like TDEE -20%, so yes you should be eating some back and adjust from there.



    I'm going to look really stupid now, but...... What is TDEE??
    [/quote]

    Total Daily Energy Expenditure. Basically an estimate of how many calories you burn per day that would maintain your weight. According to the calculator, a person with your stats that does 1-3 hours of light exercise per week would maintain their weight on 2100 calories. If you only eat 1290 calories per day (accurately), you're only about half way to your maintenance cals. It's more normally advised to get to 75-80% which is more like 1800 cals per day. If you ate back some of your exercise cals, you'd be closer to that number.

    It's all an estimate though, both what we put in and what we burn. That's why many people say start at 50% and adjust from there.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    edited September 2016
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    1290 does seem very VERY low for a 34 year old woman who is on her feet a lot of the day. What is your goal exactly? How did you arrive on 1290 calories?

    In comparison I am a 6' tall 37 year old man. I set MFP to lose 1 pound a week and lightly active and it has me eating 1700 calories a day as my goal. I never eat that little though because I eat back calories on the basis of activity so I end up typically eating more like 2400 calories a day. I'm losing weight at a pretty steady 1 pound a week, actually a bit faster than that. That means my maintenance is probably like 3000 calories a day which would be my TDEE so I'm eating about 600 calories under my TDEE which is about 20% under my TDEE.

    If you walk around, are on your feet in a school, are 34 years old and 5'6 your TDEE is probably a lot higher than 1290 calories x 1.2.

    I'd recommend you not treat weightloss as a race where you eat as little as you can convince yourself to eat. It won't work out nearly as well as just setting a small deficit based on your estimated TDEE and adjusting over time as needed based on your results.
  • daniip_la
    daniip_la Posts: 678 Member
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    kshama2001 wrote: »
    Jensylkat5 wrote: »
    Hey guys... Apologies, I do realise this is a frequently asked question, but I just couldn't find an answer on the boards that really answered my question.

    So... I have a fitbit (with no HR tracker, so I don't know how accurate/inaccurate that makes it) and it is linked with MFP, so I automatically get calories added for the steps I do. I am 5'6, 81kg and I get 1290 cals a day without added exercise. Now most of these fitbit steps are my walk to work and me walking from one end of the school to the other 10 times a day, so not necessarily purposeful exercise, but they give me 300 or more cals. Should I be eating any of these back, or only eat back some of my actual exercise cals (which doesn't happen too often, to be honest)?

    My FitBit One doesn't have a HR tracker either. The calories it gives me for walking are far less generous than what MFP gives, so I have no qualms about eating 100% of my fitbit calories back.

    I think the whole 'only purposeful exercise counts' stance is silly and smacks of gym elitism. (This is not directed at you.) Your body burns calories whether you are walking to work or walking on a treadmill. Both are factored in your TDEE.

    Seconding this. I use a Fitbit One and can eat back 100% of the extra calories it gives me and lose according to plan. Most of my steps aren't "purposeful exercise".
  • SezxyStef
    SezxyStef Posts: 15,268 Member
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    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    Yes, eat them back. I'm guessing you set yourself to sedentary which on MFP is like 2500 steps and from your description you are easily above that. Can set yourself to lightly or moderately active depending on your step count to adjust your goal or let your tracking do it and eat those calories back. I'm set to lightly active and I ate back 800 calories yesterday just from walking.

    This exactly. When you set up your profile with the activity tracker it is usually done as "sedentary" so you are using the "tool correctly". I am not sedentary at all...I get on average 5k steps a day without purporseful exercise...but I set my profiel that way...

    If you don't want that set your activity level to better reflect your true level...but if you are doing that why bother with a fitbit?
  • cee134
    cee134 Posts: 33,711 Member
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    The fitbit won't take into account the calories that you would burn if you where just sitting at your desk. That's why I don't add back 100% of my exercise calories. Don't go under 1200 for the day, but also, for example, start with 50% and move up from there. Most people on MFP found it works to eat back only between 75% - 50%. It depends on the person however.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
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    cee134 wrote: »
    The fitbit won't take into account the calories that you would burn if you where just sitting at your desk. That's why I don't add back 100% of my exercise calories. Don't go under 1200 for the day, but also, for example, start with 50% and move up from there. Most people on MFP found it works to eat back only between 75% - 50%. It depends on the person however.

    My Fitbit does take my BMR (what I would burn just sitting at a desk or lying in bed) into account.
  • Jensylkat5
    Jensylkat5 Posts: 16 Member
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    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    1290 does seem very VERY low for a 34 year old woman who is on her feet a lot of the day. What is your goal exactly? How did you arrive on 1290 calories?

    In comparison I am a 6' tall 37 year old man. I set MFP to lose 1 pound a week and lightly active and it has me eating 1700 calories a day as my goal. I never eat that little though because I eat back calories on the basis of activity so I end up typically eating more like 2400 calories a day. I'm losing weight at a pretty steady 1 pound a week, actually a bit faster than that. That means my maintenance is probably like 3000 calories a day which would be my TDEE so I'm eating about 600 calories under my TDEE which is about 20% under my TDEE.

    If you walk around, are on your feet in a school, are 34 years old and 5'6 your TDEE is probably a lot higher than 1290 calories x 1.2.

    I'd recommend you not treat weightloss as a race where you eat as little as you can convince yourself to eat. It won't work out nearly as well as just setting a small deficit based on your estimated TDEE and adjusting over time as needed based on your results.

    1290 is what MFP suggested after I put in all my stats. That is set on lightly active, not sedentary. I guess I'm going to have some trial and error here, finding out how much I can eat and get a loss. I had lost 65lbs on Weight Watchers 2 years ago... What I'm eating on 1290 cals on MFP seems more than the points I had on WW. Struggling to stick to it all at the moment, but that's a different story and purely related to stress etc in my life right now. I find it all very confusing tbh, and just always feel guilty eating any of my earned cals back.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    edited September 2016
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    Jensylkat5 wrote: »
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    1290 does seem very VERY low for a 34 year old woman who is on her feet a lot of the day. What is your goal exactly? How did you arrive on 1290 calories?

    In comparison I am a 6' tall 37 year old man. I set MFP to lose 1 pound a week and lightly active and it has me eating 1700 calories a day as my goal. I never eat that little though because I eat back calories on the basis of activity so I end up typically eating more like 2400 calories a day. I'm losing weight at a pretty steady 1 pound a week, actually a bit faster than that. That means my maintenance is probably like 3000 calories a day which would be my TDEE so I'm eating about 600 calories under my TDEE which is about 20% under my TDEE.

    If you walk around, are on your feet in a school, are 34 years old and 5'6 your TDEE is probably a lot higher than 1290 calories x 1.2.

    I'd recommend you not treat weightloss as a race where you eat as little as you can convince yourself to eat. It won't work out nearly as well as just setting a small deficit based on your estimated TDEE and adjusting over time as needed based on your results.

    1290 is what MFP suggested after I put in all my stats. That is set on lightly active, not sedentary. I guess I'm going to have some trial and error here, finding out how much I can eat and get a loss. I had lost 65lbs on Weight Watchers 2 years ago... What I'm eating on 1290 cals on MFP seems more than the points I had on WW. Struggling to stick to it all at the moment, but that's a different story and purely related to stress etc in my life right now. I find it all very confusing tbh, and just always feel guilty eating any of my earned cals back.

    One thing you must understand is that "MFP" is a calculator, not an intelligence. It will spit out a number based on what you put in and just because it tells you a number doesn't mean that that number is what you really should be striving for, its just based on what you told it.

    To get to 1290 calories at lightly active I can only assume you maxed it out and told it 2 pound a week loss which is okay if you are morbidly obese but is extreme if you are just a bit overweight. You might want to consider setting that to 1 pound a week instead.

    As an example I'm going to make some guesses about your stats since you haven't shared them and use a TDEE calculator which I will link to:

    http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/

    Plugging in female and 5'6 and total guess but assuming overweight but not obese 170 pounds, 34 y/o. Sounds like you are a teacher? So on your feet a good part of the day, some walking...guessing probably 10k steps a day? So setting you to 3-5 hours a week of moderate exercise. Setting you to at -20% TDEE which is pretty aggressive still. Meals per day doesn't matter so leaving it at default, macros don't matter for now so same thing.

    I get that your TDEE is 2350 and to lose at -20% TDEE which would be about a pound a week you should be eating 1900 calories a day. Your BMR (ie you in a coma totally bedridden) is listed at 1530 calories and you are eating 1290. Yeah, that to me is way over aggressive and you are going to struggle with that hard.

    Not saying these TDEE estimates are super accurate and I guessed a lot of your stats, but you would be hard pressed to choose settings that would suggest you eat only 1290 calories a day. Go ahead and play with the calculator, see if you can get it to suggest that low. I think you'd have to set yourself to be 4'10'' 80 years old and sedentary but give it a shot.

    If you want a second opinion can give this calculator a try, also a good one:

    http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/CalRequire.html That one I'm getting your TDEE (with guessed stats) at about 2300 so pretty close.
  • shadowfax_c11
    shadowfax_c11 Posts: 1,942 Member
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    When I was eating the fitbit adjusted calories I was having a hard time losing. I decided to uncheck the Fitbit steps so that they no longer count towards exercise. Instead I use the information I get from my fitbit to set my activity level. Then I log any intentional exercise in MFP but I use the calorie burn Fitbit shows for that time period instead of the generic entry numbers. Now I do use the Charge HR and it registers workouts automatically so I only log workouts that Fitbit considers outside of my normal activity level.

    Probably sounds complicated but it sure is working. :)

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