Exercise and Calories burned question

lynda1164

I use MapMyFitness to track my walk. It shows I walked 7.4k steps and burned 423 in calories. This is just my walk and I walk at a fairly good pace. MFP shows I have walked around 9k so far today which I am sure that includes all my walking not just exercise. MFP shows I get a deficit of 230 calories but it also shows when I click on it for and explanation that it is basing that from 2300 calories from my iPhone and 2200 from MFP. I am confused as to why I am getting these numbers. I don’t eat my exercise calories but I like to keep track of them in case I go over my allowance of 1200 cal per day. Any help would be appreciated oh and yes I read the explanation but still don’t get why it’s based on that number of burned calories there is no way I am burning that much

AnnPT77

Why do you think there's no way you're burning that much . . . especially with two reasonable sources estimating that you do?

I'm an average height, low 130s pounds, 69-year-old woman with a moderately active exercise schedule in an otherwise pretty sedentary life, and I burn around 2200 calories on average daily based on 10+ years now of food and bodyweight logging. I admit I'm an unusually good li'l ol calorie burner for my demographic, but it's not at all unusual for women to burn in the low 2000s calories daily.

I'm not saying this is true for you, but there are a lot of women who think they need to eat 1200 calories in order to lose weight at a sensibly moderate rate, and not nearly as many who truly need to do that.

Faster weight loss isn't better weight loss. Fast weight loss is harder weight loss - more risk of it being so hard that we derail - and it also increases health risk.

lynda1164

It just seems like way too much when I only burn 423 in an hour of walking. How can I possibly burn 2000 in a day?

Lietchi

Because that number includes all the calories you burn while being alive, not just active calories. For me, just being alive burns 1600 calories a day (5ft5, 145lbs).

yirara

You don't provide any information about yourself, but given you've chosen a too aggressive weightloss goal and ended up at 1200 calories suggests you're not morbidly obese. I find 400 calories for 1hr of walking too much for most normal people. It probably also includes your just being alive calories, as the map my apps did in the past. Check your numbers here in walking: https://exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs and use net calories. That's without the being alive calories.

AnnPT77

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/comment/48720181#Comment_48720181

This.

For an average person, even one who does exercise, those "just being alive" calories are 60-70% of total daily calorie expenditure.

Humdrum daily life stuff like job and home chores is also a big percent.

Intentional exercise is typically 5-15%, and 15% is a pretty heavy exercise schedule for anyone with a full time job and typical round of home/life chores.

Yirara's right about many devices'/apps' exercise calorie numbers inflating the calorie estimate by counting the calories we would've burned in that time period by just being alive. I'd burn around 300-some calories during an hour of brisk walking on level ground, but only 200- some are the net add-on from the walking.

lynda1164

ok I did not consider the just being alive calories. I did not know that was a thing. I walk 7 days a week. It takes me 1hr to do 3.25 miles. I currently weigh 208 and I am 5’7” and I am 60. MFP was giving me a daily calorie intake of 1300ish. I manually changed that because things I have read say I should be at 1200 and not below that so that is what I been doing. I don’t “eat” my exercise calories. My only exercise is my walk right now. The rest of the day I might do some weeding in the garden otherwise I am at a desk 6 hours a day.

AnnPT77

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/comment/48721304#Comment_48721304

Given all those demographic details, 2200-2300 isn't crazy high as maintenance calories, i.e., an estimate of the total calories we'd expect you to burn on average daily.

Sedentary, we'd expect around 1900 as maintenance calories, give or take. The calculator Yirara suggested estimates 246 net calories for 3.25 miles in an hour at your current weight, so if we used that estimate 1900+246=2146. The TDEE calculator I prefer estimates around 2200 with a sedentary job plus 7 days of walking. If Apple tells you 2300, and MFP 2200, those are all in the same ballpark.

If you ate 1200, you'd expect to see close to 2 pounds a week weight loss, but that'd be on average over 4-6 weeks because scale-weight loss isn't linear. At 207, I'd suggest 2 pounds is starting to be on the aggressive side of sensible loss rates. 1300 would be 2 pounds a week based on what your iPhone says you're burning.

If it were me I'd eat a little more, frankly, but if you can stick with the 1200-1300 on average daily for that 4-6 weeks, your average over all those weeks will tell you whether that's the right number for 2 pounds-ish per week, and how you feel will tell you whether that's a calorie intake you can stick with for long enough to lose all the weight you want to lose, without getting weak, fatigued, losing hair, or experiencing any other negative side effects, and without causing deprivation-triggered over-eating episodes.

Well, let me revise that to add nuance: As you get lighter, slower than 2 pounds a week would be a more viable plan, even if 2 pounds a week seems OK for a while. As we get lighter, we have less body fat available to metabolize, and researchers believe our bodies can only do that at a certain rate, so slower as there's less available. Trying to stick with high weight loss with a smaller body increases health risks, and hunger/appetite can start to fight back harder besides.

The calculators, MFP, and your iPhone are giving you a calorie estimate that would be reasonably close for the average person your age, height, weight, and activity level.

Most of us are close to average, but a few can be off average, either high or low . . . and the reasons why may not be obvious. That 4-6 week trial period will tell you how average you are, basically. (If you still have menstrual cycles, I'd say to average over at least one full cycle, comparing body weight at the same relative point in the two different cycles, but I'm assuming it's more likely you're in menopause at 60.)

I would definitely not recommend going below 1200 - there's no way to get adequate nutrition on too few calories. Getting enough protein is particularly important.

lynda1164

thank you so much for all that information!!!