Earned calories from exercise? Has anyone tested these?

Dnarules

Trust your body. I tend not to eat them back unless I feel light headed or hungry. Today, for example, I ran 7k, walked 4 k and cycled 5k. The estimate for all this was about 700 extra calories. No way would it make sense to eat 700 extra cals and hope to lose weight. But I did eat about 200 of them as I was hungry and treated myself to a glass of wine.
Certainly never eat when you are not hungry. And don't deprive yourself if you feel weak after exercise and MFP says you can eat more that day.

If you trusted the fact that you burned 700 calories, then it makes perfect sense to eat them back because that is how the MFP method works. The deficit is already calculated. It makes more sense than not fueling your workouts properly. Also, he is in maintenance and not trying to lose.

Mr_Knight

Question 1 - Does anyone regularly eat their extra earned calories?

Yes. I track all exercise, and above a certain expenditure, I eat it back.

However, I don't use MFP or HRM numbers, I calculate the burn myself, independently. Done that way, it all tracks exactly as one would expect.

megsmom2

Heck yes I eat them back. They're mine, I earned them, and they're helping me stay healthy and happy.

drgmac

Hello, we are the same age and conventional nutrition wisdom states that we should have a harder time keeping weight off in our late 40s. I respectfully disagree. I congratulate you on your loss--that's an incredible accomplishment. I am not a logger or one who calculates out my caloric intake. I think everyone is different. My advice would be to play around with nit only how much you eat, but what you eat, for me, I find I am able to sustain. My weight by actually eating more calories of vegetables, fruits, and proteins, versus more refined carbs. You probably don't want to create too much of a calorie deficit because you could find yourself gaining it back if you go into starvation mode. Just my 2 cents.

Graelwyn75

Always eaten back most or all of my exercise calories. I have also used a HRM to get a more accurate idea of my burns for various activities but I have used both a fitbit and mfp for my walking logging. However, I do pretty high intensity workouts at the gym, cycling and weights work as well as walking. I think, if you would like to eat more on days you have exercised, and have the calories, then you should go for it. You can monitor your weight to see if it impacts you negatively at all. I find 1800 pretty low for a male, given most females who are averagely active, can maintain on 2000.

heybales

I wouldn't log walking as an exercise and also not eat them back, because MFP is already calculating them in. If you would lay in bed all day doing nothing, you wouldn't need much more than maybe 1500 calories just to maintain a healthy weight.

But I also don't really trust all the statistics MFP gives you - you never know whether the amount of calories "burnt" is calculated minus the amount of calories you would have normally burnt (say in one hour you burn 100 cals normally throughout the day, while running you burn 500, but you would have burnt 100 anyways, so you actually just burnt 400 extra calories) or not.

MFP is not calculating in just any level of walking when you pick Sedentary as your non-exercise activity level.
It includes an avg of 1 hr of slow moving daily. So that would account for walking in/out of work, around at work, to/from store, shopping time, ect. Most seem to hit that unless inspired to get up more on their jobs.

But it does NOT include the walking the dog time 30 min daily or such.

Your laying in bed sleeping all day is BMR. BMR x 1.25 is Sedentary.

And correct on the exercise database that MFP and a lot of other sites use, and the formula's machines themselves use, and actually what HRM's report.
None of them take out your resting calorie burn that would have occurred anyway. Because most of them are not reporting calories for the purpose of someone eating them back correctly (yes, MFP could be a real Pal and correct that easily).
So all of them are Gross estimates, not Net estimates.

And actually, when in a diet like using MFP, every hour of your day is already accounted for with an amount of burn. Your Maintenance figure on Goals page divided by 24. That's what you were already expected to burn each hour.
And that's why MFP could handle that easily in the math prior to giving you a figure.

nxd10

Exactly. Same is if you use a Fitbit that integrates with MFP. They have a baseline and add other exercise as 'net' to that.

Frankly, I've found the exercise estimates to work pretty well. The differences I've found seem to have to do with my metabolism and base activity rates more than their estimates. Any 'misadjustments' are stable over time and not activity dependent.

ABsolute85

I've followed what MFP has said and I have had success...I don't think too hard about it...I do question some of the calculations for exercise...seems like they are a little low...

raindawg

My exercise is 30 minutes of cardio and 20 minutes of weights four times a week. I used MFP's exercise calc of 269 calories for recording during my weight loss phase. Well today I used a HRM (FT7) for the first time. It calc'd 325 calories for my 30 minutes of cardio and another 113 for 20 minutes my weights ( total of 438 calories). Quite a big difference.

eso2012

1850 - is it TDEE or NET?

TDEE = not eat back. It has included your activities. i.e. You need 1850 each day to maintain your bodily function + the level of exercises yo have included in determining that TDEE.


NET = eat back. i.e. 1850 is what you should HAVE in your body each day. If you eat 1850 but exercise (cal out) 800, that means you are actually at a very low net of 1050.

It seems to be 1850 may be net for you - it is low (I can eat that much for TDEE and I am only 5'3', female!).

And yes, MFP is great for food logging. But for workouts, use your own HRM.

smorrison46

I am losing weight eating them back, especially since I am on the 1280 calories a day, if burned 400-500 calories a day that would put me below 1200 calories that is needed for the body not to go into starvation. That would be good to know when I get to maintenance.

Myhaloslipped

I eat most of mine back and have been losing at a pleasantly steady rate. However, I use my HRM calorie calculations. The ones on MFP are insanely high and inaccurate.