exercise calories explained

Farburnfred

Thanks OP, soemthing that occurred to me in the middle of the night is that there is a psychological issue going on here..you know you should eat for example 1500 calories a day..great and then you exercise and it's gone up to 1700..eek.. For some of s that is hard to compute. So it would be far better is MFP took away those calories still leaving the number at 1500 but starting me at a deficit of 200, so at he end of the day it looks like I have eaten 1500=happy me, but in fact I have eaten 1700=happy body..

hollyrlambert

bump for later - this is possibly the best explanation of this i have seen on here, well done for that! Makes perfect sense

MMB5222

cheri63664

Thank you, I think I understand better. I set my activity level as med, but I did not account for exercise. I was only considering my normal day.

cheri63664

I typed this up for another thread, but because if all the questions about exercise calories, I thought I'd post it separately.


*disclaimer*
Everything I'm about to say assumes no special dietary or health "conditions"
*/disclaimer*

Healthy weight loss comes from maintaining a healthy calorie deficit. A deficit that is too high can (and often will) result in a lower number on the scale, but there are several unhealthy side effects (loss of muscle/lean body mass being the most common). Maintaining a reasonable calorie deficit while eating correct macros will lead to healthy weight loss.

How you get to that calorie deficit is up to you. This is where the MFP diet profile comes into play.

The diet profile allows you to specify a number of things. The 2 we care about for this conversation are your activity level and your goal. How you set these will determine whether or not you should be eating back your exercise calories.

Activity Level
This is where you set your daily activity level. *Most* people set this to reflect their activity level NOT including exercise/workouts. As such, they track their exercise separately as part of their diary. MFP uses this (along with the rest of your profile data) to determine an estimate for required for daily calories - i.e. how many calories you need each day to maintain your body as it currently is.

Goal
This is where you set your weight gain/loss goal. MFP uses this to set a daily calorie goal to help you reach your weight goals - a calorie deficit if your goal is to lose weight, a calorie surplus if you want to gain.

So, with all that said... how do we know if we should be eating back exercise calories or not? Well, it comes down to how you setup your profile.

Assuming your goal is to lose weight, MFP will calculate a healthy calorie deficit for you based on age, weight, activity level, etc. That number is what you need to be NETTING each day. Period. There is no debate here. The concept of net calories is just like net income... I'm REALLY hoping that doesn't need to be explained.

So the need to eat back exercise calories really comes down to how you determined your activity level when setting up your dietary profile. If your set activity level does NOT account for exercise/workouts (this is how most people use MFP), then you should be logging your exercises separately and eating back those calories. Why? In order to hit the calorie goal MFP set for you based on your profile data/goals. Consider this example: Your daily calorie goal is 1500cal. That number is calculated by MFP based on your profile data and is the number of calories you need to net each day to hit your weight loss goal. So you eat 1500cal. Good. Then you workout and burn 350 calories. Your NET intake for the day is now 1150, which is too low, and thus you need to consume an additional 350 calories during the day to compensate for the workout and be able to hit your goal of 1500cal for the day.

Make sense?

Alternatively, if you set your activity level so that it DOES account for your daily exercise, then the daily calorie goal MFP sets for you takes into account those calories burned during exercise, and as such you do NOT need to eat back burned calories. Example: Your daily calorie goal is 1850 (higher because MFP is accounting for daily exercise). So you eat 1850 calories. Good. Now you exercise and burn 350 calories. MFP already accounted for those 350 calories to be burned because of the activity level you set in your profile, so MFP already knows you burned them. As such, there is no reason to log the exercise separately, and you don't need to eat back those calories.

I hope this clears up the whole exercise calorie question. If nothing else, it gives me a pre-typed response I can cut and paste into future exercise calorie threads.


A couple of side notes:
- a little common sense and some knowledge of YOUR body goes a long way
- hunger (or lack there of) is not always a good indicator of if/when you should be eating
- just because something works for you doesn't automatically make it good advice

ObtainingBalance

Great post, thank you!

Drea89

Ok, good post but I want to make sure I'm understanding so th at I can maximize my directions to my goal.

My goal is to loose about 45-60 lbs.

I engage in a vigourous bootcamp style workout 5 days a week at 6 am. The rest of my day is pretty laid back as i go to school and work at a call center.

I have set my profile to active and a goal loss of 1.5 lbs and my daily caloric goal from MFP is 1650. During my workouts I burn about 600 up to 850 calories per day.

So, do I need to log my workouts, are the calories already included? Even so do I need to eat a little more so that I can reach the 1200 thresh-hold?

Or do I change my lifestyle to something less active and log my workout? Even then do I eat those calories back?

MY UNDERSTANDING:

Becasue I set my lifestyle to active my exercise calories are included. I need to eat 1650 calories a day. Everyday. No need to log exercise calories (unless want to). No need to fret over exercise calories, they are built into daily caloric intake. Is that right?

lobstergirl

Im amazed on a daily basis how people cannot 'get' this....thank you for posting this...i think everyone who starts on MFP should read this.....;)

jacksonpt

Ok, good post but I want to make sure I'm understanding so th at I can maximize my directions to my goal.

My goal is to loose about 45-60 lbs.

I engage in a vigourous bootcamp style workout 5 days a week at 6 am. The rest of my day is pretty laid back as i go to school and work at a call center.

I have set my profile to active and a goal loss of 1.5 lbs and my daily caloric goal from MFP is 1650. During my workouts I burn about 600 up to 850 calories per day.

So, do I need to log my workouts, are the calories already included? Even so do I need to eat a little more so that I can reach the 1200 thresh-hold?

Or do I change my lifestyle to something less active and log my workout? Even then do I eat those calories back?

MY UNDERSTANDING:

Becasue I set my lifestyle to active my exercise calories are included. I need to eat 1650 calories a day. Everyday. No need to log exercise calories (unless want to). No need to fret over exercise calories, they are built into daily caloric intake. Is that right?

yes, your thinking/understanding is correct.

needamulligan

bump

lobstergirl

:flowerforyou:

tressatnt

This is great, thanks! I prefer to log in my exercise and eat back calories. It makes me feel accomplished when I see the calories burned added. But, MFP keeps putting me either at 1200 or 1320 net calories! I've tried 1200 and 1400 so I am trying 1500 now, but I'm afraid that will be too high. My BMR is 1365, my TDEE is 1638, everything set to sedentary. I am struggling to find the right number, hoping to finally find the one that works!

jacksonpt

This is great, thanks! I prefer to log in my exercise and eat back calories. It makes me feel accomplished when I see the calories burned added. But, MFP keeps putting me either at 1200 or 1320 net calories! I've tried 1200 and 1400 so I am trying 1500 now, but I'm afraid that will be too high. My BMR is 1365, my TDEE is 1638, everything set to sedentary. I am struggling to find the right number, hoping to finally find the one that works!

Make sure you are being patient enough. Pick a number, hit it consistently for a month and see what happens. Many people get frustrated after a week and change things... a week isn't long enough to gauge progress/success.

EmGetsFit

Thank you for posting this. And thank you for being concise, patient and nice. I still have questions but I tend to not ask on public forums... because I'm still new to the fitness world & often feel confused about calculations, and get discouraged when people make me feel like an idiot for asking questions. "What don't you get? Are you a moron?" No, I'm just kinda bad at math & new to this. For 2/3 of my life I studied dance and just "felt" what to do. Now I've gained weight from stress & life/activity changes and am trying to get healthy again in a positive way. It helps when people are nice. So, anyway, thanks again for this post. I appreciate the knowledge.

drj1485

Here is my issue. When MFP says an exercise burns 700 in an hour, does it take into account that I would have burned around 100 in that hour if I wasn't exercising? I notice that the exercises add equal value to the NET intake, but I don't know if it is calculating the net loss.

Example.

To maintain my weight I can intake 2400 calories (to make it easy), therefore my body is burning off around 100 per hour.

So every hour I am already burning 100 calories doing nothing. Now, instead I ride a bike for an hour which burns 700. The net loss is only 600.

My calories are already budgeted for the 100 I would have burned sitting around. so riding the bike instead is giving an extra 600.

so is the 700 calories calculated on top of what I would have burned anyways or is it the actual number of calories burned.

jacksonpt

Here is my issue. When MFP says an exercise burns 700 in an hour, does it take into account that I would have burned around 100 in that hour if I wasn't exercising? I notice that the exercises add equal value to the NET intake, but I don't know if it is calculating the net loss.

Example.

To maintain my weight I can intake 2400 calories (to make it easy), therefore my body is burning off around 100 per hour.

So every hour I am already burning 100 calories doing nothing. Now, instead I ride a bike for an hour which burns 700. The net loss is only 600.

My calories are already budgeted for the 100 I would have burned sitting around. so riding the bike instead is giving an extra 600.

so is the 700 calories calculated on top of what I would have burned anyways or is it the actual number of calories burned.

Honestly, I don't know. It's an estimate. To me, it's not worth stressing about... we estimate almost everything - how much we eat, how much we burn, what our TDEE/BMR/etc is. It's not an exact science, so I try not to get too consumed by the smaller details.

IMO, if you like numbers and like being precise (but don't obsess), then feel free to subtract out your BMR/NEAT cals from your exercise cals. But for most people, the difference is small enough it's not worth the added stress, especially when so many of them have such a hard time getting their head around net cals and exercise cals to begin with.

.

gaprincessd

I have been struggling with gaining and losing the same pound for the past couple of weeks. I am eating my BMR which is 1400 a day but I do work out 5 times a weeks so I am considering adding an extra 200 to 300 calories to see if that will do it.

jacksonpt

I have been struggling with gaining and losing the same pound for the past couple of weeks. I am eating my BMR which is 1400 a day but I do work out 5 times a weeks so I am considering adding an extra 200 to 300 calories to see if that will do it.

Sounds like you're maintaining... though 2 weeks isn't enough time to say for sure. Body weight fluctuates naturally day in and day out, sometimes 5lbs or more... so a 1lb change day-to-day is pretty normal.

skinnybearlyndsay

Thanks for the explanation!

krickeyuu

bump