Confused!
jhyde78
Posts: 14 Member
Just when I think I have my caloric intake figured out, I'm getting messages from mfp saying I'm not eating enough. I stay confused with this! Should I or should I not be eating back my calories burned? I want to lose weight! Here is an example of yesterday's totals and I got the message that I wasn't eating enough.
1240(goal)1323(food)+950 (excersise)=867 (remaining) should i have eaten back 867 calories!? That seems foolish to me? Please help!
1240(goal)1323(food)+950 (excersise)=867 (remaining) should i have eaten back 867 calories!? That seems foolish to me? Please help!
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Replies
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MFP expects you are going to consume your exercise calories. So yes this would be why you are receiving their notice. Most people will eat back 1/4-1/2.7
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Eat back half the exercise calories.5
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So basically, I should have eaten about 3 to 400 more calories yesterday than I did?0
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What was your exercise? That number seems really high.4
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Also, for mfp to not flag you as being too low, your calories minus exercise calories burned should be greater than 1200.0
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How is the 950 for exercise being calculated?
If the exercise calories are not being even more overstated than normal a starting rule of thumb is to eat back half and then reassess your rate of loss after several weeks. This would put you eating 1690 yesterday.
Some people do eat back all of them and lose weight at their desired rate of loss.2 -
Assuming your estimate for calories burnt through exercise is accurate (some are, some aren't), you will want to eat back the calories. How are you calculating your calories burnt?0
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DancingMoosie wrote: »What was your exercise? That number seems really high.
The excercise calories are my workout calories burned and my steps tracked from work0 -
janejellyroll wrote: »Assuming your estimate for calories burnt through exercise is accurate (some are, some aren't), you will want to eat back the calories. How are you calculating your calories burnt?
The excercise calories are my workout calories burned and my steps tracked from work0 -
DancingMoosie wrote: »What was your exercise? That number seems really high.
The excersise calories are my workout calories burned and my steps tracked from work
Are you logging workouts and also tracking steps? How exactly is MFP getting the data -- are you logging it manually or is it from a synced device?2 -
janejellyroll wrote: »DancingMoosie wrote: »What was your exercise? That number seems really high.
The excersise calories are my workout calories burned and my steps tracked from work
Are you logging workouts and also tracking steps? How exactly is MFP getting the data -- are you logging it manually or is it from a synced device?
Logging workouts and my steps are tracked through samsung health0 -
0 -
It's important to know that "calories burned" is just an estimate, so that's why it's not recommended to eat all your exercise calories. Also, a person who has never exercised before will burn more calories than someone who has a long history of exercise (just because the new exerciser isn't as fit and will need to work harder to get through the workout). As you gain better fitness over time, you won't burn as much. After you've been logging and exercising consistently for awhile, you'll get an idea of how much you need to eat to lose/gain/maintain. Calorie needs are just an estimate and the experience of logging and watching how your body changes is the only way to know what's right for you.2
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It's important to know that "calories burned" is just an estimate, so that's why it's not recommended to eat all your exercise calories. Also, a person who has never exercised before will burn more calories than someone who has a long history of exercise (just because the new exerciser isn't as fit and will need to work harder to get through the workout). As you gain better fitness over time, you won't burn as much. After you've been logging and exercising consistently for awhile, you'll get an idea of how much you need to eat to lose/gain/maintain.
Not entirely true, given same stats (age, weight, height) as you get more fit you increase your V)2Max, which means you pump more oxygen to your muscles per Heartbeat, which actually burns more cals at the same HR. So over the same duration, a fit athlete should be able to burn more than an unfit one, as they can push harder.
Now, if you are talking about walking same pace/duration, then maybe the unfit person may burn more, but not much more.
What you state happens would be the case if you use an HRM and the embedded calculation, but that is what an HRM would say, with is just an estimate. HRMs tend to overestimate burns for unfit people, and can underestimate the burn for fit people.3 -
janejellyroll wrote: »DancingMoosie wrote: »What was your exercise? That number seems really high.
The excersise calories are my workout calories burned and my steps tracked from work
Are you logging workouts and also tracking steps? How exactly is MFP getting the data -- are you logging it manually or is it from a synced device?
Logging workouts and my steps are tracked through samsung health
Do you add the steps yourself, or are you synced with MFP?
Keep in mind that the number in MFP would already assume a number of steps (how much depends on activity level chosen)0 -
It's important to know that "calories burned" is just an estimate, so that's why it's not recommended to eat all your exercise calories. Also, a person who has never exercised before will burn more calories than someone who has a long history of exercise (just because the new exerciser isn't as fit and will need to work harder to get through the workout). As you gain better fitness over time, you won't burn as much. After you've been logging and exercising consistently for awhile, you'll get an idea of how much you need to eat to lose/gain/maintain. Calorie needs are just an estimate and the experience of logging and watching how your body changes is the only way to know what's right for you.
There is no blanket recommendation on how many exercise calories to eat. While some people do recommend not eating all of them, there are many other people who have success while eating all of them. It's going to come down to how accurate your estimates are and that's the kind of thing that is typically found out through experience.5 -
A few fundamentals that need to be in place to use this tool (MFP) effectively:
1. Understand that MFP is basing the calorie goal it gives you based on your selected rate of loss and the stats you plug in, with no purposeful exercise included. So if you add purposeful exercise on top of that, the idea is that you can eat back all of those calories and still lose at the rate you selected.
2. Understand that for all of that to work perfectly, you’d need to have accurate record of calories consumed and calories burned. Calories burned can easily be overestimated, and calories consumed can easily be underestimated, although errors in the other direction happen as well. Make sure that any apps you’re using are communicating with MFP so things are not being double counted.
3. MFP won’t set a calorie goal for women below 1200 because that’s their standard minimum for making sure nutritional needs are met, so depending on your stats, it may not actually allow you to set yourself up for a higher rate of loss (for example, I’m 5’2 and I get 1200 calories when I choose 1 lb/week and I get 1200 calories when I choose 2 lbs/week. I’d have to undereat to actually achieve 2 lbs of loss per week).
4. No matter what, you’ll have to try to log consistently for a period of time before you can assess where you need to make adjustment. Some people start by eating all exercise calories back, others eat half. Consistency over time will allow you to get a sense of if and how you need to adjust.
5. Remember weight loss is not linear. Daily fluctuations are to be expected. Don’t make adjustments or panic based on those daily ups or downs. Look at the trend over time.1 -
Just when I think I have my caloric intake figured out, I'm getting messages from mfp saying I'm not eating enough. I stay confused with this! Should I or should I not be eating back my calories burned? I want to lose weight! Here is an example of yesterday's totals and I got the message that I wasn't eating enough.
1240(goal)1323(food)+950 (excersise)=867 (remaining) should i have eaten back 867 calories!? That seems foolish to me? Please help!
First, ask yourself this...why would MFP give you additional calories to eat back if that wasn't what you're supposed to do...it wouldn't make sense otherwise.
Two, your calorie expenditure is likely inflated...you need to determine a more accurate method of estimating your calorie expenditure vs just relying on a database. As a point of reference, I'd have to cycle for around 30 miles at a good clip to get that kind of calorie burn. That's likely to take me a couple of hours or close to it.
MFP gives you a calorie target before deliberate exercise...your activity level is just your day to day stuff, NO exercise. Common sense would say that you should account for activity beyond what you've selected in your activity level...you do that with MFP by logging your exercise after the fact and getting additional calories to "eat back". Getting an accurate estimate is the tricky part...a lot of people arbitrarily just half the amount. I always used my HRM for steady state cardio and deducted my BMR calories from what my HRM said my burn was and that always worked good enough for me.
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10503681/exercise-calories-do-i-eat-these-a-video-explanation/p13 -
@xtrain321It's important to know that "calories burned" is just an estimate, so that's why it's not recommended to eat all your exercise calories. Also, a person who has never exercised before will burn more calories than someone who has a long history of exercise (just because the new exerciser isn't as fit and will need to work harder to get through the workout). As you gain better fitness over time, you won't burn as much. After you've been logging and exercising consistently for awhile, you'll get an idea of how much you need to eat to lose/gain/maintain. Calorie needs are just an estimate and the experience of logging and watching how your body changes is the only way to know what's right for you.
Ref the bold - no as you get fitter you gain the capability to burn more calories:
Run further, cycle faster/further, lift more weight in a time period etc...…
People who don't understand the limitations of using HRMs for exercise mistake lower heartrate for lower calories but that's one of the problems with using a HRM other than to count heartbeats.5 -
It's important to know that "calories burned" is just an estimate, so that's why it's not recommended to eat all your exercise calories. Also, a person who has never exercised before will burn more calories than someone who has a long history of exercise (just because the new exerciser isn't as fit and will need to work harder to get through the workout). As you gain better fitness over time, you won't burn as much. After you've been logging and exercising consistently for awhile, you'll get an idea of how much you need to eat to lose/gain/maintain. Calorie needs are just an estimate and the experience of logging and watching how your body changes is the only way to know what's right for you.
Yes, agreed @sijomial and @erickirb. Good catch. Your capacity to burn more increases as you get fitter, and you will burn more if you increase your intensity, time, pace, etc. as opposed to just doing the same thing you started doing.1 -
janejellyroll wrote: »DancingMoosie wrote: »What was your exercise? That number seems really high.
The excersise calories are my workout calories burned and my steps tracked from work
Are you logging workouts and also tracking steps? How exactly is MFP getting the data -- are you logging it manually or is it from a synced device?
Logging workouts and my steps are tracked through samsung health
Do you add the steps yourself, or are you synced with MFP?
Keep in mind that the number in MFP would already assume a number of steps (how much depends on activity level chosen)
My steps are calculated through samsung health1 -
janejellyroll wrote: »DancingMoosie wrote: »What was your exercise? That number seems really high.
The excersise calories are my workout calories burned and my steps tracked from work
Are you logging workouts and also tracking steps? How exactly is MFP getting the data -- are you logging it manually or is it from a synced device?
Logging workouts and my steps are tracked through samsung health
Do you add the steps yourself, or are you synced with MFP?
Keep in mind that the number in MFP would already assume a number of steps (how much depends on activity level chosen)
My steps are calculated through samsung health
Are the cals from the steps automatically added to MFP (your samsung health linked with MFP)?1 -
janejellyroll wrote: »DancingMoosie wrote: »What was your exercise? That number seems really high.
The excersise calories are my workout calories burned and my steps tracked from work
Are you logging workouts and also tracking steps? How exactly is MFP getting the data -- are you logging it manually or is it from a synced device?
Logging workouts and my steps are tracked through samsung health
Do you add the steps yourself, or are you synced with MFP?
Keep in mind that the number in MFP would already assume a number of steps (how much depends on activity level chosen)
My steps are calculated through samsung health
Are the cals from the steps automatically added to MFP (your samsung health linked with MFP)?
Yes0
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