Eating back your gained calories from exercise

BeckyFitPal

Since calories burned from exercise is just a estimate of what you really burned, how close to the number MFP gives you do you come when you eat back your calories? Does that make sense? Thanks!

bry_all01

A) its not an estimate if you are wearing an HRM
zero balance is the goal

LolasEpicJourney

I found that both my exercise machines at the gym and MFP over estimate by almost double what I burn. I got a HRM to find that out (50$).
So if you are going off of the data bank - cut the number of calories burned in half?

NatalieWiley

I don't eat mine unless I am actually hungry. I normally don't work out till 9pm so there is no reason to go eat them after I get home around 10:30pm. I don't eat them before I go because things come up and sometimes I don't go to the gym. Plus the estimate on here gives me 300 more calories on the ellipitical then the machine says and the machine is probably not accurate either.

kevinlynch3

I use a HRM versus MFP numbers but I don't eat back all exercise calories...most of them yes. If I am 100-200 under and not hungry, I don't worry about it because there's another day when I might be over which makes up for it in the long term.

erickirb

If you are afraid of over eating exercise calories then change your activity level to active or very active, this will increase your caloric intake and would account for most of the exercise you would do any way.

As an example say MFP gives you 1450 calories to lose 1 lb/week, and you plan on exercising 5x/week for an average of 400 cals per workout. well MFP will tell you to eat 1450 on the days you don't workout and 1850 on the days you do whereas a "professional" may tell you to eat 1750 everyday regardless if you workout.

So for the week MFP will have you eat 12,150 (1450*2+1850*5) whereas doing it the other way will have you eat 12,250 (1850*7) almost the same number of cals for the week. The issue in not following MFP is if you don't workout the full 5 days or burn more or less than planned. If that is the case you may lose more or less than your goal, whereas MFP will have you lose your goal amount regardless how much you actually workout.

What many MFP do is take the low 1450 and not eat back exercise calories which is wrong, if you are not eating them back then your daily activity level should reflect the higher burn with would be covered in the 1750/day above.

BeckyFitPal

Thanks for all the info. Can someone explain how you use a HRM to figure calories burned?

erickirb

Thanks for all the info. Can someone explain how you use a HRM to figure calories burned?

If you get one with a chest strap you enter all your info (age, weight, gender, etc) and hit start for your workout and end when you are done and it estimates your caloric burn based on all your inputs and your HR.

HappyLuna

If you are afraid of over eating exercise calories then change your activity level to active or very active, this will increase your caloric intake and would account for most of the exercise you would do any way.

As an example say MFP gives you 1450 calories to lose 1 lb/week, and you plan on exercising 5x/week for an average of 400 cals per workout. well MFP will tell you to eat 1450 on the days you don't workout and 1850 on the days you do whereas a "professional" may tell you to eat 1750 everyday regardless if you workout.

So for the week MFP will have you eat 12,150 (1450*2+1850*5) whereas doing it the other way will have you eat 12,250 (1850*7) almost the same number of cals for the week. The issue in not following MFP is if you don't workout the full 5 days or burn more or less than planned. If that is the case you may lose more or less than your goal, whereas MFP will have you lose your goal amount regardless how much you actually workout.

What many MFP do is take the low 1450 and not eat back exercise calories which is wrong, if you are not eating them back then your daily activity level should reflect the higher burn with would be covered in the 1750/day above.

^^^^^^^^^^ LOVE THIS!

BeckyFitPal

If you get one with a chest strap you enter all your info (age, weight, gender, etc) and hit start for your workout and end when you are done and it estimates your caloric burn based on all your inputs and your HR.

Ahh, ok. So does it average your heart rate for the entire workout then?

AndreSF

A) its not an estimate if you are wearing an HRM
zero balance is the goal

A) Still an estimate, but an educated one...