Major Flaw in MFP and eating back your calories?
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It's a major flaw IMO because you end up over eating and not losing weight and in some cases gaining weight.
The fitness trainers and nutritionists that I have seen have given me a flat 2000-2200 calorie diet. They never mention eating back my calories.
When I do eat back my calories, I fail. When I do not, I lose weight. I will stick with the results.
Grr. I just typed this then lost the page. So typing again.
FItness trainers and nutritionists use a different formula than MFP. They actually do have you eat back your exercise calories, they just build it into their number.
They figure your BMR (basic rate you burn just to live), then factor in daily activity (like how active your job is), then anticipate how often and how hard you will work out each week. They then take that number, subtract a modest amount to create a deficit, and there is your number. Exercise calories included.
MFP figures your BMR and your daily activity but does not account for exercise, which is why the site is set up to tell you to eat them back.
In the end, it is usually pretty much the same.
For example, MFP gave me a number of like 1400 for a pound a week. I went to a trainer for a workout program and she gave me a goal of around 1700. I kept tracking on MFP. When I put in all my food, and log my exercise, guess what I end up netting, 1400. So it didn't matter if I ate 1400, then an extra 300 for my exercises, it came out to the same thing.
There are a number of reasons why you could be "failing" when you eat your calories back. You will fail following a trainer or nutritionist if you don't maintain the level of activity anticpated. No method is perfect.
ETA -
If you are going by the nutritionist or trainers numbers and eat back your exercise calories, then yes, you may gain weight, since it has already been accounted for.
yes, yes, yes, great post, if you are following MFP's caloric intake then you should be eating your exercise cals, or at least most of them, it is fine to leave some for wiggle room. But if you overrode the MFP caloric intake with that of your traininer then, not don't eat the "extra" calories.
Not eating your exercise calories is only a good idea if you increase your activity level to account for your exercise. changing your activity level will give you more calories so you will be eating enough, without the thought of "eating your exercise calories".
Essentially you would be setting your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) then creating a deficit from that to lose weight. This is what most trainer/doctors/nutritionists do. Most professionals will tell you not to eat your exercise calories back because they added it into your TDEE, whereas MFP ignores exercise and only accounts for it when you perform it. Either way should get you to the same place.
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 (1750*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 MFPers do is take the low 1450 and not eat back exercise calories which is wrong, and you risk burning a large % of lean muscle along with your fat loss. If you are not eating them back then your daily activity level should reflect the higher burn which would be covered in the 1750/day above.0 -
Good question, I was thinking the same thing recently. I use an HRM, I need to start subtracting some calories from my final calories burned number before logging them, because I do eat all my exercise calories.0
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It's a major flaw IMO because you end up over eating and not losing weight and in some cases gaining weight.
The fitness trainers and nutritionists that I have seen have given me a flat 2000-2200 calorie diet. They never mention eating back my calories.
When I do eat back my calories, I fail. When I do not, I lose weight. I will stick with the results.
Agree with this!
There's probably a flaw in the calorie calculations or you are misunderstanding how they are calculating. HERE extra exercises aren't included in your calorie count (other than what you have your activity level set at that is). What that "fitness trainer" is setting your calories at is anyone's guess.
If it were ME(174lbs, 5'7", 44 years old) and I was given a 2,000 per day diet, that would assume I worked out for about 40 min everyday. ie.. 1600 BMR + 400 calories of exercise.0 -
So you're saying that because of the 75-100 or so cals that are double counted due to this flaw you have over eaten and gained weight?It's a major flaw IMO because you end up over eating and not losing weight and in some cases gaining weight.
The fitness trainers and nutritionists that I have seen have given me a flat 2000-2200 calorie diet. They never mention eating back my calories.
When I do eat back my calories, I fail. When I do not, I lose weight. I will stick with the results.
When it was suggested that you eat back your exercise cals, where you on 2000-2200 cals daily?0 -
I'm curious how many people participating in this thread actually understand the purpose of eating back exercise calories.0
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It's a major flaw IMO because you end up over eating and not losing weight and in some cases gaining weight.
The fitness trainers and nutritionists that I have seen have given me a flat 2000-2200 calorie diet. They never mention eating back my calories.
When I do eat back my calories, I fail. When I do not, I lose weight. I will stick with the results.
I agree completely. My mother has a friend who is a doctor with a PhD in weight management/obesity and she told me that eating back those calories basically defeats the purpose of burning those calories through exercise.
It would defeat the purpose IF your calories weren't set at a deficit already.
And surely it depends what your 'purpose' is. If it's purely to get skinny, well hey, starve yourself to oblivion. If you want to be fit, then fuelling a healthy workout, reducing your resting heart rate, reducing cholestrol, reducing your risk of various cancers, alzheimers, etc etc etc, I dunno seems to me that has plenty of 'purpose'.
I guess those of us who have lost a hundred pounds using this sane and sensible weight loss programme have somehow just deluded ourselves though, eh?0 -
It's a major flaw IMO because you end up over eating and not losing weight and in some cases gaining weight.
The fitness trainers and nutritionists that I have seen have given me a flat 2000-2200 calorie diet. They never mention eating back my calories.
When I do eat back my calories, I fail. When I do not, I lose weight. I will stick with the results.
I agree completely. My mother has a friend who is a doctor with a PhD in weight management/obesity and she told me that eating back those calories basically defeats the purpose of burning those calories through exercise.
It would defeat the purpose IF your calories weren't set at a deficit already.
But they also don't understand that MFP already has you in a deficit, and exercise increases that deficit to possibly harmful limits. see my post above explaining how professionals set your intake vs. MFP, if you do it right you will be at the same place, but don't take one concept and use it in a different program i.e. take MFP's low caloric goal and not eating any exercise cals back.0 -
Most people only burn 1-1.5 calories per minute at rest. Assuming it is a one size fits all formula (which it is not), and MFP does have that error, It is a small error, and not major at all.
If you workout vigorously for 60 minutes, burning around 500 calories or more, the 60-90 calories you MIGHT overeat from the calculation is not going to make or break your success. The 440-410 calories you did burned moving around rather than vegetating, is what is going to make the difference.
If you have not reached your projected loss rate, there are other physiological factors that can come into play. If not, then I'd be more suspect of poorly estimating what you eat. People are notoriously bad at estimating what they've eaten. You'll have more error in your caloric estimations than you will in your burn formulas most of the time.0 -
It's a major flaw IMO because you end up over eating and not losing weight and in some cases gaining weight.
The fitness trainers and nutritionists that I have seen have given me a flat 2000-2200 calorie diet. They never mention eating back my calories.
When I do eat back my calories, I fail. When I do not, I lose weight. I will stick with the results.
How can it be a "major flaw" when I, and many others, have eaten back our exercise calories, and have lost weight? This is where we just have to dial things in for our own personal needs. But we can't say that it is "flawed" logic. It's just not "exact" logic.
Note the "IMO" part. Meaning in my opinion. It is a flaw, in my opinion, because it utterly fails for me in my own experience.
Seriously? You honestly want us to believe that the 60-100 cals you don't factor into your overall burn prevented you from losing weight.... ? Honestly honestly?0 -
Let me break down the math for everyone. I realize this isn't 100% for everyone, but being talked to like I'm a primitive monkey rubs me the wrong way.
As I am a moderately active male between the ages of 20-39, my BMR was calculated at 2800 calories per day. By remaining at my activity level of moderately active, I can in theory consume 2800 calories per day and maintain my current weight. MFP agrees with my trainer. Yay.
Setting my goal loss of 1 lb per week, MFP sets my goal calories of the day to 2230. The diet my trainer put me on is 2000. 230 is not a major number off hand but I'm going to stick with 2000.
When I do a full hour of eliptical or running, I burn over 1000 calories. From experience, if I eat those back (meaning I eat a total of 3230 calories a day), I will gain weight. If I eat half of those calories (meaning I eat a total of 2730 calories) I will maintain my weight. If I eat a few or none of those calories (meaning I stay around 2000 calories) I lose the weight.
I weigh my food. I log it all. To lose weight my body requires that I NOT eat back the calories I burn from exercising. I do 100% realize that the caloric value MFP gives me is ALREADY a deficit.
I realize 100% that there are people who can consume their exercise calories and lose weight. Great for them! I also know people who spend one or two days out of the week in the gym for an hour each time, do nothing else all week, and look ripped and have a low body fat %. Not every body is built the same way.
So again to me there is a flaw with eating back your calories because to me it makes me gain my weight back. I need to remain at a total of 2000 or so calories consumed total per day to achieve weight loss. I will be upping my calories in May when I finish the current body fat program I'm on now as I will be down to 20-22% body fat then, but for now, I will stay doing what I'm doing because it 100% works for my body.
Your mileage... may vary.0 -
Seriously? You honestly want us to believe that the 60-100 cals you don't factor into your overall burn prevented you from losing weight.... ? Honestly honestly?
I honestly do not care what you believe or not. I only care about achieving my goal and doing what I must to do that. I have found what works for me and will continue to do that despite what a random internet stranger believes. Whether you care enough about my opinion is also irrelevant to me. This is a message board. It's full of them.0 -
Seriously? You honestly want us to believe that the 60-100 cals you don't factor into your overall burn prevented you from losing weight.... ? Honestly honestly?
I honestly do not care what you believe or not. I only care about achieving my goal and doing what I must to do that. I have found what works for me and will continue to do that despite what a random internet stranger believes.
And see? We're back to knotty knickers again....0 -
I do understand the question and I do not think the mother the doctor knows exactly how MFP figures out the deficit before she offered her opinion. The exercise calories MFP gives you are basically net since they have already added in the 100 calories per hour regualrly used without exercise. As to the doctor/mother the same goes. The deficit is already figured in so it does not defeat the purpose to eat your exercise calories. That all being said yes the calories eaten may not be accurate everytime we log or the exercise calories are always an estimate whether HRM, MFP or cardio machine. So we need to customize a bit for ourselves. I personally eat most or some calories and leave some in case I have overestimated exercise or underestimated food. However the question becomes am I losing? Each of us needs to find the right calorie goal for ourselves and adjust as we change. No flaw just allowances for individual situations and normal inaccuracies.0
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Let me break down the math for everyone. I realize this isn't 100% for everyone, but being talked to like I'm a primitive monkey rubs me the wrong way.
As I am a moderately active male between the ages of 20-39, my BMR was calculated at 2800 calories per day. By remaining at my activity level of moderately active, I can in theory consume 2800 calories per day and maintain my current weight. MFP agrees with my trainer. Yay.
Setting my goal loss of 1 lb per week, MFP sets my goal calories of the day to 2230. The diet my trainer put me on is 2000. 230 is not a major number off hand but I'm going to stick with 2000.
When I do a full hour of eliptical or running, I burn over 1000 calories. From experience, if I eat those back (meaning I eat a total of 3230 calories a day), I will gain weight. If I eat half of those calories (meaning I eat a total of 2730 calories) I will maintain my weight. If I eat a few or none of those calories (meaning I stay around 2000 calories) I lose the weight.
That does not make sense, if your maintenance is 2800, and you burn 1000 cals your maintenance on that day is 3800, and you will not gain weight unless you eat more than 3800. This is of course if you are using MFP to get your 2800.
If you are going by what your trainer said, then some of that 1000 cals is already included in your TDEE at 2800. This is the problem with trying to put 2 separate programs together. Your trainer may have your maintenance (TDEE) at 2800 whereas MFP might have you at 2200, as the 2200 MFP gives you ignores exercise and with no exercise you would have to eat 1700 cals to lose 1 lb, but if you burn 400 cals you would have to eat 2100 cals to lose 1 lb/week.
I am thinking this is the issue here using trainers numbers in MFP, then no, the program will not work as intended.0 -
A calorie diff of 100 out of 600 is a 16.6% error (on top of whatever existing error there is)
Machine at the gym = indiscriminate calorie burn
MFP at least adjusts the calories burnt at your height/weight/age (and intensity if there is a variation available).
She's not talking about the error of machines vs MFP vs HRM
Yeah but there is more of a error there than the 100 cals. the original poster was asking about. This site is good for guestimating, it is a good tool. But by no means is it perfect. What type of shape are you, how strong your cardiovascular is, do you weigh your food, your metabolism, all these things are different for everybody. Do what you can learn your body, eat right, exercise. JMHO0 -
I do understand the question and I do not think the mother the doctor knows exactly how MFP figures out the deficit before she offered her opinion. The exercise calories MFP gives you are basically net since they have already added in the 100 calories per hour regualrly used without exercise. As to the doctor/mother the same goes. The deficit is already figured in so it does not defeat the purpose to eat your exercise calories. That all being said yes the calories eaten may not be accurate everytime we log or the exercise calories are always an estimate whether HRM, MFP or cardio machine. So we need to customize a bit for ourselves. I personally eat most or some calories and leave some in case I have overestimated exercise or underestimated food. However the question becomes am I losing? Each of us needs to find the right calorie goal for ourselves and adjust as we change. No flaw just allowances for individual situations and normal inaccuracies.
No the exercise cals MFP gives you are gross so entering that number directly you are double counting maintenance calories, for the duration of the exercise. This has been confirmed by Mike in the past.0 -
Let me break down the math for everyone. I realize this isn't 100% for everyone, but being talked to like I'm a primitive monkey rubs me the wrong way.
As I am a moderately active male between the ages of 20-39, my BMR was calculated at 2800 calories per day. By remaining at my activity level of moderately active, I can in theory consume 2800 calories per day and maintain my current weight. MFP agrees with my trainer. Yay.
Setting my goal loss of 1 lb per week, MFP sets my goal calories of the day to 2230. The diet my trainer put me on is 2000. 230 is not a major number off hand but I'm going to stick with 2000.
When I do a full hour of eliptical or running, I burn over 1000 calories. From experience, if I eat those back (meaning I eat a total of 3230 calories a day), I will gain weight. If I eat half of those calories (meaning I eat a total of 2730 calories) I will maintain my weight. If I eat a few or none of those calories (meaning I stay around 2000 calories) I lose the weight.
I weigh my food. I log it all. To lose weight my body requires that I NOT eat back the calories I burn from exercising. I do 100% realize that the caloric value MFP gives me is ALREADY a deficit.
I realize 100% that there are people who can consume their exercise calories and lose weight. Great for them! I also know people who spend one or two days out of the week in the gym for an hour each time, do nothing else all week, and look ripped and have a low body fat %. Not every body is built the same way.
So again to me there is a flaw with eating back your calories because to me it makes me gain my weight back. I need to remain at a total of 2000 or so calories consumed total per day to achieve weight loss. I will be upping my calories in May when I finish the current body fat program I'm on now as I will be down to 20-22% body fat then, but for now, I will stay doing what I'm doing because it 100% works for my body.
Your mileage... may vary.
More of a flaw in your BMR calculations IMHO. Since that's the biggest chunk of calories being calculated.0 -
BRM (BASE METABOLIC RATE) = what you burn sitting on your butt all day, no exercise, no movement, just what it takes to function your body, basically comotose
RMR (RESTING METABOLIC RATE) = what you burn sitting around, maybe going to and from the washroom, fetching your food, basically vegetating
TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) = What you burn doing daily activity and exercise + your BMR
Please.... Please, don't mix those things up.0 -
A calorie diff of 100 out of 600 is a 16.6% error (on top of whatever existing error there is)
Machine at the gym = indiscriminate calorie burn
MFP at least adjusts the calories burnt at your height/weight/age (and intensity if there is a variation available).
She's not talking about the error of machines vs MFP vs HRM
Yeah but there is more of a error there than the 100 cals. the original poster was asking about. This site is good for guestimating, it is a good tool. But by no means is it perfect. What type of shape are you, how strong your cardiovascular is, do you weigh your food, your metabolism, all these things are different for everybody. Do what you can learn your body, eat right, exercise. JMHO
Why add to the error? Might as well try to keep the error down as much as possible if it can be fixed.0 -
I do understand the question and I do not think the mother the doctor knows exactly how MFP figures out the deficit before she offered her opinion. The exercise calories MFP gives you are basically net since they have already added in the 100 calories per hour regualrly used without exercise. As to the doctor/mother the same goes. The deficit is already figured in so it does not defeat the purpose to eat your exercise calories. That all being said yes the calories eaten may not be accurate everytime we log or the exercise calories are always an estimate whether HRM, MFP or cardio machine. So we need to customize a bit for ourselves. I personally eat most or some calories and leave some in case I have overestimated exercise or underestimated food. However the question becomes am I losing? Each of us needs to find the right calorie goal for ourselves and adjust as we change. No flaw just allowances for individual situations and normal inaccuracies.
No the exercise cals MFP gives you are gross so entering that number directly you are double counting maintenance calories, for the duration of the exercise. This has been confirmed by Mike in the past.
But it's 60-100 cals per hour. The point is, it isn't a 'major flaw'. It can't make much of a difference at all, can it? Logically?0
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