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A question regarding calories burned during workouts

carencae

I have been doing the my fitness pal program for about 10 days and so far have been very happy with it. But I have to ask how accurate is the part when you put in the exercise and that amount of time you have done that exercise.

For example I walked on a tread mill for one hour the app said I burned 738 calories but then gave me that many more calories to eat. How can I possibly lose weight if I am eating the same amount of calories I burn.

Any advise would be appreciated!

Replies

dbarnese

It all depends on how many calories you are in deficit to start with. If you are at 1400 calories and set to lose a pound a week, you would need to only eat 1400 per day to achieve that goal. But if you exercise 300 calories worth, then you can eat that back and still be in deficit.

Having said that - be careful about eating back all of your exercise calories as personally I can't do that and still lose. It is very easy to eat back more than you burn. I will sometimes eat about half of them back. Also, if the burn seems high (738 calories for an hour of walking sounds very high to me) - go and Google calories burned for exercise and get some other opinions.

vypressme

I don't have much experience with the program either, but I do believe you should take the amount of calories given as an estimate. The number varies from person to person.
There is one simple rule to weight loss: burn more calories than you eat. With that being said, let's suppose that 738 cals burned is accurate. Now if your body would require about 2000 cals per day at rest to keep you at the same weight and you eat around 1800, then following your exercise you would require 2738. Then if you eat 1800 + 738 you would still be in a caloric deficit and still lose weight.
It was also shown that on the long run, exercise will improve your metabolic rate, which in turn means that your body will burn more calories at rest. Get accurate with your BMR, RMR and AMR and you will lose weight.