How exactly do you eat your exercise calories back?
Replies
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I eat my exercise calories back on the day I burned them, because I can’t be faffing about with trying to track a separate ‘bank’. I’ll often plan my day’s food up to my calorie limit, and then exercise gives me dessert or extra snacks.1
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ladyhusker39 wrote: »I have my Garmin connected to MFP. It adjusts my calories throughout the day based on my activity. I eat what it tells me to. I lose/maintain weight as expected. It's something I don't care to particularly overthink.
How did you manage to sync the two so that it shows you the correct amount to eat? What kind of activity level did you enter on mfp? Did you allow for negative adjustments?
I can't seem to sync the two correctly. I put my activity level as sedentary so that all of my activity would be counted by my fitbit but it seems to be still overestimating the amount if calories I can eat. My target daily deficit is 250-300cal and I have no choice but to calculate it myself by substracted intake according to mfp from the TDEE estimate given by my fitbit. This way I gain or lose as expected. If I'd eaten according to what mpf adjustment tells me I wouldn't lose anything.
I guess part of it is due to the fact that "sedentary" doesn't mean zero activity, it's still higher than BMR. But isn't mfp supposed to take that into account and adjust accordingly. Since there isn't a lower activity setting than sedentary.
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ladyhusker39 wrote: »I have my Garmin connected to MFP. It adjusts my calories throughout the day based on my activity. I eat what it tells me to. I lose/maintain weight as expected. It's something I don't care to particularly overthink.
How did you manage to sync the two so that it shows you the correct amount to eat? What kind of activity level did you enter on mfp? Did you allow for negative adjustments?
I can't seem to sync the two correctly. I put my activity level as sedentary so that all of my activity would be counted by my fitbit but it seems to be still overestimating the amount if calories I can eat. My target daily deficit is 250-300cal and I have no choice but to calculate it myself by substracted intake according to mfp from the TDEE estimate given by my fitbit. This way I gain or lose as expected. If I'd eaten according to what mpf adjustment tells me I wouldn't lose anything.
I guess part of it is due to the fact that "sedentary" doesn't mean zero activity, it's still higher than BMR. But isn't mfp supposed to take that into account and adjust accordingly. Since there isn't a lower activity setting than sedentary.
When your Fitbit is linked to MFP, your calorie adjustment is the difference between what Fitbit says you burned that day (your TDEE) - what MFP says you burned that day (your NEAT since all your exercise would be accounted for by Fitbit and you shouldn’t have any exercise logged in MFP).
The only time this doesn’t “work” is if your calorie goal on MFP is 1200 and your Fitbit TDEE is lower than mfp’s estimate (since MFP won’t do a negative adjustment if it will end up with a goal less than 1200).
Keep in mind, sedentary is in the neighborhood of about 4K steps/day. So you’ll see larger adjustments if you’re more active than that.
I’ve had both a Fitbit and Garmin linked (at different times) and they both work the same way (although Garmin does log your workouts on MFP so the calculation is a bit different). I’m set as sedentary and I eat whatever MFP tells me I have as “calories remaining”
My deficit is already built into my Mfp goal. So the Fitbit/Garmin is just accounting for my activity and exercise.1 -
Some of my exercise (walking) is consistent and predictable, and those calories just become part of my daily allowance. Without exercise, my maintenance is around 1400 calories, which is not sustainable for me. Running gives me a lot more freedom in what I eat. Short runs just add to the allowance, so I can include cheese, cookies, etc. On days I run longer, I use the extra calories for treats I don't get every day, but enjoy, like ice cream and beer. I also try to do dinner out on days that I run long. I still end up going over on calories, but I don't feel as guilty if I ran 15+ miles.1
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I eat mine each day.0
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One delicious bite at a time
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I know which days I'm going to exercise and I eat slightly larger meals to account for the amount I plan to burn. I might leave a little extra in the evening for a larger post-workout snack if I feel like it. Or I might not and bank them for a big weekend if I know I have something coming up that I want more calories for. It just depends on what's happening in my life at the time.0
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I always try to leave an extra 200-400 unused calories each day. So while I eat back my exercise calories, I don't eat everything allotted. Usually that extra food is a post workout snack before bed. Sometimes it's having an unplanned sweet during the day (birthday cake at work, cookie at Starbucks with my son).
Last night I heated up some milk and had hot cocoa and sipped it slowly on the couch of an empty house (husband and kid visiting the in-laws). It was the absolute best.1 -
I bank about two days of exercise calories for the weekend and eat the rest the same day. I don’t feel well if I try to bank too many days in advance.1
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If the workout is really about to happen in 45-30 min, then I might do a snack to aid in having a really good workout.
Then I might do another little snack after to aid in recovery from a really good workout and help doing another tomorrow.
If it was a recovery type workout, purposely not hard - merely add on the extra to dinner or snack afterwards.0 -
I follow a weekly calorie goal. I lift three times a week and do cardio two to three times as well. Cardio curbs my appetite and lifting stimulates it so I usually eat my exercise calories on lifting days by planning higher calories meals those days and/or having an extra serving of whatever evening snack I'm enjoying. I don't care for having a set amount of calories each day so using a weekly goal is wonderful.0
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Duck_Puddle wrote: »ladyhusker39 wrote: »I have my Garmin connected to MFP. It adjusts my calories throughout the day based on my activity. I eat what it tells me to. I lose/maintain weight as expected. It's something I don't care to particularly overthink.
How did you manage to sync the two so that it shows you the correct amount to eat? What kind of activity level did you enter on mfp? Did you allow for negative adjustments?
I can't seem to sync the two correctly. I put my activity level as sedentary so that all of my activity would be counted by my fitbit but it seems to be still overestimating the amount if calories I can eat. My target daily deficit is 250-300cal and I have no choice but to calculate it myself by substracted intake according to mfp from the TDEE estimate given by my fitbit. This way I gain or lose as expected. If I'd eaten according to what mpf adjustment tells me I wouldn't lose anything.
I guess part of it is due to the fact that "sedentary" doesn't mean zero activity, it's still higher than BMR. But isn't mfp supposed to take that into account and adjust accordingly. Since there isn't a lower activity setting than sedentary.
When your Fitbit is linked to MFP, your calorie adjustment is the difference between what Fitbit says you burned that day (your TDEE) - what MFP says you burned that day (your NEAT since all your exercise would be accounted for by Fitbit and you shouldn’t have any exercise logged in MFP).
The only time this doesn’t “work” is if your calorie goal on MFP is 1200 and your Fitbit TDEE is lower than mfp’s estimate (since MFP won’t do a negative adjustment if it will end up with a goal less than 1200).
Keep in mind, sedentary is in the neighborhood of about 4K steps/day. So you’ll see larger adjustments if you’re more active than that.
I’ve had both a Fitbit and Garmin linked (at different times) and they both work the same way (although Garmin does log your workouts on MFP so the calculation is a bit different). I’m set as sedentary and I eat whatever MFP tells me I have as “calories remaining”
My deficit is already built into my Mfp goal. So the Fitbit/Garmin is just accounting for my activity and exercise.
My activity level is actually nowhere near "sedentary". Most days it's "moderately active" or "very active". I average 17-20k steps per day and my average TDEE weekly TDEE is 2300-2500 compared to 1600 sedentary. Though my activity level also varies from day today. But I was told to put my activity level to sedentary and let fitbit account for all the extra activity or otherwise MFP will add the extra calories calories from fitbit ON TOP of its's prediction for stated activity level. But from what you're saying I was misinformed... So should I put a different activity level? What if mine isn't exactly the same every single day? Most days it's "moderately/very active", but other days it's only slightly above sedentary (though such days are rare).1 -
Duck_Puddle wrote: »ladyhusker39 wrote: »I have my Garmin connected to MFP. It adjusts my calories throughout the day based on my activity. I eat what it tells me to. I lose/maintain weight as expected. It's something I don't care to particularly overthink.
How did you manage to sync the two so that it shows you the correct amount to eat? What kind of activity level did you enter on mfp? Did you allow for negative adjustments?
I can't seem to sync the two correctly. I put my activity level as sedentary so that all of my activity would be counted by my fitbit but it seems to be still overestimating the amount if calories I can eat. My target daily deficit is 250-300cal and I have no choice but to calculate it myself by substracted intake according to mfp from the TDEE estimate given by my fitbit. This way I gain or lose as expected. If I'd eaten according to what mpf adjustment tells me I wouldn't lose anything.
I guess part of it is due to the fact that "sedentary" doesn't mean zero activity, it's still higher than BMR. But isn't mfp supposed to take that into account and adjust accordingly. Since there isn't a lower activity setting than sedentary.
When your Fitbit is linked to MFP, your calorie adjustment is the difference between what Fitbit says you burned that day (your TDEE) - what MFP says you burned that day (your NEAT since all your exercise would be accounted for by Fitbit and you shouldn’t have any exercise logged in MFP).
The only time this doesn’t “work” is if your calorie goal on MFP is 1200 and your Fitbit TDEE is lower than mfp’s estimate (since MFP won’t do a negative adjustment if it will end up with a goal less than 1200).
Keep in mind, sedentary is in the neighborhood of about 4K steps/day. So you’ll see larger adjustments if you’re more active than that.
I’ve had both a Fitbit and Garmin linked (at different times) and they both work the same way (although Garmin does log your workouts on MFP so the calculation is a bit different). I’m set as sedentary and I eat whatever MFP tells me I have as “calories remaining”
My deficit is already built into my Mfp goal. So the Fitbit/Garmin is just accounting for my activity and exercise.
My activity level is actually nowhere near "sedentary". Most days it's "moderately active" or "very active". I average 17-20k steps per day and my average TDEE weekly TDEE is 2300-2500 compared to 1600 sedentary. Though my activity level also varies from day today. But I was told to put my activity level to sedentary and let fitbit account for all the extra activity or otherwise MFP will add the extra calories calories from fitbit ON TOP of its's prediction for stated activity level. But from what you're saying I was misinformed... So should I put a different activity level? What if mine isn't exactly the same every single day? Most days it's "moderately/very active", but other days it's only slightly above sedentary (though such days are rare).
That was incorrect about calories being stacked. MFP does the math right no matter your choices of Activity setting. For the day as a whole, your mid-day adjustments may or may not be beneficial to your planning.
The difference is merely how big the adjustment remains throughout the day.
But I'm betting by now you already have a handle on about how much the eating goal per day will be - the adjustment merely fine tunes the evening food choices.
The benefit of the Sedentary setting is the evening hours when you are indeed not moving - couch/chair and bedtime.
If you go to bed early, say 4 hrs before midnight, the adjustment is based on MFP estimating calorie burn rate at say Active for rest the night, when in reality you are below Sedentary and around BMR actually.
Your Fitbit will sync that fact the next morning to MFP.
If you hit your eating goal at say 8pm - you'll have the adjustment the next day go down for prior day - and you'll be over your goal actually.
But again - this is going to be a set number (can calculate it if desired), and then just leave that much in the green, knowing it'll disappear and you'll be right at eating goal when adjusted the next day.
Then again - non issue if you go to bed close to midnight and reach goal right then.0 -
I usually burn between 400-550 per day through exercise. I eat maybe around 100 of those calories per day and I "bank" the rest so I can have a treat on the weekend. And by treat I mean a glass or 2 of wine or a tiny piece of cake or if we go out to eat.0
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When I am really being a hawk about my deficit, I leave about 150 calories from intentional exercise on the table. I track activity through my Apple Watch. AW puts my TDEE at 1700-1800/day in the summer without intentional exercise and I can maintain at that level. My MFP setting is "lightly active" and I generally don't accrue more than 80 calories a day from normal, additional activity. I'm coasting at maintenance at the moment.0
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I eat mine on the day I make them. Also I've always eaten all of them because mine are very accurate.
All my activity is from intentional walking or exercise. Otherwise I'm completely sedentiary - as in just sitting all day.
My activity varies wildly - from completely sedentiray to 18 000 steps.
If I burn a lot of calories I'm naturally more hungry and so I eat more. This is how our bodies are naturally made to behave.
I feel very unwell with a deficit more than
200-300cals. My sedentiary calories are 1500 so a bigger deficit would be unhealthy anyway. If I burn 500cals and if I don't eat them I will end up with 1000 net calories intake which is insufficient.
I aim to make 200-300cal deficit a day but in fact that doesn't happen often. I usually end up with a 50-100cal deficit per day if averaged over a week.
I'd love to be able to bank caloried but I can't as I feel unwell if I undereat by much.0 -
That was incorrect about calories being stacked. MFP does the math right no matter your choices of Activity setting. For the day as a whole, your mid-day adjustments may or may not be beneficial to your planning.
The difference is merely how big the adjustment remains throughout the day.
But I'm betting by now you already have a handle on about how much the eating goal per day will be - the adjustment merely fine tunes the evening food choices.
The benefit of the Sedentary setting is the evening hours when you are indeed not moving - couch/chair and bedtime.
If you go to bed early, say 4 hrs before midnight, the adjustment is based on MFP estimating calorie burn rate at say Active for rest the night, when in reality you are below Sedentary and around BMR actually.
Your Fitbit will sync that fact the next morning to MFP.
If you hit your eating goal at say 8pm - you'll have the adjustment the next day go down for prior day - and you'll be over your goal actually.
But again - this is going to be a set number (can calculate it if desired), and then just leave that much in the green, knowing it'll disappear and you'll be right at eating goal when adjusted the next day.
Then again - non issue if you go to bed close to midnight and reach goal right then.
I go to bed closer to midnight and have mu last meal an hour or so before bed. The thing is, even after I sync my fitbit the next day, it still tells me I should have eaten more, like, hundreds of calories more. To explain, my goal deficit is 250 cals. On days where my intake is, say, 2000 and TDEE according to fitbit is 2250, MFP should tell me no calories left to eat. But even if I check it the next day after syncing it tells me I should have eaten 500+ calories more. But that would have put me over my TDEE! For a very long time now, I've been using fitbit TDEE estimate to calculate my deficit manually and according to my loses and gains its estimates are correct. So something is not right with fitbits math and I can't figure out where's the problem...0 -
Duck_Puddle wrote: »ladyhusker39 wrote: »I have my Garmin connected to MFP. It adjusts my calories throughout the day based on my activity. I eat what it tells me to. I lose/maintain weight as expected. It's something I don't care to particularly overthink.
How did you manage to sync the two so that it shows you the correct amount to eat? What kind of activity level did you enter on mfp? Did you allow for negative adjustments?
I can't seem to sync the two correctly. I put my activity level as sedentary so that all of my activity would be counted by my fitbit but it seems to be still overestimating the amount if calories I can eat. My target daily deficit is 250-300cal and I have no choice but to calculate it myself by substracted intake according to mfp from the TDEE estimate given by my fitbit. This way I gain or lose as expected. If I'd eaten according to what mpf adjustment tells me I wouldn't lose anything.
I guess part of it is due to the fact that "sedentary" doesn't mean zero activity, it's still higher than BMR. But isn't mfp supposed to take that into account and adjust accordingly. Since there isn't a lower activity setting than sedentary.
When your Fitbit is linked to MFP, your calorie adjustment is the difference between what Fitbit says you burned that day (your TDEE) - what MFP says you burned that day (your NEAT since all your exercise would be accounted for by Fitbit and you shouldn’t have any exercise logged in MFP).
The only time this doesn’t “work” is if your calorie goal on MFP is 1200 and your Fitbit TDEE is lower than mfp’s estimate (since MFP won’t do a negative adjustment if it will end up with a goal less than 1200).
Keep in mind, sedentary is in the neighborhood of about 4K steps/day. So you’ll see larger adjustments if you’re more active than that.
I’ve had both a Fitbit and Garmin linked (at different times) and they both work the same way (although Garmin does log your workouts on MFP so the calculation is a bit different). I’m set as sedentary and I eat whatever MFP tells me I have as “calories remaining”
My deficit is already built into my Mfp goal. So the Fitbit/Garmin is just accounting for my activity and exercise.
My activity level is actually nowhere near "sedentary". Most days it's "moderately active" or "very active". I average 17-20k steps per day and my average TDEE weekly TDEE is 2300-2500 compared to 1600 sedentary. Though my activity level also varies from day today. But I was told to put my activity level to sedentary and let fitbit account for all the extra activity or otherwise MFP will add the extra calories calories from fitbit ON TOP of its's prediction for stated activity level. But from what you're saying I was misinformed... So should I put a different activity level? What if mine isn't exactly the same every single day? Most days it's "moderately/very active", but other days it's only slightly above sedentary (though such days are rare).
You were misinformed. Setting an activity level that is appropriate for your actual activity (as you stated, nowhere near Sedentary) ensure that the MFP baseline of NEAT is closer to accurate and then FitBit is picking up exercise or activity above and beyond what MFP predicted. Enabling negative calorie adjustments accounts for the days your activity is lower.
By doing this your overall adjustments will be a little lower - and maybe a little easier to trust, even though at the end of the day the final numbers should match regardless.
I average 12-15k steps/day, am set to active, have trusted and eaten back the exercise adjustments both while losing weight and now while maintaining with no adverse effects.2 -
Duck_Puddle wrote: »ladyhusker39 wrote: »I have my Garmin connected to MFP. It adjusts my calories throughout the day based on my activity. I eat what it tells me to. I lose/maintain weight as expected. It's something I don't care to particularly overthink.
How did you manage to sync the two so that it shows you the correct amount to eat? What kind of activity level did you enter on mfp? Did you allow for negative adjustments?
I can't seem to sync the two correctly. I put my activity level as sedentary so that all of my activity would be counted by my fitbit but it seems to be still overestimating the amount if calories I can eat. My target daily deficit is 250-300cal and I have no choice but to calculate it myself by substracted intake according to mfp from the TDEE estimate given by my fitbit. This way I gain or lose as expected. If I'd eaten according to what mpf adjustment tells me I wouldn't lose anything.
I guess part of it is due to the fact that "sedentary" doesn't mean zero activity, it's still higher than BMR. But isn't mfp supposed to take that into account and adjust accordingly. Since there isn't a lower activity setting than sedentary.
When your Fitbit is linked to MFP, your calorie adjustment is the difference between what Fitbit says you burned that day (your TDEE) - what MFP says you burned that day (your NEAT since all your exercise would be accounted for by Fitbit and you shouldn’t have any exercise logged in MFP).
The only time this doesn’t “work” is if your calorie goal on MFP is 1200 and your Fitbit TDEE is lower than mfp’s estimate (since MFP won’t do a negative adjustment if it will end up with a goal less than 1200).
Keep in mind, sedentary is in the neighborhood of about 4K steps/day. So you’ll see larger adjustments if you’re more active than that.
I’ve had both a Fitbit and Garmin linked (at different times) and they both work the same way (although Garmin does log your workouts on MFP so the calculation is a bit different). I’m set as sedentary and I eat whatever MFP tells me I have as “calories remaining”
My deficit is already built into my Mfp goal. So the Fitbit/Garmin is just accounting for my activity and exercise.
My activity level is actually nowhere near "sedentary". Most days it's "moderately active" or "very active". I average 17-20k steps per day and my average TDEE weekly TDEE is 2300-2500 compared to 1600 sedentary. Though my activity level also varies from day today. But I was told to put my activity level to sedentary and let fitbit account for all the extra activity or otherwise MFP will add the extra calories calories from fitbit ON TOP of its's prediction for stated activity level. But from what you're saying I was misinformed... So should I put a different activity level? What if mine isn't exactly the same every single day? Most days it's "moderately/very active", but other days it's only slightly above sedentary (though such days are rare).
What is your weight loss goal setting on MFP? Your activity level setting is only going to control how big your adjustment is, but as @WinoGelato said, in the end, the numbers should be the same. Meaning-if you’re set as sedentary, your MFP calorie goal wil start lower but MFP assumes a lower TDEE so your Fitbit adjustment will be large. If you’re set as active, your Mfp calorie goal will start higher but MFP assumes a higher TDEE so your Fitbit adjustment is smaller. Either way, the end result should be the same (for total number of calories to consume).
If you’re manually subtracting 250 calories off your Fitbit TDEE and that’s NOT the same as your MFP calorie goal (including your Fitbit adjustment), it sounds like your Mfp is set to something other than 1/2 lb/week loss and/or you’ve manually entered your own calorie goal maybe?
Double check and make sure your weight loss setting in Mfp is at 1/2 lb/week.
Oh-and it’s just one straight calculation. MFP thinks you’ll burn 1800, fitbit says you burned 2300-Tada-your Fitbit adjustments is 500. There’s no adding on top of anything. A lot of people leave themselves as sedentary because that way they don’t overeat on a low activity day. But if you’re really active and set as sedentary on Mfp-you’ll just have really high Fitbit adjustments. That would be expected.
But where this could go awry, is if you have your MFP set to maintain (or you’ve entered your own calorie goal).
Just say your NEAT is the 1800. You tell MFP you want to lose 1/2 lb a week. It gives you a calorie goal of 1550 (the amount to eat if you do no exercise). Fitbit adds in the 500. Now your MFP goal is 2050 - which is 250 less than your actual 2300 TDEE.
If you’ve set your mfp to maintain, your calorie goal is 1800. Fitbit adds 500. Now your goal is 2300.
If you’ve entered your own calorie goal manually - let’s say 2000. When Fitbit adds the 500, now your goal is 2500-which is above your TDEE.
Fitbit is only adjusting your activity calories.
If your Fitbit adjustment is landing you with a total calorie goal that is greater than your TDEE, then your weight loss setting in MFP is either set to gain, or the calorie goal has been manually entered.0 -
It varies. Some days I eat them back the same day; some days I bank for something I know I have coming up where I'll need them. That being said, I usually exercise the same amount daily. Most of the calories I earn are step based and since I commute to work and back on foot I can predict what I can eat or save pretty easily.0
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