Calories burned during exercise?

MaryinBflo

I have always counted my calories burned as what my HRM tells me after my workout. But I've heard this here and there and beginning to wonder but really if you weren't working out you would still burn some calories just for breathing so should you subtract this from cal burned so you don't eat too much? If so how do you know how m uch you would have burned if you don't workout?

Thanks!

mary

FoamyRiver

Calories burned from every day life has already been built into your MFP allowances.

erickirb

The amount you would "back out" would be your maintenance calories during that duration. Go to your goals tab and on the top right of that page it should say calories burned from normal daily activity, that is maintenance. Take maintenance calories divide by 24 to get cals burned/hour/60 to get cals burned per minute while not working out.

So if your maintenance is 2000 calories you would back out 1.39 calories for every minute you worked out. so if you workout and burn 500 calories in 45 minutes, you would back out 63 (1.39*45) from the 500 and enter 455 into MFP.

BeLightYear

I subtract my resting heart rate (mine is 60 calories per hour, 1 calorie per minute) from my total on my HRM time since I would have burned those anyway

amymeenieminymo

Yes we technically should be deducting what we would burn anyway from just breathing. For me that's around 100 calories per hour....I forget the actual formula to figure it out, but an easy way would be to just turn on your HRM while you're sitting around watching TV for an hour.

I used to deduct the 100, but then stopped because A. I never deducted when I first started and I lost weight just fine (I don't always eat back every last exercise calories so I figure that creates some wiggle room) and B. It actually served as a demotivator to work out because I would kill myself burning 500 at the gym, only to actually count and log 400. It made me not want to do it if I had to burn 600 to make 500 count.

To help compensate, I turn off my HRM the second I am done working out, rather than when my heartrate drops to a certain point, and like I said I don't usually eat every last exercise calorie.

erickirb

Calories burned from every day life has already been built into your MFP allowances.

But what she is referring to is that the HRM calculated total calories burned, which would double count maintenance calories for that period of time she is exercising.

PirateJenny

There are many resources for estimating what you burn just by living (and your routine activities).

MFP does calculate it for you based on the age, height, weight and activity level entered in your profile information. Go to "Tools" and click on the tab for BMR and there will be a number, that is what MFP estimates for your daily caloric expenditure outside of added exercise. MFP works that number into what it calculates for your daily caloric goals.

There is also the Harris-Benedict Equation (link is below), which uses the same basic information but allows for a little more variance than MFP.

http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/harris-benedict-equation/

Hope this helps!

menchi

I think they also estimate the difference from the time spent exercising that you enter to set your goals. Plus your daily just being alive calories (which is your BMR) isn't that high. My BMR is 1360, and if you divide by 24, it's about 57 Cal per hour. Unless you workout for hours each day, I don't believe you are over counting by much.

MaryinBflo

Ok thanks everyone. I guess the best way would be to wear my HRM when not exercising for a few hours to get average. I don't always eat every exercise calorie but sometimes I do. I guess I won't stress too much about it though!

erickirb

I think they also estimate the difference from the time spent exercising that you enter to set your goals. Plus your daily just being alive calories (which is your BMR) isn't that high. My BMR is 1360, and if you divide by 24, it's about 57 Cal per hour. Unless you workout for hours each day, I don't believe you are over counting by much.

use maintenance not BMR. If you did not workout you would be doing something else, using BMR would suggest if you did not workout you would be in a coma. Maintenance calories is the correct base to use for calories burned when not working out.

erickirb

Ok thanks everyone. I guess the best way would be to wear my HRM when not exercising for a few hours to get average. I don't always eat every exercise calorie but sometimes I do. I guess I won't stress too much about it though!

No, this will not work, as HRM's are only accurate when your HR is elevated, use your maintenance calories as the amount to back out.

MaryinBflo

Ok thanks everyone. I guess the best way would be to wear my HRM when not exercising for a few hours to get average. I don't always eat every exercise calorie but sometimes I do. I guess I won't stress too much about it though!

No, this will not work, as HRM's are only accurate when your HR is elevated, use your maintenance calories as the amount to back out.

Ok thanks!

MaryinBflo

The amount you would "back out" would be your maintenance calories during that duration. Go to your goals tab and on the top right of that page it should say calories burned from normal daily activity, that is maintenance. Take maintenance calories divide by 24 to get cals burned/hour/60 to get cals burned per minute while not working out.

So if your maintenance is 2000 calories you would back out 1.39 calories for every minute you worked out. so if you workout and burn 500 calories in 45 minutes, you would back out 63 (1.39*45) from the 500 and enter 455 into MFP.

Ok using this I burn Calories Burned
From Normal Daily Activity 2,500 calories/day
so that would give me 1.74 calories for every minute I worked out . So a 60 min workout would be 104 cal to subtract from my total burned