Possibly a stupid question on weight loss and calorie target

Memphiswoolf8434

Hi all so I'm not new to the fitness and dieting scene however it's something I never thought about and with a major health issue that began in 2020 I became unable to train at the gym or go for walks . Built myself back up to good length walks now and I use mfp to track my diet. I'm set at 1790 kcal for my daily target but on days like today I didn't feel like eating much so had a protein pouch and protein bar for breakfast then went for a walk stuck on my map my walk and did my 13k burnt around 1.1k in calories so it left me with two thousand something calories left I ate my dinner and had a few snacks and got up to my target leaving me the 1000 roughly I burnt off.

My question is this if my my fitness pal is already set to a calorie deficit for my daily intake and I do things like burn the 1.1k would I still be In that deficit if I ate those 1.1k back in additional protein? Am I under eating by doing this as I'm already 500kcal in deficit
Or am I killing my chances of losing weight by eating back what I burn.

I don't want to lose too much muscle as this happened when I became sick and I have an actual issue with a couple of muscles atrophying and it's become permanent. I am 118kg down from 137.6kg at the start of the year.

I've got another 7 stone to lose long term

quiksylver296

Memphiswoolf8434 wrote: »

Hi all so I'm not new to the fitness and dieting scene however it's something I never thought about and with a major health issue that began in 2020 I became unable to train at the gym or go for walks . Built myself back up to good length walks now and I use mfp to track my diet. I'm set at 1790 kcal for my daily target but on days like today I didn't feel like eating much so had a protein pouch and protein bar for breakfast then went for a walk stuck on my map my walk and did my 13k burnt around 1.1k in calories so it left me with two thousand something calories left I ate my dinner and had a few snacks and got up to my target leaving me the 1000 roughly I burnt off.

My question is this if my my fitness pal is already set to a calorie deficit for my daily intake and I do things like burn the 1.1k would I still be In that deficit if I ate those 1.1k back in additional protein? Am I under eating by doing this as I'm already 500kcal in deficit
Or am I killing my chances of losing weight by eating back what I burn.

I don't want to lose too much muscle as this happened when I became sick and I have an actual issue with a couple of muscles atrophying and it's become permanent. I am 118kg down from 137.6kg at the start of the year.

I've got another 7 stone to lose long term

Probably not, because those exercise calories are probably inflated. Not because it's protein.

yirara

Two things
1. MFP is set up to eat back exercise calories. So that's right
2. BUT: MMW totally inflates calorie burns. There's no way you burned so many calories on these steps, unless 11k is not steps but km/miles. Then.. maybe still not. It's a rubbish app. Sorry.

This is probably a better calculator to use (use the net setting): https://exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs

Good thing is: one day doesn't really change the world. Thus no problem. Maybe use a better estimate for the calories burned and see how things go from there for 4-6 weeks. If you don't lose at the desired rate then have a look at your logging/weighing. Or eat back less of the exercise calories.

sijomial

I wouldn't trust MapMyWalk calories.
Partly because it is a gross calorie estimate (double counts the calories you would have burned in that period of time) but also it plain seems too generous.

Suggest you use the calculator linked above to work out your typical net calories burned for a mile walking and just use MapMyWalk to give you the distance.

Yes take your exercise into account to keep your deficit sensible and less onerous but try to make those estimates reasonable.

cwolfman13

Memphiswoolf8434 wrote: »

Hi all so I'm not new to the fitness and dieting scene however it's something I never thought about and with a major health issue that began in 2020 I became unable to train at the gym or go for walks . Built myself back up to good length walks now and I use mfp to track my diet. I'm set at 1790 kcal for my daily target but on days like today I didn't feel like eating much so had a protein pouch and protein bar for breakfast then went for a walk stuck on my map my walk and did my 13k burnt around 1.1k in calories so it left me with two thousand something calories left I ate my dinner and had a few snacks and got up to my target leaving me the 1000 roughly I burnt off.

My question is this if my my fitness pal is already set to a calorie deficit for my daily intake and I do things like burn the 1.1k would I still be In that deficit if I ate those 1.1k back in additional protein? Am I under eating by doing this as I'm already 500kcal in deficit
Or am I killing my chances of losing weight by eating back what I burn.

I don't want to lose too much muscle as this happened when I became sick and I have an actual issue with a couple of muscles atrophying and it's become permanent. I am 118kg down from 137.6kg at the start of the year.

I've got another 7 stone to lose long term

Others have already addressed the likelihood of your calorie burn being inflated. But this is the way MFP is designed. Your calorie target is derived from your stats and activity level WITHOUT deliberate exercise. Deliberate exercise is unaccounted for activity in your activity level and thus unaccounted for in your calorie targets. You remain in a deficit even though you're eating back additional "exercise calories" because your maintenance requirements would increase as well with additional activity.

Example. I get around 1900 calories per MFP to lose 1 Lb per week (500 calorie deficit). This means that MFP is estimating my NEAT (Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis) plus my BMR to be 2400 calories to maintain weight. If I exercise and burn 300 calories, my target will go up to 2200 calories...but I will still be in a deficit because my maintenance requirements would have also increased by those 300 calories to 2700 calories. 2700-2200=500 calorie deficit.

wilson10102018

Knowing that the US population is way up on the obesity scale and way down on physical health and longevity, see if anything pops out at you from the attached highly sourced study.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2674408/

westrich20940

I don't use Map My Walk...but I use an app that tracks my runs and I'm just gonna put my 2c in here. My running app is *roughly* accurate (within ~100-200 calories) for my run calorie burns. It is based on my height/weight/age.

Not sure if MMW is the same, or is using some sort of 'average' stats to make this calculation. But, if you're saying that you burned ~1,000 by doing a walk of 13,000 steps -- then there's no way that's correct. I may be misunderstanding what you said...?

PAV8888

App expects you to eat back actual calories expended on additional activities to continue to apply a sane deficit.

All other things being equal.

There is some exercise adaptation when eating at a deficit.

There are some studies showing limits to total daily burns due to increased activity (probably by ancillary compensation post activity; but who knows)

Basically exercise good. Excess exercise just to burn calories... so so.

Sources of error:

- primary: logged intake
- secondary: correctly determining and logging net exercise calories

Does this mean logging and testing back zero? No.

Does this mean eating back 1000Cal for a 10 minute walk (kidding for effect here 😹), again no.

Even ex rx doesn't give you your **MFP** net additional value.

Ex rx assigns 1MET as the difference between gross and net calories, which is definitionally correct

But MFP assigns 1.25*BMR to each minute if you're set as sedentary (also known as "not very active" in some versions of mfp). The value becomes 1.4, 1.6, or 1.8x BMR for the other settings through to very active

This is the base amount you would deduct if you wanted your true additional net calories estimate.

So if your walk is a MET 3.5 activity, your net additional calories would range from an extra 2.25*BMR*minute/1440 to as little as an extra 1.7*BMR*minute/1440 depending on your MFP setting.

Hence the often heard recommendation to eat half the specific exercise calories.

Note that connected trackers synchronize in a different way.

When it comes to a connected trackers that deal with whole day calories and not a specific exercise... ALL calories of the adjustment are game for eating.... subject to longer term verification that your weight is reacting long term as per the expectations of your logging

neffybetty

You should get a fitbit. Their calorie burns were accurate for me.

yirara

neffybetty wrote: »

You should get a fitbit. Their calorie burns were accurate for me.

No, they should not. That a tracker is accurate for you doesn't mean it is for others. Many trackers also have a habit of grossly overstating calorie burns for walking. Like me strolling through a forest for 16km, and I get 1500 calories. No way! Also, trackers that use HR need to be calibrated properly to work for specific people. The standard is 220-age, which is rather wrong for a large number of the population, and hence leads to too high or too low estimates. Also, such a tracker costs money. There's no need to get one. Being reasonable, and realistic with steps or distances, regardless whether it's based on a tracker, an app, or just measuring out the distance later on a map is important though.

lgfrie

Speaking about MapMyWalk: I've been using it nearly every day for 1.5 years for my daily walks (and other activities). The calorie estimate it produces is very inflated (sadly so; they had to know better..._) but the function isn't unusable. I've long been in the habit as recording my calories burned as 60 % of whatever MMW says. So, if it says 200 cals lost, I record 120. This gets it aligned with my other gears' rate-per-minute and also my actual weight loss. So I think 60 % of MMW is pretty accurate.