Do the cardio calories account for not sitting

meznaric

What I mean is, when you walk for a half hour you burn 120 calories so it subtracts that from the food you've eaten, however, your base calories of 1800 stays the same. Isn't it double counting the time spent walking as time sedentary in the base calories? Like those 30 minutes are counted as you not doing anything (maybe 20 cals in a half hour) plus the 120 from walking in that half hour for a total of 140 calories burned as opposed to just the -120. When you add the 120 calorie exercise it should make your base drop the 20 calories it allotted to sitting for a net addition to your daily calories of only ( -100). For extended periods of time I feel like this can skew the number a good 100-200 calories. Anyone get what I'm trying to explain? haha

- Chris

summergirl73

sorta

secretlobster

The 1800 already takes into account time spent resting.

ssdivot

I think I understand what you are asking. My base calories to eat is 1500. If I sit around doing nothing while awake I burn about 80 calories in an hour (I have a Bodymedia Fit and that is what it says anyway). If I do an hour of walking and burn 400 calories going by what my treadmill or hrm monitor says (they agree with each other amazingly) so I really had a net gain of calories of 320 vs doing nothing. But MFP will tell me to eat 1900 instead of 1820 if I input this exercise. Is this what you mean? I don't think MFP does account for subtracting out what you would have burned anyway. I just use my number of calories burned from my Bodymedia Fit to decide how much is reasonable to eat for that day so it doesn't affect me personally but what you are asking is something I've wondered about myself and I used to underestimate my exercise numbers when I put them into MFP for that reason.

neanderthin

Yup. Even heart rate monitors are counting the calories the body burns and at a specific time, but the calories the body burns otherwise is not accounted for, not double dipping, but close.

meznaric

I think I understand what you are asking. My base calories to eat is 1500. If I sit around doing nothing while awake I burn about 80 calories in an hour (I have a Bodymedia Fit and that is what it says anyway). If I do an hour of walking and burn 400 calories going by what my treadmill or hrm monitor says (they agree with each other amazingly) so I really had a net gain of calories of 320 vs doing nothing. But MFP will tell me to eat 1900 instead of 1820 if I input this exercise. Is this what you mean? I don't think MFP does account for subtracting out what you would have burned anyway. I just use my number of calories burned from my Bodymedia Fit to decide how much is reasonable to eat for that day so it doesn't affect me personally but what you are asking is something I've wondered about myself and I used to underestimate my exercise numbers when I put them into MFP for that reason.

Yes this is exactly what I'm talking about. What is bodymedia Fit?

secretlobster

The amount of calories MFP recommends to you is based on your BMR... The amount of calories your body burns doing nothing.
If you add an exercise, your daily allotted calories go up based on how many calories you've burned. But yes those calories that you're still burning just by being alive, even if you're asleep, are still part of the total "allowance".

Or am I not getting it...?

ssdivot

He's saying that ok...lets say I burn 80 calories per hour sitting around, and 400 while doing some kind of exercise. The 80 was already included in the pre-exercise calories that MFP recommended to you to eat. If my HRM or some other indicator says that I burned 400 calories in an hour doing the exercise, then it really is only 320 more that I should eat, rather than 400.

Oh and the Bodymedia Fit is this thing you wear on your arm that keeps track of how many calories you are burning throughout the whole day. It uses sensors for motion and temperature and moisture I think. It is supposed to be accurate within 10 percent and the numbers for me are in line with what other types of BMR calculators give me, so I think it is pretty close. So instead of keeping track of how many calories I burn doing particular exercises, I just use the total at the end of the day and use that number to figure about how many calories to eat for the desired deficit.

Mez, there have been a lot of posts about the Bodymedia Fit and Fitbit which is another type of device to do the same sort of of thing, if you do forum search . Or google...they are pretty neat devices.