What %of exercise calories do you eat ?

size102be

What % of exercise called do you eat back ?

I just had a lumpectomy ( Brest cancer operation ) 3 weeks ago and I can’t exercise atm as pain but I was running 5-8 km a week x 3-4 days before this

I wondered what’s the best way to set mfp up

Inactive way % of exercise calories

Lightly active beat the amount mfp gives ?

Whilst I’m recovering

When I can run again I’m not sure how active running 25 lm a week is and walking ?

Thanks

sijomial

100%
There are hundreds and hundred of database entries and they don't have one single percentage error rate, if they did it could be "fixed" at a stroke.
My cardio is cycling where very accurate calories are easy to obtain (if expensive....). I use my own numbers rather than the ones given here. You could do the same for your running when you get back to it.
The strength training estimate on here is also a decent one, it's also just about impossible to get a better estimate without a metabolic chamber.


But I also ate 100% before I educated myself on how to get decent estimates and it didn't derail my weight loss at all - I made one simple manual adjustment to my daily goal and lost at my desired rate all the way to goal. Many people vastly overstate the importance of accurate exercise estimates - reasonable is perfectly adequate for purpose.

When setting your activity setting remember it is absolutely nothing to do with your exercise. You can run no miles or a hundred miles a week and that has no bearing on how you set your activity setting. Whatever your daily movement patterns are exercise is on top whether you are completely sedentary or highly active like a builder.

Best wishes for your recovery. While you are recovering would suggest keeping any calorie deficit modest while you are healing, you have enough stress on your body already.

rosebarnalice

I usually eat and average of about 50%. Some days it's 100%, and sometimes it's less that 20%.

spiriteagle99

I eat 100% of my exercise calories. I am sedentary outside of deliberate exercise but I do a fair amount of daily exercise. I walk every day and run 5 days a week and do various other things on my non-running days. I have been on MFP for about 7 years, I think. I lost some weight, then continued maintaining that loss by logging CI-CO. I find I burn more calories than my numbers would indicate so I have a bit of leeway. Actually, I probably eat about 105% of my calories but I don't weigh my food so I may actually be eating slightly less than I think.

AnnPT77

I estimate them carefully, then eat 100%. I did that all through losing, and of course in maintenance (have to, if I don't want to keep losing, y'know?). It's worked fine for 5+ years now, for me, during periods when I'm exercising lots, and when I'm barely exercising at all.

In one sense, exercise calories are no different from tooth-brushing calories or floor-mopping calories: We burn them, we need to account for them. The difference is that with MFP, we account for them a little differently. When I’m losing, I think of my calorie deficit as something I subtract from my base calorie goal, rather than messing around figuring out what percent of a variable amount of exercise I should not eat. For me, that’s much easier.

I hope that while you’re healing, you’re eating at maintenance calories or close, for at least a few weeks, not trying to lose weight? Best healing requires calories and nutrition. I kept a calorie deficit after laparoscopic gallbladder removal – one of the less intrusive surgeries – and came to wish I’d gone to maintenance for 3-4 weeks at least. Fortunately, my body did prioritize the healing, so that went OK, but there was more weakness and fatigue alongside than I would’ve preferred.

I had breast surgery (bilateral mastectomies/no reconstruction) some years back, so I can empathize with where you find yourself now. (From discussing it with friends, I think lumpectomy is actually a more challenging recovery than simple mastectomy, though the latter’s arguably a more major life impact, I guess.)

If you prefer to eat the same number of calories daily, I’d suggest you use a good TDEE calculator to get a calorie goal, then plug that into MFP manually, rather than let it estimate for you. IMU, the activity multipliers typically are different between TDEE method and MFP, because MFP assumes activity is all non-exercise movement.

Wishing you smooth & speedy healing!

B_Plus_Effort

0

I turned that feature off in My Fitness Pal, I eat 2,000 calories per day regardless of how much I exercise and it ranges from 500 calories burned to 2,000 calories burned in one day, I just bank those deficits for what some would call a "cheat day"

lgfrie

Generally 50 % of whatever a machine or app reports, which I've found to be the "true" net calories burned, as per my bathroom scale results over time. Meaning, if I eat half of my machine/app reported exercise calories over a month or two and otherwise adhere to my target calorie deficit for 1 lb/week weight loss, I lose 1 lb per week.

My experience with this is that any number between 30 and 70 % of reported exercise cals will get the job done. Sometimes it depends on my mood. If I'm extra-hungry, I'll allow myself up to 70 % of exercise cals in food. If I'm not hungry, I won't force myself to eat half the exercise cals, but I'll always eat at least 30 % just to be responsible about it.

Caralarma

I eat none of them back unless I feel particularly hungry after a workout... then I may eat slightly more. But most of the time I stick to my usual daily goal

AndreaTamira

It varies. I allow myself to eat back all of them, but most of the time I have still some left when I go to bed. Usually just a few, under or around a hundred calories, but from time to time it's a lot more. (But also, from time to time I overeat, so it averages out, I guess.)

callsitlikeiseeit

for me, it varies. I have my calories set at 1500. So more often than not, I am good on that, even when I exercise, and don't typically eat back many.

But if Mexican food and chips and queso are on the table I will

So, for ME, no I typically don't (simply because my calories are not set all that low) but I will if I want something bad enough LOL

cmriverside

I just had to play with it a bit.

You can read above in the several posts that there are many roads to Rome.

I finally settled on "Lightly Active." The descriptors MFP gives would lead me to think I'm Sedentary BUT I also use a lower calorie exercise estimation than what MFP says. I just did the data collection and settled on this for myself.

I decided early on to try just using a flat number for exercise calories so I use 300 calories per hour of my intensity of moderate exercise. MFP says 500 for Exercise calories but Sedentary. I use 300 for Exercise but Lightly Active (which gives me 250 more daily base calories). Meh. Both ways come out to about the same.

I came up with my little "system" by logging food and exercise over Time and stepping on the body weight scale. I'm just doing what works and what's easy for me.

That's the only way. Run the experiment. Like sijomial says, close enough is good enough for weight loss.

L1zardQueen

All of them.

heybales

I use better estimate and all of them are eaten back.

The point of my workouts isn't just to burn calories, like this is extra deficit (which isn't always smart anyway making a bigger deficit, like if body is trying to repair).

I'm spending my time and energy and effort to improve the body from exercise - if it's not given enough to repair, or to have a good workout in the first place - then what is the point of my efforts?

But I'm also correct on my daily activity level, adjustments from tracker.
I eat less when I do less, and of course eat more when I do more.

kshama2001

size102be wrote: »

What % of exercise called do you eat back ?

I just had a lumpectomy ( Brest cancer operation ) 3 weeks ago and I can’t exercise atm as pain but I was running 5-8 km a week x 3-4 days before this

I wondered what’s the best way to set mfp up

Inactive way % of exercise calories

Lightly active beat the amount mfp gives ?

Whilst I’m recovering

When I can run again I’m not sure how active running 25 lm a week is and walking ?

Thanks

Technically walking and running aren't supposed to go into your activity level - only your job is. You're supposed to log exercise separately.

AndreaTamira wrote: »

It varies. I allow myself to eat back all of them, but most of the time I have still some left when I go to bed. Usually just a few, under or around a hundred calories, but from time to time it's a lot more. (But also, from time to time I overeat, so it averages out, I guess.)

This is my method as well.

nanastaci2020

IMO how much of the exercise calories you eat depends on how accurate you feel the calorie burned # is. If you have reason to believe its very accurate then eat it all. If over time you lose slower than predicted, then eat less. If you feel the # is likely inflated, then start with eating half and judge by how you feel and how your weight loss reality compares to expected over the next few months.

Luke_rabbit

100%+ in maintenance.

I use a Fitbit for my activity calories (with MFP set to not very active/sedentary).

I eat at least all of them. I find that it is more accurate when my activity is higher. But during less active months (summertime), I have to eat a little extra to not lose weight.

I also do everything by monthly averages using a spreadsheet. I have both variable activity (0 - 600 calories) and variable calorie intake (1300 - 2000 calories) on a daily basis.

KatyP86

I try not eating exercise calories back but if I do eat some atleast I feel less guilty about it 🤷‍♀️

briscogun

rosebarnalice wrote: »

I usually eat and average of about 50%. Some days it's 100%, and sometimes it's less that 20%.

This is me to a tee. I don't always trust what is being logged for a calorie burn so I stick to about half. Some days if I'm really hungry after an especially grueling expenditure (like yesterday spent over an hour shoveling very deep heavy snow) so I ate all of my calories back. Some weeks I may know I'll be going out for a big dinner or something so I will even use my exercise calories to "bank" some for later in the week, but I end up eating them back eventually.

No right or wrong answers just find a system that works for you!

cwolfman13

size102be wrote: »

What % of exercise called do you eat back ?

I just had a lumpectomy ( Brest cancer operation ) 3 weeks ago and I can’t exercise atm as pain but I was running 5-8 km a week x 3-4 days before this

I wondered what’s the best way to set mfp up

Inactive way % of exercise calories

Lightly active beat the amount mfp gives ?

Whilst I’m recovering

When I can run again I’m not sure how active running 25 lm a week is and walking ?

Thanks

If you're including your running and walking in your activity level, you wouldn't eat any exercise calories back...they're already accounted for in your activity level at that point. This however, is not how MFP is designed. MFP is designed to have your activity level just be your day to day hum drum. The reason you eat back calories with MFP is because that exercise is activity in excess of what you set your activity level to and thus unaccounted for.

If you include exercise in your activity level and then log it and eat back calories, you are double dipping.

Strudders67

I've always eaten 100%, both during weight loss and now in Maintenance.

To some extent, the accuracy of the numbers MFP gives you for an exercise will depend on what exercise you do. I've always found it pretty accurate for (brisk) walking, but I know others disagree. It certainly wasn't accurate for any gym cardio exercise though, as MFP has no way of knowing what level I work out at or how hard I push myself.

MsCzar

None. I only burn around 350 calories from exercising and am fairly sedentary otherwise.

kshama2001

KatyP86 wrote: »

I try not eating exercise calories back but if I do eat some atleast I feel less guilty about it 🤷‍♀️

If you use MFP to set your calorie goal, exercise, but don't eat back any exercise calories, you are not using MFP the way it was designed.

https://support.myfitnesspal.com/hc/en-us/articles/360032625391-How-does-MyFitnessPal-calculate-my-initial-goals-

Unlike other sites which use TDEE calculators, MFP uses the NEAT method (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis), and as such this system is designed for exercise calories to be eaten back. However, many consider the burns given by MFP to be inflated for them and only eat a percentage, such as 50%, back. Others, however, are able to lose weight while eating 100% of their exercise calories.