Hello! Question...

Starlage

What do you guys think about calculating daily activity without exercise and then still eating exercise calories back? I only exercise about three days a week. It seems like that'd be the best way to do it when we're using MFP. I fully get that MFP underestimates your calorie goal- I rose mine up to 1600 a day a month and a half ago but now I'm thinking I should increase more now that my body's adjusted to the 1600.

If I calculate my daily activities without exercise I get 2021. When I add exercise to it (i usually burn between 325 and 400 somewhere when I do) it gives me 2334.

I guess I just don't see why I should be eating 2300 cals a day everyday when I only exercise about three or four times a week? Maybe I'll try setting it to 2000 a day and then on days I exercise try to eat most of the exercise cals back.

Right or totally wrong?

Starlage

and what do you think of this calculator?

http://www.health-calc.com/diet/energy-expenditure-advanced ACK! it told me about 2500 cals a day before exercise. wow! I'm a busy lady during the week (medical assistant) but on the weekends I sit on my rear most of the time that I'm not sleeping. Just confused abut balancing weekdays vs. weekends since it seems like sitting on my rear all day I'd need less to avoid gaining over the weekends. hmm.... I think I'm overthinking it and confusing myself!!!

heybales

and what do you think of this calculator?

http://www.health-calc.com/diet/energy-expenditure-advanced ACK! it told me about 2500 cals a day before exercise. wow! I'm a busy lady during the week (medical assistant) but on the weekends I sit on my rear most of the time that I'm not sleeping. Just confused abut balancing weekdays vs. weekends since it seems like sitting on my rear all day I'd need less to avoid gaining over the weekends. hmm.... I think I'm overthinking it and confusing myself!!!

No, you aren't over thinking, common concern. What usually happens with that kind of difference, is if you spot check one of your big workout days, your real calorie burned estimate, by HRM or something else, will probably cause you to really net below your current BMR a bit.
And while that is bad on constant basis, it is exactly the weekend that gives recovery and chance to grow muscle, and most importantly, keep metabolism guessing.

It really accomplished the same as a cheat day or spike day, because you have more calories than needed for that exact day, but it balances out a week probably running a little under BMR or much under BMR.
But, you are learning to eat at a normal level you'll be at anyway. It's hard to get back on maintenance for many, and stop wanting to do a big pigout day.

That calculator is exactly the same as the ExRx site actually for the activity calories, based on same research study. Just a different way of entering it. I'd be concerned someone would sit there and tweak the settings until they got what they think they wanted.
Now, their BMR calc is based on something else, and was 200 higher for me at goal weight.

I wouldn't be surprised if you are up near that figure anyway. Make sure you are sitting down when you do the ExRx site. And if you didn't see the topic on using that activity calc, need to read it for getting more accurate estimate.

Thanks for the calc site, some other fitness tests are described on there nicely. Though I could do without the flaky knob turning method.

heybales

What do you guys think about calculating daily activity without exercise and then still eating exercise calories back? I only exercise about three days a week. It seems like that'd be the best way to do it when we're using MFP. I fully get that MFP underestimates your calorie goal- I rose mine up to 1600 a day a month and a half ago but now I'm thinking I should increase more now that my body's adjusted to the 1600.

If I calculate my daily activities without exercise I get 2021. When I add exercise to it (i usually burn between 325 and 400 somewhere when I do) it gives me 2334.

I guess I just don't see why I should be eating 2300 cals a day everyday when I only exercise about three or four times a week? Maybe I'll try setting it to 2000 a day and then on days I exercise try to eat most of the exercise cals back.

Right or totally wrong?

If the ExRx activity calculator allows you to better nail your non-exercise daily activities, then sure, you could enter that into MFP by basically selecting the correct activity level (if it allowed you), same goal that drops you down near your BMR, and eat back exercise on just those days.

This method is just for many that do NOT like having fluctuating calories like that, and don't want to worry about estimating correctly what the workout was in calorie burn, ect.
Plus this method allows you to more closely nail the BMR range by just manually taking over the daily calorie goal.
The other activity selector is 4 ranges, and then weight loss goal is just a few choices.
Just simplified.

If you want a spot check of calc, 2300 does seem high for 3 workouts a week.

Find the topic on " this can't be right" and see what info I'll need.

Starlage

Ok than you very much for taking the time to respond. I've asked some of my MFP friends their opinions (who are also slowly, carefully, timindly increasing cals) and they agree with me to not tack on all of the cals at once, I'll do a step up method. I'll step up to 1850 for a couple of months and see how I respond, see if my body needs more time to adjust to that and then go up to the 2000 or so. I think I'm going to continue with the ExRx cals minus exercise. I use an HRM and feel like it does give me a pretty accurate burn estimate and at the same time have gotten pretty good at planning my day's calories in the morning for my breakfast, lunch and snacks to equal about 60% of my cals on non-workout days and 75-80% on workoutdays (therefore making it easier for me to eat the remaining 25% or so on workout days back during dinner and with a little after dinner treat). I'm pretty confident in the ability I've gained just over the last two months to get as close as I can to my goal calories for the day. As far as the weekend goes- thanks so much for clarifying. It helps once someone re-iterates what I already know but am too timid to jump to myself! lol. eating more cals when I'm sleeping 10hrs a night and sitting on my rear most of the day on the weekends is a little scary but when I used the calculators to do both it wasn't a huge difference so I think you're right and I'll just stick as close as I can to the goal as I can regardless of what day of the week it is.

I'm happy I found this group (and there's one other about women eating 2000+ cals) to back up my thoughts. Having a little medical training I've always felt I wasn't eating enough but when you're so focused on losing weight it's tough to acutally make that jump to eat more and temporarily possibly gain while your metabolism adjusts to the increase when you're working so hard to lose and focused to hard on that dang number on the scale. Besides losing the extra pounds ive gained over the last ten years the biggest goal is to get to and learn how to eat a healthy diet so I'm excited to eat more calories, add more a little later and eventually get to a normal maintainence calorie level while I watch the weight slowly come off.

THANKS!!!!!