Exercise calories

Avril4565

I exercise at least three times a week and earn extra calories. Is it best to save these calories or use some of them ? On average I walk four miles three times a week. With eating healthier I struggle to eat my allotted calories somedays without extra. Thanks

cwolfman13

Avril4565 wrote: »

I exercise at least three times a week and earn extra calories. Is it best to save these calories or use some of them ? On average I walk four miles three times a week. With eating healthier I struggle to eat my allotted calories somedays without extra. Thanks

For one, ask yourself this...if you weren't supposed to use them, then why would MFP give them to you?

Secondly, it is the way this tool is designed...exercise calories aren't some kind of different calorie from other calorie needs. You require XXXX calories per day to maintain the status quo....calorie needs from merely existing...calorie needs from going about your day to day...and calorie needs from intentional exercise. MFP is designed to set your activity level to your day to day hum drum to give you a calorie target for weight loss based on your basal calories and calorie requirements from going about your day to day...exercise isn't included in your activity level and is thus unaccounted for. You account for that activity by logging it and getting additional calories...move more and calorie requirements are higher.

All that said, I wouldn't worry too much about walking calories personally unless my deficit was already considerable. The calories expended going for a walk are fairly negligible (unless it's long and frequent) and it isn't an exercise activity that is vigorous as to put a large stress on the body and break it down requiring greater energy for recovery.

I walk pretty much everyday and I more or less leave that as a buffer...I do account for calories needed for more strenuous training bouts.

heybales

Welcome to MFP!
The base eating goal is based on your selected activity level (that may not be true anyway), and no exercise done.

When you do more, you should eat more.
When you do less, you should eat less.
Life lesson right there regarding weight management MFP is trying to teach.

In a diet to lose weight a tad less in either case.

So yes the extra activity counts.
You'll eat more, but still less than the extra you burned, and still lose weight - hopefully at reasonable rate to sustain it.

That being said, the calorie burn from the database while a good calculation is also based on total burn - and on low burn long activities MFP already expected you to burn some during that time - so it's too high to add the full value.

For walking - take the suggested calorie burn and change to 50% of them.
For shorter higher intensity workouts, maybe 75%.

Keep it up.

Avril4565

Thanks for your reply. I have noticed the calories earned can be quite high and not very accurate so didn't want to use them. So far it has been working well for me not using them. I haven't been feeling anymore hungry on my exercise days so I will continue to not use them. Thank you.

heybales

Well, if you are taking a small deficit, then making it bigger may have no negative effects.

But rarely do people seem to take a reasonable deficit, usually bigger than reasonable - and then you are adding to it by not accounting for doing more.

Sadly you feeling hungry and your body being fully fed are 2 separate things - usually it's why people are here to lose weight - those signals aren't trustworthy. It's an unknown foreign language frankly.

Did you know nutrition labels are allowed to be upwards of 20% wrong, usually in the direction of stating less calories than actual to appear better?

Since that can be wrong - will you log food as 0 calories and not count them?

Because even if the exercise isn't dead on accurate - there is for sure a whole range of calorie burns that are for sure inaccurate - and that starts at 0 as if it didn't count.

How do you know they aren't accurate by the way - because most people have little to know experience in calories and how much is used and eaten?

All to say - think about it - it does count - if you don't have decent figures now then when things change (and it will as you lose weight and burn less), then it's hard to figure things out later with knowledge.

westrich20940

Avril4565 wrote: »

Thanks for your reply. I have noticed the calories earned can be quite high and not very accurate so didn't want to use them. So far it has been working well for me not using them. I haven't been feeling anymore hungry on my exercise days so I will continue to not use them. Thank you.

That's good....just be sure to really check in with yourself and your energy level too. I used to have days I was waaaay under my calorie goal and I wasn't 'hungry'.....but I was definitely tired/very low energy.

Remember too, everything on MFP are estimates...generally speaking. So, if you are really not hungry, not tired, can get through your workouts and make progress...and it doesn't affect your expected weight loss...you're probably good.

sijomial

Avril4565 wrote: »

Thanks for your reply. I have noticed the calories earned can be quite high and not very accurate so didn't want to use them. So far it has been working well for me not using them. I haven't been feeling anymore hungry on my exercise days so I will continue to not use them. Thank you.

Zero is guaranteed to be inaccurate - that's not a great argument. They are still being burned and are still a perfectly valid energy need for your body.
Inaccuracy would be an argument to use a better source for your estimates not to pretend it didn't happen.
Don't you think that having chosen a tool to do a job you should at least trial it as it's designed to be used for a period of time?

What does "working well" mean to you after just 8 days? If you mean losing at a sensible and sustainable rate of weight loss that you selected then by luck your inaccuracies may have cancelled each other out.

Avidkeo

The best way to figure it out is to log your food accurately for a good period of time, and either eat back your exercise calories, or don't. And weigh daily using a trending app.

I use a sports watch to estimatey calorie burn, and I now have 3 weeks of solid data. I aim for a 500 calorie deficit. And have been within 20-30 calories of that deficit for 3 weeks. My trend shows my daily deficit is 445 calories, so I may be over estimating my exercise by 50 calories a day. I can live with that. Though I suspect the next week will bring that closer to the 500 calories.

lgfrie

You're burning probably 600-800-ish calories a week walking 12 miles. The generally accepted formula is 0.3 x your weight x # of miles. This is too many calories to just not eat back. I would at least eat an extra 300, half of the lower end of the range for what you're burning with those walks. It's a bad habit to exercise without fueling it. That leads to hunger, feelings of deprivation, fatigue, sometimes bad health impacts, and eventually diet breakdown. Develop good habits by always eating back at least half of your exercise cals.

AnnPT77

westrich20940 wrote: »

Avril4565 wrote: »

Thanks for your reply. I have noticed the calories earned can be quite high and not very accurate so didn't want to use them. So far it has been working well for me not using them. I haven't been feeling anymore hungry on my exercise days so I will continue to not use them. Thank you.

That's good....just be sure to really check in with yourself and your energy level too. I used to have days I was waaaay under my calorie goal and I wasn't 'hungry'.....but I was definitely tired/very low energy.

Remember too, everything on MFP are estimates...generally speaking. So, if you are really not hungry, not tired, can get through your workouts and make progress...and it doesn't affect your expected weight loss...you're probably good.

Generally, I agree.

At the same time, I'll point out that there's frequently a "honeymoon effect" on a new diet (and I suspect it's literally physical as well as psychological). When we start, we're in a well-fed state, and usually we're highly motivated. With a big calorie cut, it's common to feel energetic and not hungry . . . until suddenly, we hit a wall. Most often, this seems to happen somewhere in the one to two month range, but it can happen anytime, and can be sudden.

Yes, it happened to me, not because I was trying to lose weight super fast, but because I'm one of the infrequent people with calorie needs noticeably higher than MFP estimates. I felt great, not hungry, then *bam*, weak and fatigued. It took several weeks to feel back to normal, even though I adjusted as soon as I realized. No one needs that, especially someone with a busy, challenging life.

How one feels in the moment, in terms of energy and hunger, is not necessarily a good guide to whether calorie intake is adequate or not. Loss rate, over a few weeks, is better. Starting with moderate goals is a good plan, to avoid getting into trouble by accident, IMO. Slow loss is frustrating, too-fast loss can be a health risk. After a few weeks, one can adjust based on experience, and one of those extremes is easier to recover from, than the other.