Do you eat exercise calories back or not?
alid8333
Posts: 233 Member
I've heard you should and I've heard you shouldn't. What do all of you do? Also what would my activity level be? I typically walk around 3.5 to 4.5 miles a day (8500 to 9500) steps. I'm a stay at home mom/business owner so all my work is done from home. I try to be active and not sit all day. I walk on the treadmill 2 times a day 30 min each time. I have heart issues so I'm only allowed to walk. I try to stay busy by doing housework, but I do have periods of time throughout the day where I'm sitting. So I'm confused what to set my activity level at. Any advise is much appreciated.
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Replies
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Yes to eating back exercise calories.
Here is a video as to why.
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10503681/exercise-calories-do-i-eat-these-a-video-explanation
Does the 8-9K steps include your treadmill steps, or are they above that?
As a guess, you are lightly active. Sedentary would be under 5K steps 9what I get before treadmill time).2 -
If you get your calorie goal from MFP, it's designed for you to eat back exercise calories. This is especially important if you are active or have a large deficit.
I eat back 100% of mine, but I'm getting them from a Fitbit so I think that is sometimes more accurate than the MFP exercise database.
If you're worried about the impacts of eating them, you can always start with eating back a portion of them, observing your results, and adjusting from there.1 -
MFP uses the NEAT method, and as such this system is designed for exercise calories to be eaten back. However, many consider the burns given by MFP to be inflated and only eat a percentage, such as 50%, back.
My FitBit One is far less generous with calories than the MFP database and I comfortably eat 100% of the calories I earn from it back.
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/818082/exercise-calories-again-wtf/p10 -
Never.0
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If I'm hungry, I start by eating 50% back. If I'm not hungry, I don't eat them. I drink a large glass of water and wait 10-20 minutes to see if I'm still hungry.4
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If you use mfp to get your goal it is designed for you to eat back the exercise calories. Your activity level should not include separate exercise. I would think that you are lightly active unless most of those steps are from the treadmill. But even so, I think that most stay at home moms are at least lightly active. I eat back most of my exercise calories but I have a fitbit sycned to mfp. Before I got my fitbit I ate back about 75% of the exercise calories.0
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xmichaelyx wrote: »Never.
Do you use the MFP method or TDEE?2 -
Tacklewasher wrote: »Yes to eating back exercise calories.
Here is a video as to why.
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10503681/exercise-calories-do-i-eat-these-a-video-explanation
Does the 8-9K steps include your treadmill steps, or are they above that?
As a guess, you are lightly active. Sedentary would be under 5K steps 9what I get before treadmill time).
^ I'd suggest checking out that video and if you have any questions after watching it, please feel free to post here or in that thread.0 -
I don't eat them all back. MFP & MapMFP both say 1hr on the exercise bike is a 1700 calorie burn which seems really high.0
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If you use mfp to get your goal it is designed for you to eat back the exercise calories. Your activity level should not include separate exercise. I would think that you are lightly active unless most of those steps are from the treadmill. But even so, I think that most stay at home moms are at least lightly active. I eat back most of my exercise calories but I have a fitbit sycned to mfp. Before I got my fitbit I ate back about 75% of the exercise calories.
I have a Apple Watch. All the steps I do a day aren't from just the treadmill it's from doing house work etc plus the treadmill. I figured I was at least lightly active as that's what I set it to.
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Tacklewasher wrote: »Yes to eating back exercise calories.
Here is a video as to why.
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10503681/exercise-calories-do-i-eat-these-a-video-explanation
Does the 8-9K steps include your treadmill steps, or are they above that?
As a guess, you are lightly active. Sedentary would be under 5K steps 9what I get before treadmill time).
^ I'd suggest checking out that video and if you have any questions after watching it, please feel free to post here or in that thread.
The 8-9k steps does include my treadmill steps.
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If you use mfp to get your goal it is designed for you to eat back the exercise calories. Your activity level should not include separate exercise. I would think that you are lightly active unless most of those steps are from the treadmill. But even so, I think that most stay at home moms are at least lightly active. I eat back most of my exercise calories but I have a fitbit sycned to mfp. Before I got my fitbit I ate back about 75% of the exercise calories.
I have a Apple Watch. All the steps I do a day aren't from just the treadmill it's from doing house work etc plus the treadmill. I figured I was at least lightly active as that's what I set it to.
Sounds good. Don't eat back what you do on the treadmill then, as you are really including that as part of your activity level. Just go with what MFP gives you for lightly active.1 -
50% is alright0
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Tacklewasher wrote: »If you use mfp to get your goal it is designed for you to eat back the exercise calories. Your activity level should not include separate exercise. I would think that you are lightly active unless most of those steps are from the treadmill. But even so, I think that most stay at home moms are at least lightly active. I eat back most of my exercise calories but I have a fitbit sycned to mfp. Before I got my fitbit I ate back about 75% of the exercise calories.
I have a Apple Watch. All the steps I do a day aren't from just the treadmill it's from doing house work etc plus the treadmill. I figured I was at least lightly active as that's what I set it to.
Sounds good. Don't eat back what you do on the treadmill then, as you are really including that as part of your activity level. Just go with what MFP gives you for lightly active.
I think what I'm going to do is just set it at sedentary at losing 1.5 pounds a week. I use a heart rate monitor that Bluetooths to my Apple Watch for my workouts and then it automatically logs any exercise I do to MyFitnessPal. So I know mine is more accurate than using MyFitnessPal's estimate of calories burned during workouts.
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Tacklewasher wrote: »If you use mfp to get your goal it is designed for you to eat back the exercise calories. Your activity level should not include separate exercise. I would think that you are lightly active unless most of those steps are from the treadmill. But even so, I think that most stay at home moms are at least lightly active. I eat back most of my exercise calories but I have a fitbit sycned to mfp. Before I got my fitbit I ate back about 75% of the exercise calories.
I have a Apple Watch. All the steps I do a day aren't from just the treadmill it's from doing house work etc plus the treadmill. I figured I was at least lightly active as that's what I set it to.
Sounds good. Don't eat back what you do on the treadmill then, as you are really including that as part of your activity level. Just go with what MFP gives you for lightly active.
I think what I'm going to do is just set it at sedentary at losing 1.5 pounds a week. I use a heart rate monitor that Bluetooths to my Apple Watch for my workouts and then it automatically logs any exercise I do to MyFitnessPal. So I know mine is more accurate than using MyFitnessPal's estimate of calories burned during workouts.
How much do you weigh? I ask because 1.5 lbs is fairly aggressive weight loss if you don't have much to lose.
Otherwise, that is what I do with my watch. Do you wear your watch all day?
I noted this in the thread I linked to, but I'm starting to trust my Garmin watch on calorie burns (I wear it ~24/7). Last few times I've compared it to a chest strap for my treadmill times, what gets pushed through to MFP is ~10 cals more than the chest strap gives me. But way under what MFP gives me. The watch gave me ~1/2 of what MFP would have given me for my snow shoe trek on Sunday.1 -
I eat back at least half. I don't depend on them to eat "extra food"..but if my body needs more fuel..I'm eating.1
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Ditto what the young lady above said....you need to eat...starvation is not an option.0
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If you use mfp to get your goal it is designed for you to eat back the exercise calories. Your activity level should not include separate exercise. I would think that you are lightly active unless most of those steps are from the treadmill. But even so, I think that most stay at home moms are at least lightly active. I eat back most of my exercise calories but I have a fitbit sycned to mfp. Before I got my fitbit I ate back about 75% of the exercise calories.
I have a Apple Watch. All the steps I do a day aren't from just the treadmill it's from doing house work etc plus the treadmill. I figured I was at least lightly active as that's what I set it to.
If your activity is set to account for that activity then you obviously wouldn't eat back calories...the activity is already accounted for. You eat back calories for activity that is unaccounted for in your activity level.
As an example, If I were to do the MFP method, I'd set my activity level to light active for my day to day and I would get a calorie target based on light activity...in reality, my total activity with exercise is anything but light...so I would add in all of that activity (i.e. 20-30 bike rides, etc) and eat back those calories for that activity that was unaccounted for.
As it is, I prefer the TDEE method which accounts for all of your activity, including exercise in your activity level...it's all accounted for and thus your target would include that activity and thus you wouldn't eat back anything...it's all up front in the equation.
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Tacklewasher wrote: »Tacklewasher wrote: »If you use mfp to get your goal it is designed for you to eat back the exercise calories. Your activity level should not include separate exercise. I would think that you are lightly active unless most of those steps are from the treadmill. But even so, I think that most stay at home moms are at least lightly active. I eat back most of my exercise calories but I have a fitbit sycned to mfp. Before I got my fitbit I ate back about 75% of the exercise calories.
I have a Apple Watch. All the steps I do a day aren't from just the treadmill it's from doing house work etc plus the treadmill. I figured I was at least lightly active as that's what I set it to.
Sounds good. Don't eat back what you do on the treadmill then, as you are really including that as part of your activity level. Just go with what MFP gives you for lightly active.
I think what I'm going to do is just set it at sedentary at losing 1.5 pounds a week. I use a heart rate monitor that Bluetooths to my Apple Watch for my workouts and then it automatically logs any exercise I do to MyFitnessPal. So I know mine is more accurate than using MyFitnessPal's estimate of calories burned during workouts.
How much do you weigh? I ask because 1.5 lbs is fairly aggressive weight loss if you don't have much to lose.
Otherwise, that is what I do with my watch. Do you wear your watch all day?
I noted this in the thread I linked to, but I'm starting to trust my Garmin watch on calorie burns (I wear it ~24/7). Last few times I've compared it to a chest strap for my treadmill times, what gets pushed through to MFP is ~10 cals more than the chest strap gives me. But way under what MFP gives me. The watch gave me ~1/2 of what MFP would have given me for my snow shoe trek on Sunday.
I need to lose around 45 pounds. I don't trust what the treadmill says I burned, even with a chest strap. When I looked up the definition of lightly active it says daily living and household chores. It says your considered lightly active if you perform 30 min of intentional exercise daily on top of tasks of daily living. If I set my
goals to sedentary at losing 1.5 pounds a week it's puts me at 1200 calories a day. Sedentary at 1 pound a week is 1450. Lightly active at 1.5 pounds a week puts me at 1340 calories a day.
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Tacklewasher wrote: »Tacklewasher wrote: »If you use mfp to get your goal it is designed for you to eat back the exercise calories. Your activity level should not include separate exercise. I would think that you are lightly active unless most of those steps are from the treadmill. But even so, I think that most stay at home moms are at least lightly active. I eat back most of my exercise calories but I have a fitbit sycned to mfp. Before I got my fitbit I ate back about 75% of the exercise calories.
I have a Apple Watch. All the steps I do a day aren't from just the treadmill it's from doing house work etc plus the treadmill. I figured I was at least lightly active as that's what I set it to.
Sounds good. Don't eat back what you do on the treadmill then, as you are really including that as part of your activity level. Just go with what MFP gives you for lightly active.
I think what I'm going to do is just set it at sedentary at losing 1.5 pounds a week. I use a heart rate monitor that Bluetooths to my Apple Watch for my workouts and then it automatically logs any exercise I do to MyFitnessPal. So I know mine is more accurate than using MyFitnessPal's estimate of calories burned during workouts.
How much do you weigh? I ask because 1.5 lbs is fairly aggressive weight loss if you don't have much to lose.
Otherwise, that is what I do with my watch. Do you wear your watch all day?
I noted this in the thread I linked to, but I'm starting to trust my Garmin watch on calorie burns (I wear it ~24/7). Last few times I've compared it to a chest strap for my treadmill times, what gets pushed through to MFP is ~10 cals more than the chest strap gives me. But way under what MFP gives me. The watch gave me ~1/2 of what MFP would have given me for my snow shoe trek on Sunday.
I need to lose around 45 pounds. I don't trust what the treadmill says I burned, even with a chest strap. When I looked up the definition of lightly active it says daily living and household chores. It says your considered lightly active if you perform 30 min of intentional exercise daily on top of tasks of daily living. If I set my
goals to sedentary at losing 1.5 pounds a week it's puts me at 1200 calories a day. Sedentary at 1 pound a week is 1450. Lightly active at 1.5 pounds a week puts me at 1340 calories a day.
Understood. Try it for a while and see what the results are, both in how hungry you are and what your weight loss is. You may need to tweak it a bit as you go. Be aware that the 1200 is the lower limit MFP will give any female. If you up your exercises, then be sure to up your calories some to accommodate.1 -
Tacklewasher wrote: »Tacklewasher wrote: »Tacklewasher wrote: »If you use mfp to get your goal it is designed for you to eat back the exercise calories. Your activity level should not include separate exercise. I would think that you are lightly active unless most of those steps are from the treadmill. But even so, I think that most stay at home moms are at least lightly active. I eat back most of my exercise calories but I have a fitbit sycned to mfp. Before I got my fitbit I ate back about 75% of the exercise calories.
I have a Apple Watch. All the steps I do a day aren't from just the treadmill it's from doing house work etc plus the treadmill. I figured I was at least lightly active as that's what I set it to.
Sounds good. Don't eat back what you do on the treadmill then, as you are really including that as part of your activity level. Just go with what MFP gives you for lightly active.
I think what I'm going to do is just set it at sedentary at losing 1.5 pounds a week. I use a heart rate monitor that Bluetooths to my Apple Watch for my workouts and then it automatically logs any exercise I do to MyFitnessPal. So I know mine is more accurate than using MyFitnessPal's estimate of calories burned during workouts.
How much do you weigh? I ask because 1.5 lbs is fairly aggressive weight loss if you don't have much to lose.
Otherwise, that is what I do with my watch. Do you wear your watch all day?
I noted this in the thread I linked to, but I'm starting to trust my Garmin watch on calorie burns (I wear it ~24/7). Last few times I've compared it to a chest strap for my treadmill times, what gets pushed through to MFP is ~10 cals more than the chest strap gives me. But way under what MFP gives me. The watch gave me ~1/2 of what MFP would have given me for my snow shoe trek on Sunday.
I need to lose around 45 pounds. I don't trust what the treadmill says I burned, even with a chest strap. When I looked up the definition of lightly active it says daily living and household chores. It says your considered lightly active if you perform 30 min of intentional exercise daily on top of tasks of daily living. If I set my
goals to sedentary at losing 1.5 pounds a week it's puts me at 1200 calories a day. Sedentary at 1 pound a week is 1450. Lightly active at 1.5 pounds a week puts me at 1340 calories a day.
Understood. Try it for a while and see what the results are, both in how hungry you are and what your weight loss is. You may need to tweak it a bit as you go. Be aware that the 1200 is the lower limit MFP will give any female. If you up your exercises, then be sure to up your calories some to accommodate.
So if my calories are 1200 a day and I burn 400 calories through exercise I should at least eat 50% of those calories back correct?
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I'm on 1200 calories a day and the only exercise I do is walking and body resistance.
For 6 months I did not eat my exercise calories back but I'm beginning to feel tired and just a general lack of energy. I started eating my exercise calories back on the days I work out.
I only eat about 50% of mine back.0 -
Tacklewasher wrote: »Tacklewasher wrote: »Tacklewasher wrote: »If you use mfp to get your goal it is designed for you to eat back the exercise calories. Your activity level should not include separate exercise. I would think that you are lightly active unless most of those steps are from the treadmill. But even so, I think that most stay at home moms are at least lightly active. I eat back most of my exercise calories but I have a fitbit sycned to mfp. Before I got my fitbit I ate back about 75% of the exercise calories.
I have a Apple Watch. All the steps I do a day aren't from just the treadmill it's from doing house work etc plus the treadmill. I figured I was at least lightly active as that's what I set it to.
Sounds good. Don't eat back what you do on the treadmill then, as you are really including that as part of your activity level. Just go with what MFP gives you for lightly active.
I think what I'm going to do is just set it at sedentary at losing 1.5 pounds a week. I use a heart rate monitor that Bluetooths to my Apple Watch for my workouts and then it automatically logs any exercise I do to MyFitnessPal. So I know mine is more accurate than using MyFitnessPal's estimate of calories burned during workouts.
How much do you weigh? I ask because 1.5 lbs is fairly aggressive weight loss if you don't have much to lose.
Otherwise, that is what I do with my watch. Do you wear your watch all day?
I noted this in the thread I linked to, but I'm starting to trust my Garmin watch on calorie burns (I wear it ~24/7). Last few times I've compared it to a chest strap for my treadmill times, what gets pushed through to MFP is ~10 cals more than the chest strap gives me. But way under what MFP gives me. The watch gave me ~1/2 of what MFP would have given me for my snow shoe trek on Sunday.
I need to lose around 45 pounds. I don't trust what the treadmill says I burned, even with a chest strap. When I looked up the definition of lightly active it says daily living and household chores. It says your considered lightly active if you perform 30 min of intentional exercise daily on top of tasks of daily living. If I set my
goals to sedentary at losing 1.5 pounds a week it's puts me at 1200 calories a day. Sedentary at 1 pound a week is 1450. Lightly active at 1.5 pounds a week puts me at 1340 calories a day.
Understood. Try it for a while and see what the results are, both in how hungry you are and what your weight loss is. You may need to tweak it a bit as you go. Be aware that the 1200 is the lower limit MFP will give any female. If you up your exercises, then be sure to up your calories some to accommodate.
So if my calories are 1200 a day and I burn 400 calories through exercise I should at least eat 50% of those calories back correct?
If those 400 are coming from your Apple watch (and chest strap), I'd aim at 75%. If the 400 is coming from an MFP entry for the activity, I'd eat back 50%.0 -
Tacklewasher wrote: »Tacklewasher wrote: »Tacklewasher wrote: »Tacklewasher wrote: »If you use mfp to get your goal it is designed for you to eat back the exercise calories. Your activity level should not include separate exercise. I would think that you are lightly active unless most of those steps are from the treadmill. But even so, I think that most stay at home moms are at least lightly active. I eat back most of my exercise calories but I have a fitbit sycned to mfp. Before I got my fitbit I ate back about 75% of the exercise calories.
I have a Apple Watch. All the steps I do a day aren't from just the treadmill it's from doing house work etc plus the treadmill. I figured I was at least lightly active as that's what I set it to.
Sounds good. Don't eat back what you do on the treadmill then, as you are really including that as part of your activity level. Just go with what MFP gives you for lightly active.
I think what I'm going to do is just set it at sedentary at losing 1.5 pounds a week. I use a heart rate monitor that Bluetooths to my Apple Watch for my workouts and then it automatically logs any exercise I do to MyFitnessPal. So I know mine is more accurate than using MyFitnessPal's estimate of calories burned during workouts.
How much do you weigh? I ask because 1.5 lbs is fairly aggressive weight loss if you don't have much to lose.
Otherwise, that is what I do with my watch. Do you wear your watch all day?
I noted this in the thread I linked to, but I'm starting to trust my Garmin watch on calorie burns (I wear it ~24/7). Last few times I've compared it to a chest strap for my treadmill times, what gets pushed through to MFP is ~10 cals more than the chest strap gives me. But way under what MFP gives me. The watch gave me ~1/2 of what MFP would have given me for my snow shoe trek on Sunday.
I need to lose around 45 pounds. I don't trust what the treadmill says I burned, even with a chest strap. When I looked up the definition of lightly active it says daily living and household chores. It says your considered lightly active if you perform 30 min of intentional exercise daily on top of tasks of daily living. If I set my
goals to sedentary at losing 1.5 pounds a week it's puts me at 1200 calories a day. Sedentary at 1 pound a week is 1450. Lightly active at 1.5 pounds a week puts me at 1340 calories a day.
Understood. Try it for a while and see what the results are, both in how hungry you are and what your weight loss is. You may need to tweak it a bit as you go. Be aware that the 1200 is the lower limit MFP will give any female. If you up your exercises, then be sure to up your calories some to accommodate.
So if my calories are 1200 a day and I burn 400 calories through exercise I should at least eat 50% of those calories back correct?
If those 400 are coming from your Apple watch (and chest strap), I'd aim at 75%. If the 400 is coming from an MFP entry for the activity, I'd eat back 50%.
I just walked on the treadmill for 30 min and I burned 202 calories and that's from my chest strap and Apple Watch. I'll do another 30 min session tonight.
I've only been on my diet for just over 2 weeks. I lost 10 pounds as of January 14th. I know it's mostly water weight. I weighed myself this morning and I was up a pound, which I know is normal to fluctuate. I had my settings at losing 1 pound a week and at Sedentary which gave me a calorie goal of 1450. Today I set it at 1.5 pounds a week and still sedentary and it lowered it to 1200. I decided to keep it at sedentary because I feel like most of my steps are from walking on the treadmill. I'll see how 1200 calories goes. It will be hard for me to tell if I'm not getting enough calories as I'm always tired and feel blah anyways due to my heart issues and Crohns. Hoping once I get some of this weight off my energy will come back.
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You may want to discuss this with your doctor. I'm nervous about you going too low on calories and how a heart condition might impact.0
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I always see these threads but am too lazy to investigate who was successful in their journey. Post how much weight youve lost with if you eat exercise calories back or not0
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candythorns wrote: »I always see these threads but am too lazy to investigate who was successful in their journey. Post how much weight youve lost with if you eat exercise calories back or not
Down 60 eating back about half my exercise calories, but am consciously eating back more of them now as I'm concerned about losing too much too quickly (I lost ~ 15 lbs per month for 3 months) and want to be sure I'm not losing muscle. Also keeping an eye on protein and trying to lift some regularly.0 -
This is a question that's asked very often on the MFP boards. Every commenter is going to have a different answer. The bottom line is that if you are consistently eating at a calorie deficit, you should lose weight. A bigger deficit means you should lose weight faster. However, if your deficit is too large--you're consistently under your calorie goals and/or doing large amounts of exercise and not eating enough of those calories back--you'll probably feel hungry or sick. MFP and other online calculators also have a tendency to overestimate calories burned through exercise. That's why many people prefer to set their MFP activity level to "sedentary" and calculate exercise calories separately, using a heart rate monitor, step tracker, or other more accurate method.
Having said all of those things, I usually eat between 25% and 50% of my exercise calories back, but if I'm hungry, I eat them all. Sometimes I use them for a treat. I'm more likely to eat all of my exercise calories on long run days, when I might burn 500-1000 calories through exercise, because I'm going to feel terrible if I don't refuel after a tough workout like that.
edit: 90 lbs. down for me, 10 lbs. to go til maintenance, been doing this for going on three years now.0 -
I lost 70+ pounds. I always ate every single delicious exercise calorie. Still do, ten years later.
The only way to figure this out is to run the experiment. Keep good records. GOOD records, every day. Log all your food accurately. Pick a method (either TDEE minus 500 calories deficit OR Myfitnesspal's method of built in daily deficit that is calculated using the NEAT numbers. If using MFP, eat the exercise calories. Who wouldn't want to at least try it that way?)
Stick to one method. After a month to six weeks you will know your intake, output and weight trend. Adjust as necessary. It's your experiment to run. We are all slightly different, different jobs, different intensity of exercise, etc.
This adjustment is ongoing. It isn't a one and done thing. As you get smaller, your numbers will change as well.
For me, I actually just use MFP's numbers using the goal wizard and a flat 300 calories for each HOUR of INTENTIONAL exercise. It works great.
Keep it simple.2 -
I do, because I look at my total daily burn and use that to calculate my calorie deficit. I'm also fairly accurate with the 'calories in' part of the equation, by using a food scale often.I've heard you should and I've heard you shouldn't. What do all of you do? Also what would my activity level be? I typically walk around 3.5 to 4.5 miles a day (8500 to 9500) steps. I'm a stay at home mom/business owner so all my work is done from home. I try to be active and not sit all day. I walk on the treadmill 2 times a day 30 min each time. I have heart issues so I'm only allowed to walk. I try to stay busy by doing housework, but I do have periods of time throughout the day where I'm sitting. So I'm confused what to set my activity level at. Any advise is much appreciated.
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