Help to understand this program

nolife1980

I am kind new here only for few weeks, and I am confuse a little. I setup the information in the program and program figure out for me how many calories I can eat a day. But when I put some serious exercise the amount calories jump sometime to 9000 calories a day. I don't think I ever eat in my life 9000 calories a day. How I going to lose weight if I have to eat that much calories?
NoLife1980

MFPfriend

Do you have the correct settings? Maybe you put kilos instead of pounds?

HealthyChanges2010

How many cals are you burning with your workouts?

nolife1980

Today I burned 3027 calories but sometime I burn a lot more. Today was hot day.
And I setup in lbs not kilos Maybe I can't write but I am not stupid. :-)

MFPfriend

Today I burned 3027 calories but sometime I burn a lot more. Today was hot day.
And I setup in lbs not kilos Maybe I can't write but I am not stupid. :-)

Whoa, sorry. I didn't mean to say you were stupid- it's a common mistake on the website.
Excuse me.

matthewpaulbreuer

I was a bit confused by the numbers when I first started, but one must realize the general formula. To lose weight, one must have a calorie deficit. One's body burns a certain amount of calories per day to stay alive; one eats to provide the body with these calories. Losing weight requires one to burn more calories (via being alive and exercise) than they consume. Your daily calorie goal is already a deficit compared to what you burn by just being alive. This is why the site states that exercising allows one to eat more calories, and still stay in a calorie deficit. To lose more weight, we can increase the calorie deficit, but we need to eat enough, no matter the calories, to fuel our body with protein, other nutrients, etc. Overall, calories burned via living and exercising must be greater than calories consumed. Anyone please feel free to jump in if I am incorrect.

HealthyChanges2010

Today I burned 3027 calories but sometime I burn a lot more. Today was hot day.
And I setup in lbs not kilos Maybe I can't write but I am not stupid. :-)

Wow, that's a terrific workout! Ok, that makes sense, the cals would definitely add up quickly for you between workout cals and daily cals to eat. You can try eating half the workout cals and see how you feel with that. 9000 is a lot so I can totally understand how the number would have you pondering how you were able to get them all in!

Well here's a list of things I use to load up on cals that are healthy but more calorie/protein/fat dense, hopefully some on the list appeal to you and will help!

PB, or other nut butter, say a PB sandwich and glass of milk for a snack would be something in the neighborhood of 300+ cals
Handful of nuts
Cheeses
Glass of milk with chocolate syrup, I use the low sugar version
Hm, dang, what happened to my list! I can usually come up with all sorts, but this gives you at least a bit of an idea on higher cal foods that will help you bring your daily cals up. Sorry my brain is malfunctioning at the moment. (hot here too!), but if I think on more, I'll sure share.

Good luck, I say do your best and if you can't get them all in, then you can't. But I will say, I'm quite impressed with your workouts, good for you especially in the heat!!

Becca:flowerforyou:

HealthyChanges2010

I was a bit confused by the numbers when I first started, but one must realize the general formula. To lose weight, one must have a calorie deficit. One's body burns a certain amount of calories per day to stay alive; one eats to provide the body with these calories. Losing weight requires one to burn more calories (via being alive and exercise) than they consume. Your daily calorie goal is already a deficit compared to what you burn by just being alive. This is why the site states that exercising allows one to eat more calories, and still stay in a calorie deficit. To lose more weight, we can increase the calorie deficit, but we need to eat enough, no matter the calories, to fuel our body with protein, other nutrients, etc. Overall, calories burned via living and exercising must be greater than calories consumed. Anyone please feel free to jump in if I am incorrect.

He's simply asking how the heck he's supposed to eat his 9000 cals today is all! lol Which is is daily allotment PLUS his workout cals from today. :drinker:

tammyhoff2004

I know exactly what you are talking about. My understanding is that you have the ability to eat calories that you burn. So if you have a 2000 calorie a day diet and burn 3000, that doesn't mean you can eat 5000 calories that day if you want to lose weight. Now if you are maintaining your weight, that would work but only if you are maintaining. You do have to eat to lose to speed up your metabolism but you wouldn't wanna eat that many calories if you are still in a losing phase.

HealthyChanges2010

Oh, found a pretty source for a list to get more cals in our meals to be sure we get enough in each day.

Step 1
Sprinkle nuts on your cereal. Nuts, particularly almonds, hazelnuts, pine nuts, peanuts, pecans, walnuts and pistachio nuts, help lower the risk of heart disease. Nuts are also high in calories. Placing 1/4 cup of chopped walnuts on your cereal will add 200 calories to your daily intake.

Step 2
Dress your pasta and salads with olive oil. Olive oil is high in calories--just 1 tablespoon contains 120 calories--but olive oil does not carry the same risk of heart disease and stroke that butter, lard and vegetable oil do. Instead, olive oil contains HDL, or high-density lipoprotein, which lowers bad cholesterol, decreasing the risk of heart disease.

Step 3
Mix wheat germ into your meals. Wheat germ is a powdery substance, derived from wheat kernel embryos that is high in folic acid, but contains only half a gram of saturated fat per serving. Stirring 1/4 cup of wheat germ into pudding or yogurt will add 120 calories to your meal.

Step 4
Eat avocado once a week. Avocado is a fruit high in vitamin K, dietary fiber and potassium. Although a medium avocado does contain over 4 grams of saturated fat, take advantage of its dietary benefits by eating it occasionally. One medium-sized avocado contains 161 calories.

Step 5
Add a baked sweet potato as a side dish. Sweet potatoes contain far more vitamins than its plain, white counterpart. One large baked sweet potato, eaten plain with the skin, contains 162 calories. Adding low-fat yogurt or a dab of butter to the potato will increase the calorie count.

Step 6
Eat eggs, but not too many. According to the Mayo Clinic, some cholesterol is necessary, even some bad cholesterol. Although eggs are high in cholesterol, they can be eaten occasionally and in moderation as part of a healthy diet. One egg contains 70 calories.

HealthyChanges2010

I know exactly what you are talking about. My understanding is that you have the ability to eat calories that you burn. So if you have a 2000 calorie a day diet and burn 3000, that doesn't mean you can eat 5000 calories that day if you want to lose weight. Now if you are maintaining your weight, that would work but only if you are maintaining. You do have to eat to lose to speed up your metabolism but you wouldn't wanna eat that many calories if you are still in a losing phase.

Actually you do want to eat your workout cals. MFP sets you up with a deficit when you join and you let it know how many lbs. per week you want to lose, if you pick 1 lb. it gives you a 500 cal deficit, 2 lbs, 1000 cal deficit. So you're already down 1000 cals, so you take your workout cals out and you're way below , see what I mean. So eating only your daily cals wouldn't be a healthy way to go about losing weight. You would be far below a healthy amount of cals. It's simply how it works.

Maintenance is something different, it's not comparable to eating your workout cals or not eating them.
Just sharing this so others understand how MFP works:flowerforyou:

Becca

nolife1980

With all respect to all of you. I speak with dietitian and she told me simple formula. You have to eat less calories a day then you burn and then you'll lose weight. Here I have to eat a lot more calories (my daily calories + exercise calories) put together and the I will look like my refrigerator Can any one imagine eat 9000 calories a day? Even half of that is still 4500 plus your daily calories. I just don't get it... sorry but that doesn't make any sense.
Best wishes to all of you
NoLife1980

ThaiKaren

Hi, I would think common sense should prevail

melodyg

Bumped for GREAT list of calorie dense foods.

And a question for the original poster -- what kind of workout are you doing to get 3000 workout calories a day? Is this a typical day for you? If so, you may want to change your activity level to active. I'm not sure how that will affect your daily calories but it would probably lower them a little bit, I'd think.

And, I agree that 9000 is A LOT of calories, which is why I am wondering what your activity level is set at now and what your exercise on top of that is to get recommended calories that high! As for your question on burning calories, you (and your dietician) are correct that calories in has to be less than calories burned. MFP recommends eating at least some of calories burned through exercise because a deficit is already calculated into your daily calorie goals (not including exercise)... so eating exercise calories is simply replacing some of what you burned but still having a deficit.

nolife1980

I know exactly what you are talking about. My understanding is that you have the ability to eat calories that you burn. So if you have a 2000 calorie a day diet and burn 3000, that doesn't mean you can eat 5000 calories that day if you want to lose weight. Now if you are maintaining your weight, that would work but only if you are maintaining. You do have to eat to lose to speed up your metabolism but you wouldn't wanna eat that many calories if you are still in a losing phase.

thoff2004
If I will eat 9000 calories a day I will have no time for nothing else I am not even sure if I will have enough time to eat all that calories. But what you said it make lot more sense to me then others. But before I join this WEB site I don't eat that many calories and still gain weight.
NoLife1980

Yurippe

With all respect to all of you. I speak with dietitian and she told me simple formula. You have to eat less calories a day then you burn and then you'll lose weight. Here I have to eat a lot more calories (my daily calories + exercise calories) put together and the I will look like my refrigerator Can any one imagine eat 9000 calories a day? Even half of that is still 4500 plus your daily calories. I just don't get it... sorry but that doesn't make any sense.
Best wishes to all of you
NoLife1980

My boyfriend is using this site an weighs about 30 lbs less than you. He is supposed to eat about 2200 calories a day with a goal of losing 2 lbs a week. I would assume you would be close to that. If you are saying you need to eat 9000 calories a day that means you would have burned 6000-7000 calories through exercise. That seems like more than is possible unless you are training for the olympics.

I feel like I would need more details about your goals and settings before I could give any advice.

nolife1980

Bumped for GREAT list of calorie dense foods.

And a question for the original poster -- what kind of workout are you doing to get 3000 workout calories a day? Is this a typical day for you? If so, you may want to change your activity level to active. I'm not sure how that will affect your daily calories but it would probably lower them a little bit, I'd think.

And, I agree that 9000 is A LOT of calories, which is why I am wondering what your activity level is set at now and what your exercise on top of that is to get recommended calories that high! As for your question on burning calories, you (and your dietician) are correct that calories in has to be less than calories burned. MFP recommends eating at least some of calories burned through exercise because a deficit is already calculated into your daily calorie goals (not including exercise)... so eating exercise calories is simply replacing some of what you burned but still having a deficit.

I have setup for Sedentary and now I changed to Very active, and now I have to eat even more calories.
To answer you question how I burn so much calories? I ride mountain bike, swim, and of course take care of it my huge yard. That is most of my calories just go across my yard. In exercise part of this program is no such think like going back and forth up and down all day long, so I use hiking instead. That make tons of calories. But I think I just get the idea. Finally I start losing weight, and that is most important part. I do not eat those extra (exercise calories) I don't even pay attentions to it. Just carious how the system works. I don't want to make people confuse even more, because I know is more people here have same problem. I know also what is the different between BMR and BMI and I know I don't eat BMR and still walking. According this WEB site I shouldn't
NoLife1980

karenmi

Just a quick question, how do you know for sure your workout burned 3000 calories? Are you wearing a heart monitor, and if not how are you measuring them?

I'm just asking because I am thinking that's a lot of calories for one workout, and I think you said you sometimes burn more that. I know for me, a 5'3" woman of 170 lbs, I'd have to put in 7 hours walking on the treadmill to burn 3,000 calories. I'm just concerned that you are overestimating the amount of calories you're burning.

nolife1980

With all respect to all of you. I speak with dietitian and she told me simple formula. You have to eat less calories a day then you burn and then you'll lose weight. Here I have to eat a lot more calories (my daily calories + exercise calories) put together and the I will look like my refrigerator Can any one imagine eat 9000 calories a day? Even half of that is still 4500 plus your daily calories. I just don't get it... sorry but that doesn't make any sense.
Best wishes to all of you
NoLife1980

My boyfriend is using this site an weighs about 30 lbs less than you. He is supposed to eat about 2200 calories a day with a goal of losing 2 lbs a week. I would assume you would be close to that. If you are saying you need to eat 9000 calories a day that means you would have burned 6000-7000 calories through exercise. That seems like more than is possible unless you are training for the olympics.

I feel like I would need more details about your goals and settings before I could give any advice.

First of all I said sometime I have to eat 9000 calories a day, not everyday. Second it is my normal day. I work physically and work on my farm. I have big spaces to cover all day long. I would' say is fun, but some one have to do it. Plus I ride mountain bike most of the day. Maybe I put wrong way to exercise part maybe that is why program figures wrong way I just don't know. How I should know how much calories I burn ride for 2 hours a mountain bike on not even surface? I relay on program. If program said 3000 calories for me is 3000 calories. If Will say 10000 calories then will be 10000. I have no idea how much calories I burn walking in 1 mile a hour or 5 miles a hour. I just basically copy what program telling me. And believe me to the olympic I still have very long way

nolife1980

Just a quick question, how do you know for sure your workout burned 3000 calories? Are you wearing a heart monitor, and if not how are you measuring them?

I'm just asking because I am thinking that's a lot of calories for one workout, and I think you said you sometimes burn more that. I know for me, a 5'3" woman of 170 lbs, I'd have to put in 7 hours walking on the treadmill to burn 3,000 calories. I'm just concerned that you are overestimating the amount of calories you're burning.

I don't MFP is doing for me. I don't know how much calories I burn this site telling me that information.

keith0373

MFP assumes a certain level of activity for its exercises. For example, the elliptical assumes that you are doing approximately 10 minute miles. Make sure your miles per hour is right on your bike and any walking you do and always lean towards the low side of things. At your weight, being badly negative is not a horrible thing and you will lose 50-100 lbs quickly. I lost my first 30 lbs in 1.5 months starting at 228 just by exercising heavily and eating what I usually do. It has slowed down some since then.

terraskye

Just a quick question, how do you know for sure your workout burned 3000 calories? Are you wearing a heart monitor, and if not how are you measuring them?

I'm just asking because I am thinking that's a lot of calories for one workout, and I think you said you sometimes burn more that. I know for me, a 5'3" woman of 170 lbs, I'd have to put in 7 hours walking on the treadmill to burn 3,000 calories. I'm just concerned that you are overestimating the amount of calories you're burning.

I don't MFP is doing for me. I don't know how much calories I burn this site telling me that information.

After I got a Heart rate monitor I found that a lot of the calories burnt information that MFP has was overestimated. I think (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong) that calories is totally individualized based on weight/age and so on.

So if you and I did the same exercise our calories burnt would be different if our ages and weight are different.

Just my .02:)

nolife1980

Just a quick question, how do you know for sure your workout burned 3000 calories? Are you wearing a heart monitor, and if not how are you measuring them?

I'm just asking because I am thinking that's a lot of calories for one workout, and I think you said you sometimes burn more that. I know for me, a 5'3" woman of 170 lbs, I'd have to put in 7 hours walking on the treadmill to burn 3,000 calories. I'm just concerned that you are overestimating the amount of calories you're burning.

I don't MFP is doing for me. I don't know how much calories I burn this site telling me that information.

After I got a Heart rate monitor I found that a lot of the calories burnt information that MFP has was overestimated. I think (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong) that calories is totally individualized based on weight/age and so on.

So if you and I did the same exercise our calories burnt would be different if our ages and weight are different.

Just my .02:)

Of course I agree 100% first of all you're beautiful young and female and your weight if much different then my. If karenmi 5'3" woman and 170 lb will put extra 160 lb weight on her self then she will not needed 7 hours on treadmill to burn 3000 calories. About MFP site I find out few more wrong information. I setup my site to show me Calories, Carbs, Sugar and Protein. And I put sweet tea in the morning. Site show me the sweet tea has no sugar, and no carbs.

LotusF1ower

I am kind new here only for few weeks, and I am confuse a little. I setup the information in the program and program figure out for me how many calories I can eat a day. But when I put some serious exercise the amount calories jump sometime to 9000 calories a day. I don't think I ever eat in my life 9000 calories a day. How I going to lose weight if I have to eat that much calories?
NoLife1980

Strewth! Even Olympic swimmers are not on that amount each day, I can see your predicament here :laugh:

If all the info you stuck in, re your weight, food and exercise is correct, there is no way you could stuff yourself silly like that everyday and lose any weight. Put it this way, you can simply eat what you want and still be in the required deficit to lose the lbs.

9000 calories!!! I can't get over that! :noway:

LotusF1ower

With all respect to all of you. I speak with dietitian and she told me simple formula. You have to eat less calories a day then you burn and then you'll lose weight. Here I have to eat a lot more calories (my daily calories + exercise calories) put together and the I will look like my refrigerator Can any one imagine eat 9000 calories a day? Even half of that is still 4500 plus your daily calories. I just don't get it... sorry but that doesn't make any sense.
Best wishes to all of you
NoLife1980

Your dietician is 100% correct, if you eat MORE calories than you use up each day, your body will automatically store it as fat - hence the weight gain.

Sometimes I think people forget that it is simply if you use up more calories than you take in each day, you will lose weight.

Go to "tools" and go to "BMR", fill in the info and see what it comes up with. If it comes up with your BMR is 2500 calories per day, make sure you eat below that and at the end of the week if you are in a deficit of 3500 calories you will lose one pound.

Forget all this 9000 calories lark, do that and you will end up putting on the weight and that is not what you want obviously, because if it was you would not be here.

karenmi

Just a quick question, how do you know for sure your workout burned 3000 calories? Are you wearing a heart monitor, and if not how are you measuring them?

I'm just asking because I am thinking that's a lot of calories for one workout, and I think you said you sometimes burn more that. I know for me, a 5'3" woman of 170 lbs, I'd have to put in 7 hours walking on the treadmill to burn 3,000 calories. I'm just concerned that you are overestimating the amount of calories you're burning.

I don't MFP is doing for me. I don't know how much calories I burn this site telling me that information.

After I got a Heart rate monitor I found that a lot of the calories burnt information that MFP has was overestimated. I think (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong) that calories is totally individualized based on weight/age and so on.

So if you and I did the same exercise our calories burnt would be different if our ages and weight are different.

Just my .02:)

Of course I agree 100% first of all you're beautiful young and female and your weight if much different then my. If karenmi 5'3" woman and 170 lb will put extra 160 lb weight on her self then she will not needed 7 hours on treadmill to burn 3000 calories. About MFP site I find out few more wrong information. I setup my site to show me Calories, Carbs, Sugar and Protein. And I put sweet tea in the morning. Site show me the sweet tea has no sugar, and no carbs.

Yes, you are right about that, there is a difference in weight, etc. (oh and thanks for the compliment!!). I would burn a lot more calories if I weighed more, 'tis true. But if you want to know exactly how many calories you're burning, don't go by the estimateson MFP, as I too have found they are way too high. Get a good heart monitor and use it every time you exercise, that way you will have an accurate measurement of your exercise calories and be able to calculate how much to eat every day.

Good luck with your journey!!!!

karenmi

Sorry, I noticed one more thing....you had set that originally you had set your profile up as "sedentary" and then changed it to "very active". Now we'll need someone else's help here, but I work out at least an hour every day but my day-to-day life is an office job so I set myself up at the lowest level of daily activity. The workouts, gardening, etc. would get counted as exercise on top of that.

Perhaps that's where the bust is? If you have set yourself up as very active, then putting the exercise on top of that, maybe that's why it's telling you to eat 9,000 calories a day.

Comments anyone?

Yurippe

Sorry, I noticed one more thing....you had set that originally you had set your profile up as "sedentary" and then changed it to "very active". Now we'll need someone else's help here, but I work out at least an hour every day but my day-to-day life is an office job so I set myself up at the lowest level of daily activity. The workouts, gardening, etc. would get counted as exercise on top of that.

Perhaps that's where the bust is? If you have set yourself up as very active, then putting the exercise on top of that, maybe that's why it's telling you to eat 9,000 calories a day.

Comments anyone?

If you have yourself set up as very active I would only log exercise when it wasn't something in your normal daily routine. That's like counting the calories you burn twice (first with increasing activity level then again when adding exercise).

Listen to your body though. If you are eating plenty of fiber and protien but still getting hungry you might not be eating enough.

A HRM or a body bug might be a good idea for the OP. That way he could really see how many calories he was burning a day and what he should be eating to stay at a healthy deficit.

melodyg

Sorry, I noticed one more thing....you had set that originally you had set your profile up as "sedentary" and then changed it to "very active". Now we'll need someone else's help here, but I work out at least an hour every day but my day-to-day life is an office job so I set myself up at the lowest level of daily activity. The workouts, gardening, etc. would get counted as exercise on top of that.

Perhaps that's where the bust is? If you have set yourself up as very active, then putting the exercise on top of that, maybe that's why it's telling you to eat 9,000 calories a day.

Comments anyone?

If you have yourself set up as very active I would only log exercise when it wasn't something in your normal daily routine. That's like counting the calories you burn twice (first with increasing activity level then again when adding exercise).

Listen to your body though. If you are eating plenty of fiber and protien but still getting hungry you might not be eating enough.

A HRM or a body bug might be a good idea for the OP. That way he could really see how many calories he was burning a day and what he should be eating to stay at a healthy deficit.

Right. I left out that part in my original post. If you set your lifestyle to "very active" you would not need to add in the exercise that is part of your average day. You would only put in exercise when you do something that is not part of your average day.

nolife1980

Sorry, I noticed one more thing....you had set that originally you had set your profile up as "sedentary" and then changed it to "very active". Now we'll need someone else's help here, but I work out at least an hour every day but my day-to-day life is an office job so I set myself up at the lowest level of daily activity. The workouts, gardening, etc. would get counted as exercise on top of that.

Perhaps that's where the bust is? If you have set yourself up as very active, then putting the exercise on top of that, maybe that's why it's telling you to eat 9,000 calories a day.

Comments anyone?

If you have yourself set up as very active I would only log exercise when it wasn't something in your normal daily routine. That's like counting the calories you burn twice (first with increasing activity level then again when adding exercise).

Listen to your body though. If you are eating plenty of fiber and protien but still getting hungry you might not be eating enough.

A HRM or a body bug might be a good idea for the OP. That way he could really see how many calories he was burning a day and what he should be eating to stay at a healthy deficit.

Right. I left out that part in my original post. If you set your lifestyle to "very active" you would not need to add in the exercise that is part of your average day. You would only put in exercise when you do something that is not part of your average day.

I just quote all of you because everybody talk about same subject. How I understand this is, for some people going on walk from them home to next county is exercise. For other is work, so how you would distinguished for which of you is work or exercise? moreover sometime we do cut the grass, is that part of day work or part of exercise? We can talk that way forever because for some people daily work is work, for others exercise. And setup my self to "very-active" declassify me from doing any exercise because would be part of my work even when I doing stuff for fun.

karenmi

When you set your goals it asks you if your job is sedentary (desk job like me), then goes up from there. You should be able to figure out what your normal daily activity is and if it's "Very Active" and you spend most of your day doing "heavy physical activity" then that's what you would choose. You know best which one applies to you.

Your exercise calories would come from any "intentional" exercise, like working out, walking, biking, etc.

Don't worry, you'll get the hang of it and soon it will all fall into place!