Do you burned cardio calories?

LyssaRonnell

Does anyone else not log cardio workouts that add burned calories to their diaries? I do cardio along with strength training, but I would rather not have that added towards my availible calories. What are everyone's thoughts?

shadow2soul

I do. I would have an extremely large deficit if I didn’t.
Example:

MFP gives me 1390 for 1 lb a week for lightly active WITHOUT exercise. So roughly 1890 to maintain WITHOUT exercise.

Now I own a Fitbit to track my full day activity. My total calorie burn with exercise is about 2435 as of 8:58 pm (this doesn’t include any calories I burn between now and midnight).

So for 1 lb per week loss, I’m looking at about 1900-2000 calories. If I just stuck to 1390 without adding calories back I would be over a 1000 calorie deficit (recommended max is 1000 per day).

Since I want mostly fat loss I don’t want to aim for more than 1% bodyweight loss per week (1.3 lbs a week/roughly 650 calorie deficit a day). So I am aiming for 1lb which is proving to be hard to stick to these days.

edit: For a little perspective, I did 10 hrs 38 mins of exercise last week.

malibu927

If you’re following a TDEE calculator, that’s fine. But if you’re following MFP’s goals then it’s expected that you log and eat back at least a portion of those calories. Your body needs fuel, and while you end up creating a higher deficit not eating those calories back it can do more harm than good.

ruqayyahsmum

My fitbit logs it for me
As with a previous poster I want to lose fat and minimise any lean tissue loss so I eat some of them back
The only reason I don't eat all of mine back is personal results show my fitbit overestimated a little fore me, possibly due to heart rate issues

1BlueAurora

Eat back the calories. MFP is designed to have you eat back some of the fuel you need. I always ate back 50% to 75% of my exercise-earned calories and continued to lose weight. By the way, if you are on a 1400 calorie a day calorie goal, and burn 500 calories exercising, then you are netting only 900 calories a day, well below the minimum recommended 1200 calories a day for women. The drawback is that you will start to lose muscle mass in addition to fat, and you will end up having more wobbly arms and maybe some wrinkly pocked skin. I know!