Frustrated?? Before you go and eat back your exercise calori

Prefessa

This sounds great but is there an easier way to do this? I am a stay at home homeschooling mom of six and I just don't have the time or money for a hrm. would it be okay to eat back only half of my exercise calories ? Do you think I would still get results?

Yup! All you need to do is determine everything empirically. You need to have the dicipline to very accurately count calories in, then be committed to eating back say 1/2 your exercise calories. Then after each week, measure calories in, calories out and then measure weight loss. For every pound lost you created a 3500 cal deficit......so if you loose nothing for like 2 weeks, then eat back like 25% of your exercise calories. It can be done only if your workout regimin is predictable. For instance things like running, or outdoor cycling can vary drastically with terain or prevalent winds, but a machine like a treadmill is more consistent. Same with classes like Spin or Zumba, there are easy instructors and difficult ones. Once you figure out what it takes to loose a pound everything can be back calculated.

So if your TDEE as determined is say 1500 cals, and your lifesyle predominately sedentary....Divide 1500 by 1.2 and that is your RMR. make the assumption that RMR=SMR and do the math to figure out your AMR/hr that you now subtract from the exercise calories given by MFP...it takes a little more time and effort....but it costs nothing. Its like sweat equity!

Prefessa

wow, lots of info there and it totally makes sense....if I sent you my numbers would you just do the math for me

Sure! PM me the numbers and I'll be glad to help!

ebaymommy

Would be interesting to see how a BodyMedia Fit or BodyBugg correlates to the tests that you mentioned! Sure be easier if they did

I wear a BodyMedia Fit. I'm a pretty small person (5'5", 121lbs) and I burn about 1 calorie a minute at rest (sleeping, watching tv, driving in a car, etc.) so about 1440 day even if I'm on my rear end all day long. I'm not a roofer or construction worker but I have a work-at-home job with a house, husband and 2 children to care for so I'm rarely on my rear end all day long (some days I wish!).

On a "sedentary" day for me (no formal workout) I usually burn 2000-2100 calories. Workout days for me range from a burn of 2500-3700 depending what I'm doing. I found that my BMF burns are *pretty* similar to what MFP gives, some a little more, some a little less. I think a lot of people (me included before I got my BMF) discount how much little daily activities add up.

Just FYI if you are super-super honest (like maybe try writing down for a couple days the exact minutes you do things) this calculator is quite accurate for giving you a TDEE:
http://www.health-calc.com/diet/energy-expenditure-advanced

If I plug in the minutes I'm actually doing the activities then it gives me just about spot-on the same burn as my BMF shows.

Prefessa

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I found that my BMF burns are *pretty* similar to what MFP gives, some a little more, some a little less. I think a lot of people (me included before I got my BMF) discount how much little daily activities add up.

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What that means is your body fits the statistics used to calculate average net calorie expenditure that MFP uses, For those of us on the tail ends of the bell curve...a device like a BMF or Body Bugg are great tools.

I know what you mean about activities adding up....When I fish, I can burn up to about 400 cals/hr depending on what type and in the past a good season of surf casting would often strip 20+ pounds off me by the time I stowed the gear away for the season. Also I can relate to houshold chores(Mowing Lawns and Landscaping) and chasing after my kids can give significant calorie burn.

BodyElectric1

Bump

jaimemariel

bump for later