Question about Goals...

mcdowellh

I know I am going to regret asking this, because I probably should know the answer. How come when my goals are set for no exercising and wanting to lose 1 lb a week that I get 1270 calories a day and if I change it to working out 4 or even 5 times a week @ 20 minutes each, I still get 1270 a day? Looks like it would be less with no exercise or more with exercise. What am I missing here?
Thanks!

susannamarie

MFP will add your exercise calories in on the day that you eat them. So if you work out and burn -- let's say -- 200 calories -- when you enter the exercise, it will add 200 to your calorie goal for that day.

Edited to add: I much prefer it this way, as then if I have a bad exercise week or an unusually heavy exercise week I don't even have to think about how to modify my goals or how many extra to eat.

erickirb

MFP gives you a caloric intake to lose your goal amount of weight with no exercise. Your goal is just a goal, MFP will add the calories when you log the exercise you actually did, not planned on doing. This is why you should be eating back the cals you burn from exercise.

This way your deficit is the same everyday, if it was based on your goals your caloric intake would be the same everyday but your deficit would be different everyday depending on what exercise you did or didn't do. (MFPs way is a more accurate way of meeting you weekly weight loss goals, as if you goal was used and you burned more or less than that goal each day, then your weekly deficit would not be correct to lose your goal amount of weight)

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, if you are not eating them back then your daily activity level should reflect the higher burn with would be covered in the 1750/day above. (change your activity level from sedentary to active is one way to do this)