Hey, I've just earned 340 calories 'exercising'... what does that mean?

touchdry

... some people use the term 'burn' calories. But I still do not know what that means. Having burned 340 cals, does that mean I have to consume 340 cals extra within the day to keep to my goals? How is it split between the three macro's? Or have I got this completely wrong?!

kpk54

You are understanding it correctly, in general. MFP is based on NEAT which is Non Exercise Activity Thermogensis. What that means is when you set up your stats in MFP you should enter activity level based on approximate activity throughout the day EXCLUDING any exercise done on purpose.

Then when you exercise you add those calories earned/burned to MPF and those are additional calories available for intake since they are above your normal activity. Most people "eat back" only a portion because like the overall calorie amount to eat to lose X pounds, it is a guideline, estimate based on averages. Always YMMV.

Using myself as an example: I don't move about a lot during the day. My sporadic work is mostly at my desk and I do spend a lot of time in a recliner or perched on my bed with my neck perfectly positioned...yada, yada...I have a neurological movement disorder...

I have MFP set to sedentary because day to day, I am sedentary. My maintenance calories provided by MFP are 1500 sedentary. I have a couple of free step trackers on my phone that I have found to be fairly accurate (S-Health and Walklogger). S-Health syncs with MFP so daily, extra calories are added to my food diary/calorie base via S-Health. That can range anywhere from a few (on an extremely sedentary day) to a few hundred when I intentionally walk 3-5 miles for exercise.

I don't intentionally "eat back" added calories from "exercise". I do occasionally consider it a "cushion" for random inaccuracies that might be in my food diaries and therefore don't worry about eating a little more on some days if I'm hungry. This has worked for me for 1 year of weight loss and 4 years of maintenance.

Other methods use TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure). TDEE includes exercise calories and is useful for folks who exercise daily. I prefer NEAT and actually because I'm so sedentary my NEAT and TDEE would be very close the majority of days.

tcunbeliever

You can, but do not have to, eat back your exercise calories...just be aware that they are estimates and not 100% accurate, so a lot of people opt to eat back only half in case they are overestimated.

I always key in my exercise as 1 cal so that MFP doesn't change my calorie goal for the day.

The macros for exercise calories will distribute with the same percentages as your daily calorie goals.

touchdry

Thank you both for enlightening me. Just let me see if I got this correct: say I burn 500 cals - if I want to eat it back it will be divided (for my targets) 5%carbs 20% prots 75% fat. This is where I get lost ... 5% of 500 is 25 ... it cannot mean that because 25 is greater than my daily carb target ... so my question becomes: in what way is the 500 Calories divided into the three macros? Or is there something I'm missing?

DvlDwnInGA

I wouldn't eat them back unless you are REALLY needing them. If you keep your deficits moderate, you should be able to exercise daily and not really need to account for any additional calorie burns added back to your daily intake.

That is my experience anyway.

touchdry

Thanks DvlDwninGA that makes things a lot less complicated - especially when I am noticing a few little deficits ... I guess if I can keep to the targets and do a little exercise (as my health increases) then soon I should be able to work out how to put back on the weight I have lost through illness. In the meantime eat the fat forget the carbs ... and now? A cup of coffee ... bulletproof of course!!

WholeFoods4Lyfe

First of all, how do you know that you burned that many calories? If it was from the readout on a treadmill or an elliptical or something similar, they notoriously over estimate calories burned.

Second, whether or not you choose to eat back some/all/none of your exercise calories is completely up to you. Me personally, most days I do not, but I like having that buffer there if I do go over. I think most will recommend that you eat back no more than half, but again, that is a completely personal decision.

touchdry

Tis a good question michelle172415. The answer is that I used the MFP exercise calculator, which seems to be quite arbitrary, and not particularly helpful (with just general gardening - does that take into affect lifting stones that range from 1lb to 20lbs ... doing a half hour stint digging and pulling up a harvest of garlics ... and they do not recognize skipping or distinguish running sideways or backwards or with a load). I do not trust any of the gizmos or apps (especially after taking a MyFriendlyWalk or whatever its called ... only to find at the end of an exciting yomp it was 'offline'). But I take your point - its a personal thing. Two weeks in and I am feeling almost 27! (I'm 67!!).

kpk54

@touchdry since you are in the position of needing/wanting to gain weight (actually regardless for weight gain or loss) perhaps you should just be consistent in utilizing MFP consistently whether you eat calories back never, sometimes or all the time.

The best guide you will find will be through the application of your own numbers. A month down the road, look at your average daily calorie intake and your average daily calorie burn compared to your weight lost or gained. If you neither lose nor gain then you will see what your maintenance calories seem to be. From that point when you are ready, you can methodically add X calories per day in your effort to gain weight. That too will require time and experimentation but your numbers over time will be your best numbers.

At this time you may be overthinking things but your thinking is correct. I'll suggest perusing the main forum "Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building".

All the insights provided by myself and others above are appropriate. Your goal of weight gain may be different than ours (or not). Still, the approach is the same. If stopping the weight loss and actually desiring to gain weight...I suggest eating back calories. None, all or some still applies but track things and see where the numbers take your body.

Cheesy567

touchdry wrote: »

Thank you both for enlightening me. Just let me see if I got this correct: say I burn 500 cals - if I want to eat it back it will be divided (for my targets) 5%carbs 20% prots 75% fat. This is where I get lost ... 5% of 500 is 25 ... it cannot mean that because 25 is greater than my daily carb target ... so my question becomes: in what way is the 500 Calories divided into the three macros? Or is there something I'm missing?

5% of 500 calories is 25 calories, not grams. It’d be 6.25 grams of carbs.

kpk54

touchdry wrote: »

Thank you both for enlightening me. Just let me see if I got this correct: say I burn 500 cals - if I want to eat it back it will be divided (for my targets) 5%carbs 20% prots 75% fat. This is where I get lost ... 5% of 500 is 25 ... it cannot mean that because 25 is greater than my daily carb target ... so my question becomes: in what way is the 500 Calories divided into the three macros? Or is there something I'm missing?

If you are using MFP and are entering in your exercise calories, MFP does the calculations for you dispersing the earned calories/grams accordingly. In your case 5% of calories to carbs, 20% to protein and 75% to fat. No math needed.

Without going through the posts above, I will guess that someone mentioned overriding MFP auto calculations of exercise and entering 1 calorie burned regardless. One would do this so MFP would not automatically adjust carbs, protein and fat upwards for the exercise. Usually with keto most are interested in seeing that carb number low. It's a head game in some fashion. It is "easier" to stick to 20 grams of carbs when what you see in print daily is 20 grams of carbs (or 19 or 49 or whatever number one relates to/selects/gets assigned).

I've reported exercise calories both ways for various reasons. There was a time when I was intrinsically rewarded by seeing a high number of exercise calories though I rarely ate them. I loved the over estimations-accurate or not and it did motivate me to move my body. There was a time my mindset was to not let MFP mess with my numbers (when eating strict MTKD) so I entered 1 calorie burned regardless of my exercise time or duration. Now I have S-Health syncing with MFP using only the step feature. I'm not really exercising at this time. It is interesting to see that just getting off my butt and moving more around the house or yard increases calories available if I wanted to use them. That is NEAT in action-Non Exercise Activity Thermogenisis.

bozmo

There are low carb / keto gurus who say don't pay attention to calories. Eric Westman is one, Jason Fung is another. Keep your carbs low, protein moderate, and enough fat not to be hungry. Eat when you are truly hungry, don't eat when you aren't. Get plenty of salt. If you are trying to lose weight then don't intentionally add a ton of fat to things (bulletproof coffee). Have enough fat to satiate the appetite and let your body provide the rest.

Exercise is great for you, but less helpful for losing weight than you might think. Pounds are lost in the kitchen, ounces are lost in the gym.

LiftHeavyThings27105

So, to answer your question, most in MFP would suggest that you eat at least 50% of your "calories burned by exercise" back. However, what I find is that most people WAY over-estimate the number of calories burned.

For example, I do 35 minutes of LISS Cardio on the treadmill. After those 35 minutes, it tells me that I burned 430 calories. Now, there is a very slim chance that I burned 430 calories doing that cardio. For me, based on the research that I have done, these machines are roughly 25% too high.

So, I break out the math (I am REALLY good in math) and do this:


5 430
--- = ---
4 x


So, I take 430 x 4, which gives me 1720, and divide that by 5, which gives me 344.

So, I likely burned something much closer to 344 calories than the 430 calories that the machine spit out.

I would then divide that in number (344) by 2 to determine the number of calories to eat back. So, call it 170 calories. All that means......I get to eat an additional 170 calories that day. If I so decide!

Make sense?

touchdry

Yes ... Sounds good. But my foggy brain misses the bit where I have to eat, say, 344 cals. If my daily target is in grams - like, I am trying to eat less than 20 grams of carbs - what does that mean in terms of grams of carbs out of 344 burned calories. OK math boy, give us the math - but do it gently, I paint pictures rather than do rocket science!

kpk54

touchdry wrote: »

Yes ... Sounds good. But my foggy brain misses the bit where I have to eat, say, 344 cals. If my daily target is in grams - like, I am trying to eat less than 20 grams of carbs - what does that mean in terms of grams of carbs out of 344 burned calories. OK math boy, give us the math - but do it gently, I paint pictures rather than do rocket science!

If you are using mfp and entering the exercise in MFP or have a gadget doing it for you, the math is already done for you. MFP spreads the calories and the grams across carbs, fat and protein. In the right amount.

Many/most would say however if you are eating keto, ignore the carb increase and eat only your original amount such as 20 grams or 50 grams. Keeping the carbs low and constant is the reason many people enter all their exercise as 1 calorie burned. The same is true for many low carb eaters. While they might eat some of their exercise calories back, they choose to not eat those allocated to carbs...cuz low carb diet.