Eating workout calories?

totally_lisa
totally_lisa Posts: 8 Member
edited November 2024 in Health and Weight Loss
im sure this has been asked dozens if not hundreds of times.

I want to lose between 50 to 70lbs - I have no goal set in stone yet, whereever I feel comfortable is where I want to be

I do HIIT workouts for 20-30 mins (it varies) 5 times a week, burning between 200 and 500 calories

Ive put into mfp I want to lose 2lb a week, so that has told me 1540 calories a day. but I have my garmin vivofit connected and of course that adds my calories when I exercise (I dont guestimate, I have a HR monitor I wear when exercising)

Im not sure if I should be eating those exercise calories, eating 1700+ cals up doesnt seem right for 2lb a week loss, today mfp adjusted my goal from 1540 to 1965

I burnt 287 exercising but i get told You've earned 425 extra calories from exercise today

the 425 comes from the garmin adjustment, it added another 138 but im not fully sure where they came from

Replies

  • Tacklewasher
    Tacklewasher Posts: 7,122 Member
    As a guess, you set your activity level to sedentary or lightly active.

    I've got a Garmin VivoActive, so same thing happens to me.

    So here is what happens.

    Ignore the exercise for a minute, you've under-estimated your normal activity level, Garmin is telling MFP what you have actually done for non-exercise activity and MFP is adjusting your calorie level to account for that.

    For myself, I'm set to sedentary and get ~100-200 extra calories added to my day. If I set it to lightly active, I get a higher base calorie level, but MFP takes some away. I'm normally in between those 2 levels. At the end of the day, regardless of which setting I use I end up at the same calorie level, just either starting lower and getting additional or starting higher and losing. I use sedentary so I gain instead of losing, just because it looks better.

    Now add in exercising. I am running 30-35 mins on the treadmill most mornings which is giving me ~450 calories. MFP starts me at 1580. So it adds the exercise calories in.

    So I get (based on yesterday),
    Base 1580
    Exercise 432
    Garmin Calorie adj 179
    Total 2191

    I know based on ~4 months with this watch and how I lose weight that this is pretty close to reality. So I aim to eat 2000 calories.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,055 Member
    Great advice specific to the OP ^

    Here's my generic advice:

    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/p1
  • totally_lisa
    totally_lisa Posts: 8 Member
    Yes I set my level to sedentary because I spend a huge portion my my day sat on my laptop (not literally) so figured I wasn't overly active


    Thanks so much both for the great responses. Really helpful :)
  • Tacklewasher
    Tacklewasher Posts: 7,122 Member
    totally_lisa wrote: »
    Yes I set my level to sedentary because I spend a huge portion my my day sat on my laptop (not literally) so figured I wasn't overly active


    Thanks so much both for the great responses. Really helpful :)

    And to answer the question, eat back about 3/4 of the calories given, both the exercise and general activity, until you see the impact on your weight loss. Remember not to lose faster than your plan, so you may need to up your calories if you lose too much too fast (I know, that is hard to fathom).
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