Do I track calories burned!?

Drkrendle

I really starting to take mfp serious this time around but I’m wondering if I include the calories burned while doing cardio at the gym or leave them out? I don’t want it to encourage me to eat more when I’m trying to lose weight. Opinions? Thanks!

carolsoules

https://www.nbcnews.com/better/diet-fitness/your-apple-watch-or-fitbit-making-you-fat-n764066

I think you've got the right idea. Most people WAY overestimate the amount of calories they burn exercising and it leads them to overeat. Also, the numbers on the machines at the gym are usually pretty inaccurate, and even wearable monitors like fitbit are way off when tested against real medical calorimeters.

You're much better off just paying attention to your body. Make sure your workouts are challenging and limit-pushing, and make sure you're working out often enough. You'll know if you're getting enough of a workout in.

Don't worry about calories burned unless you begin to feel fatigued/sluggish or your workouts plateau--these are signs you may not be getting enough calories, and if this is the case, increase your consumption by 150-200cal/day for a week to see if it helps you feel better.

TavistockToad

Drkrendle wrote: »

I really starting to take mfp serious this time around but I’m wondering if I include the calories burned while doing cardio at the gym or leave them out? I don’t want it to encourage me to eat more when I’m trying to lose weight. Opinions? Thanks!

MFP gives you a deficit before you workout, so you should eat them back - or at least a percentage of them.

middlehaitch

MFP is set up so exercise is optional.

If you exercise you are expected to log and eat back your exercise calories.

That being said all exercise calorie burns via a device, or MFP are estimates.
You could start by eating all, 50%, or 75%, monitor and adjust depending on real world results.

To exercise well you need to fuel your exercise, mfp's calorie allotment won't do that.

Cheers, h.

LivingtheLeanDream

If you exercise, log it and enjoy (most of) the extra calories MFP gives you. That's the way the app is designed

1BlueAurora

I logged my calories burned through exercise. I ate back 50% to 75% of those. I lost weight and reached my goals.

cwolfman13

MFP sets you up with a deficit without exercise. Not accounting for exercise with additional calories can create an overly aggressive deficit. The trick is determining a realistic and relatively accurate calorie expenditure for your exercise which can take some trial and error more than anything. Some things like running and walking are fairly straight forward, while other modalities are not.

If I did the MFP method, I'd get about 1900 calories to lose about 1 Lb per week. On a long weekend ride I can burn around 1,000 calories so if I didn't account for that, it would be the same as basically eating 900 calories. If my exercise wasn't overly vigorous or long and only burning a small amount of calories, I wouldn't really worry about it...like I never worried about logging my walks and eating back those calories, because they weren't that many and I didn't need any kind of recovery.

Spliner1969

TavistockToad wrote: »

Drkrendle wrote: »

I really starting to take mfp serious this time around but I’m wondering if I include the calories burned while doing cardio at the gym or leave them out? I don’t want it to encourage me to eat more when I’m trying to lose weight. Opinions? Thanks!

MFP gives you a deficit before you workout, so you should eat them back - or at least a percentage of them.

Agreed. You're supposed to eat them back, however, expect them to be inflated numbers. Compare the same activity with other sites, and even the manual entries on MFP as estimates and it should give you a general idea of how many extra calories you burned. Most people just adjust the burns down 50% and eat them. Seems to work well for most. Over the next few weeks if your weight loss is accelerated more than you expected, you can eat more of them back, maybe 60-70%, if it slows, eat less of them. Pretty simple to adjust if you use the same device/app to calculate calories on a regular basis. Eventually you'll know what's accurate for you.