under calculating or over exaggerating portions

Tricia82

I was just wondering does anyone else do this? I under calculate my exercise calories burned for ex is my treadclimber says I burned 350 calories I will only post 300 burned and I do the same with the food if I ate 1 cup of something I will log that I ate 1 1/4 cups of it. What do you do when logging in you calories?

Alexagetsfit

I also usually say that I worked out for less time than I actually did or I don't eat all my exercise calories back because the calculator on here is very inaccurate.

Aviendha_RJ

I tell it like it is... I find more success that way because I'm not under-overstating things. And the site is designed to keep you at a deficit already, so exaggerating is just going to put you into starvation mode.

bsgillkc

I do that for some things, but you have to be careful about doing that all of the time, because swinging those values too far the other direction can cause you to take in too few net calories, which can be just as bad as having too many net calories.

Aviendha_RJ

...the calculator on here is very inaccurate.

Once the exercise is in your list, you can change the calories burned in it by highlighting the wrong number & updating it. I do it all the time. The pace I work out at isn't the pace the person who logged the exercise originally works out at. So I just change it.

debs6

I fully understand the calorie burns to gain a more accurate picture of your own expenditure or to map your heart rate - but why would you not give an accurate picture of your calories consumed?

InTenn

When in doubt, I tend to choose the conservative value. But I don't deliberately understate it. I'd rather have the most accurate (or at least, standardized) result because if I lose weight or if I stop losing weight, it doesn't do me any good to have bad data for the last three months to refer back to.

I do use a heart rate monitor, and will adjust the websites numbers based on what it tells me. Over 3 1/2 months, I've found that the "pound a week" rate plus a pound for every 3500 net calorie deficit beyond that is a pretty good long term predictor of weight loss. But if that stops working, I can change the amount of food and/or exercise that I do. A calorie is a pretty arbitrary term. As long as you use the same standard, it will work to help you understand what to do (stay the course, exercise more, eat less, etc.), even if the standard is wrong.

Besides that, if you know you are understating your calories, it is easy to cheat back the other way and decide to have that extra snickers bar when maybe you shouldn't. If you track it accurately, you will know if you can.

UponThisRock

food scale is much more accurate