Question about exercise calories

relativehunter

Does anyone know of a way to say that I don't want exercise calories to change my goal calories for a day? Unless I exercise a lot, I'd rather that be bonus loss. I also don't trust the calories that MFP says an exercise burns.

Thanks

CharlieBeansmomTracey

relativehunter wrote: »

Does anyone know of a way to say that I don't want exercise calories to change my goal calories for a day? Unless I exercise a lot, I'd rather that be bonus loss. I also don't trust the calories that MFP says an exercise burns.

Thanks

dont log them? dont link your fitness tracker if you have one? but the way MFP works is to eat back at least half your exercise calories. so you can always take the exercise and say it tells you you burned 300 calories(if putting the info in manually) and put 150. you can change the number if entering exercise manually. the thing with a bigger deficit long term can lead to lean mass loss(muscle) and other health issues. if for only one day you will be fine though.

PokeyBug

Don't trust the MFP entries. They were entered by users, and there's no way of knowing who entered the exercise. It could have been entered by a lady who was 5' and weighed 130# or a gentleman who was 6'4" and weighed over 300#. A MFP friend of mine posted this calorie calculator the other day that seems pretty accurate, https://captaincalculator.com/health/calorie/. Maybe you can get a more accurate calorie count there?

That being said, turning off calories burned being added to the calories you can consume is a premium feature on MFP. I agree with Tracey ^ that you should try to eat back at least half of your calories burned to meet your body's nutritional needs. Maybe log half the calories you burn instead of all of them, then you don't have to keep doing math to know what calories you've got left?

CharlieBeansmomTracey

PokeyBug wrote: »

Don't trust the MFP entries. They were entered by users, and there's no way of knowing who entered the exercise. It could have been entered by a lady who was 5' and weighed 130# or a gentleman who was 6'4" and weighed over 300#. A MFP friend of mine posted this calorie calculator the other day that seems pretty accurate, https://captaincalculator.com/health/calorie/. Maybe you can get a more accurate calorie count there?

That being said, turning off calories burned being added to the calories you can consume is a premium feature on MFP. I agree with Tracey ^ that you should try to eat back at least half of your calories burned to meet your body's nutritional needs. Maybe log half the calories you burn instead of all of them, then you don't have to keep doing math to know what calories you've got left?

yeah when I had to manually log my exercise(and other times when my fitbit screws up and I have to enter manually) I always cut the calories at least by half. I then would gauge how my weight loss or lack therof was going. if I saw that it was off I either eat more back or ate less back. since everything is an estimate including calories and your deficit its best to keep track and get real time data through trial and error.

for me MFPs calorie deficit is off because according to mfp my bmr is over 1400. I have a metabolic disorder so my BMR is a little over 1200 and thats without exercise. thats what I would need to survive if in a coma. so for me I have to take 200-300 calories off what mfp gives me.not everyone will have to do this but some may.so for me that was all trial and error and having to see when I would lose and when I would not over time. some can eat all their exericse calories back while others can only eat back 25-50% back.

but eat back half and give it a few months and see what is happening with the loss or whatever your goals are (gaining,maintaining,etc). if in a few weeks you can change things up if you have to and try again.

relativehunter

Thank you for the suggestions.

LivingtheLeanDream

The way MFP is set up is that you are meant to eat back your exercise calories, most people aim to eat back 50-75% because of uncertainty of the actual burn. You will still lose weight.

Jadub729

I eat half of mine on the assumption that most people under estimate their intake (mistakes with weighing/measuring) and over estimate their burn (Not sure how accurate fitbit is) so 50% works pretty well for me but I dont panic if I eat them all some days either.