Major Flaw in MFP and eating back your calories?

love4fitnesslove4food_wechange

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.

yes and no. if you build a deficit into your daily target (as MFP does) and then exercise beyond what is typical for you then you are creating an even larger deficit.

You would lost FASTER if you didn't eat them but you'd still lose if you ate them...you'd just lose at the same rate as you would had you done 0 exercise and eaten at your usual target.

However, that exercise might be building lean mass and therefore increasing your metabolic rate.

rubybeach

I just subtract a calorie/min that I exercised from what my heart rate monitor says... it works for me... probably not a huge deal either way

Yes, I do this too...and then I eat back all but about 10-50 exercise calories. It's worked well for me. Before I started maintenance, I averaged a pound a week loss for 46 weeks.

I do the same thing, (using a HRM) I subtract my RMR and then eat back the remaining calories.

JacksMom12

Thank you! The fist person out of 20 that actually answered what the OP was saying.
I have started mentally subtracting my TDEE (rough estimate) from my workout calories and only eating the "net" exercise calories. If I burn 300 in an hour and my TDEE for that hour is 100, I just eat back the 200. I understand exactly what OP is asking, because I've thought about this many times myself. I think most people did not understand what you were saying. Very good point.

One thing I have been wondering is why MFP does not incorporate NET workout calories. Since you burn calories constantly, you need to subtract your baseline calories for that amount of time you worked out right?

Lets say someone's basal metabolic rate is 2400 calories a day. That's and average of 100 calories an hour. They work out 1 hour and burn 600 calories. MFP would tell that person that they could eat 3000 calories that day. BUT what MFP does not factor in is that, for that 1 hour they worked out, they would have burned 100 calories that hour without working out. Therefore, their net work out calories burned is 500. So, they could eat 2900 calories, and 3000 calories would actually lead to a weight gain right?

I try not to eat my workout calories, but I'm just wondering since a lot of people do. Any ideas?

No, MFP accounts for that already.
MFP has already figured out your total calories you need to eat per day to lose 1lb etc. a week.
That's WITHOUT exercise. You'll notice that when you actually add exercise in, the calorie limit goes up to include what you would have burned doing nothing.

You missed her point, she is saying of the 600 that you burned from exercise would you not have burned 100 of those had you not worked out.

The answer is yes if you add the full 600 you would double count the 100 cals as calories burned is total cals, not extra or net cals burned from exercise. So if you didn't workout for that hour and watched EV instead you would have burned 100 instead of 600.

For those that don't eat your exercise calories, don't use this as an excuse as why not, you could just choose to eat 75-90% of them. If you are following MFP caloric intake before exercise you should not have more than 100 or so cals remaining at the end of the after exercise is entered. leaving this little wiggle room will account for that flaw, but it isn't MFP's flaw it is the way all cardio machines, on-line calorie burned calculator and even HRM's are programed. They were not set up with MFP in mind.

Jeff92se

It's not clarified (not in the original post) how the exercise calories were calculated.

ie.. HRM = exercise calories + BMR calories. so you'd have to subtract xx amount to get to the actual exercise calories.

MFP = exercise calories only (or I assume) so nothing extra needs to be subtracted

If the OP is getting the calories burned from a gym machine, then who knows

persian_star

Bump

erickirb

It's not clarified (not in the original post) how the exercise calories were calculated.

ie.. HRM = exercise calories + BMR calories. so you'd have to subtract xx amount to get to the actual exercise calories.

MFP = exercise calories only (or I assume) so nothing extra needs to be subtracted

If the OP is getting the calories burned from a gym machine, then who knows

Most likely MFP's exercise cals also included Maintenance calories, as they are typically higher then a HRM and they pulled the equations from elsewhere, so it probably included maintenance.

love4fitnesslove4food_wechange

Thank you! The fist person out of 20 that actually answered what the OP was saying.
I have started mentally subtracting my TDEE (rough estimate) from my workout calories and only eating the "net" exercise calories. If I burn 300 in an hour and my TDEE for that hour is 100, I just eat back the 200. I understand exactly what OP is asking, because I've thought about this many times myself. I think most people did not understand what you were saying.

I completely understand the point being made but the reason I choose to eat 100% of exercise calories despite working out for 2 hours or do a day--I think the afterburn effect is significant enough that the error is nearly negligible. I was keeping a 100 "buffer" just because but in all honesty our bodies are pretty forgiving and we are not precise enough to correct for all of the potential sources of error so I say just do your best and monitor your results--then adjust as needed

watboy

Agree 100%

This has been the experience of many however many have also experienced weightloss eating back their calories.

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.

grinch031

Regardless of what MFP or any other calculator says you are burning during exercise, you should assume that it is an overestimation. It is probably a bad idea to eat back *all* the exercise calories that you think you are burning.

watboy

My thoughts exactly.

Regardless of what MFP or any other calculator says you are burning during exercise, you should assume that it is an overestimation. It is probably a bad idea to eat back *all* the exercise calories that you think you are burning.

HMonsterX

I trust my Polar FT4, leave a 10-20% margin for error at the end of the day, and eat whatever i like. Never felt healther, stronger, fitter.

41degsouth

The HRM I have logs virtually no calories burned if I wear it sitting around, but does when I exercise. It appears to be subtracting the BMR content for me. Very useful. It matches almost exactly with a website I found that estimates calories burned walking various routes in my local area, based on my weight, so I'm wondering if both are set up to do that.

latinpr

Ok. Just so I understand to lose 1 lb a week

Setting the goal to maintain weight reflects close to BMR in MFP and you aim to either eat 500 calories less or log exercise to burn 500 calories and and do NOT eat the calories back? In either case the result is to always have 500 less net calories by the end of the night?



If you include the weight loss goal of 1 lb, you should eat what the calories say on off days (which includes a 500 calorie deficit built in) and when logging exercises on workout days, you should eat the calories back as well because you will have a natural deficit of 500 + whatever you burned during Exercise)?

By the way, I have my MFP profile to have a goal of losing 1.5 lbs a week and lightly active. My GOAL calories is set at 1,620. The days I dont work out I eat up to 1,620 calories. The days I do work out I eat 1,620 calories + the calories I burned. Am I doing it right?