Completely Confused

ajcamber

Well, I just started this and I am really confused about one thing. I earned 1,411 calories by exercising and it was added to the total calories that I am supposed to consume for the day which brings me over 3,000. How am I supposed to eat that much and still lose weight?

cvaldays

I try not count my calories that I get from exercise.

delilah47

Recalculate your exercise calories unless you ran a marathon.

Overestimating exercise calories is just as bad as not logging food. Make sure you set up your profile preferences correctly too.

RunsForFood

I generally don't eat the extra calories I earn working out unless it's a ton, then I will eat some of them. I wouldn't worry too much about taking in that much food. If you feel good about your intake for the day then don't worry

syradove

No, don't count the extra calories, just keep eating and staying under the smaller number before the excercise. Wow really? You burned 1400 calories? That must have been one heck of a workout!

bigredhearts

what are you counting as exercise?

butterfli7o

Whoa!!! Are you sure you burned that many calories??

lizard053

I eat 1/2 to 2/3 of my exercise calories most of the time. I have gotten over 3000 calories before. Ate about 2500, still lost weight. MFP truly works! Just make sure you over-estimate how much you've eaten and under-estimate how much you burn.

Fay84Vegan

It depends on what you NET for the day that matters..

If your daily calorie allowance is eg 1500 you then burn 1000 calories through exercise and you didn't eat back your exercise calories you would NET 500 calories which is WAY too LOW to function normally.

Make sure you NET at least you BMR everyday so you can function properly and that way it will help you to lose weight.

It's not about eating as few caloires as possible it's about eating the right amount of calories to help your body lose weight.

SirZee

Can't comment much, diary is not open. However, don't blindly eat back all of the calories, we and MFP tend to overestimate cal burned, and underestimate cal consumed. I just eat my daily cal allowance, and use the exercise calories as justification if I feel like eating a bit more

Tomorrow I am going to be negative cal for the day for sure, given that I play two hockey games, and coach two soccer games.

leannems

The calories are likely overestimated, but most folks on MFP will recommend that you eat at least 1/2 of them back.

There are some people who say they cannot eat their exercise calories back, because they'll gain weight, so you have to find out what works best for you.

I lose better when I eat mine back. BTW - what kind of workout are you doing that burns that much? I almost never burn over 1000.

Jamie2007

What the heck did you do to burn 1,411 calories??!!

ajcamber

I lap swim. I used their calculator and just plugged in what type of exercise I chose freestyle swim light/moderate and 60 minutes and that is what it gave me.
Like I said I am really confused.

cbbn11

Well, I just started this and I am really confused about one thing. I earned 1,411 calories by exercising and it was added to the total calories that I am supposed to consume for the day which brings me over 3,000. How am I supposed to eat that much and still lose weight?

How did you earn 1,411 calories? Unless you were riding a bike for about 5 hours this seems rather high. I would try recalculating you calories burned.

If this is what you really did burn you have to give out your secret because I know I would love to burn that much in a day...:happy:

And welcome to MFP BTW.

Edit: Ah you posted before I did...lol

gerirojas

I bought a Heart Rate Monitor and come to find out I wasn't burning nearly as many calories as the tools on MFP said I did

ElPumaMex

To find the answer, here is a recent thread on the same subject:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/561583-why-replace-excercised-calories

The thread also has a bunch of links to previous discussions.

BAMFMeredith

Recalculate your exercise calories unless you ran a marathon.

Overestimating exercise calories is just as bad as not logging food. Make sure you set up your profile preferences correctly too.

I burn that many calories (if not more) every Saturday a 12 mile run usually does it! Those are my "fun food" days where I get to eat something I normally wouldn't, so I can stay in my calorie limits and splurge a little!

Also, the bigger you are, the bigger your burn. I burn a lot less calories in one hour than somebody twice my size, but I burn a lot more calories in one hour than somebody 50 lbs lighter....so, it's possible for the OP to burn that many calories on a regular basis.

To answer the OP though, I don't eat back all my exercise calories every day. When I have my fun food day, I get close, because I'm usually indulging, but otherwise my intake is usually between 1400-1700 calories regardless of how much I exercise. As long as your body feels fueled and you're able to get through your workout, don't sweat eating extra calories just for the sake of eating them.

iremmy

Unless you are using a heart rate monitor when you exercise you really cant know that you burned that many calories. I found that when I put my exercises in before purchasing an HRM that My fitness pal WAY over estimated my calories burned. Just FYI in case you were not using one. Hope that helps

ladyraven68

Well, I just started this and I am really confused about one thing. I earned 1,411 calories by exercising and it was added to the total calories that I am supposed to consume for the day which brings me over 3,000. How am I supposed to eat that much and still lose weight?

MFP calculates your Daily expenditure, without exercise, and then takes a defict from it to allow you to lose weight based on what goals and info you set.

If you exercise you make that deficit larger and too large a defict is not recommended so you need to eat back teh calories to maintain the deficit you set.

Assuming you set a 500 defict for 1lb a week, by burning a further 1400, you have made a defict of almost 2000.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/206951-asked-my-trainer-re-eating-back-calories

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/539912-why-eating-exercise-calories-is-so-important

cmriverside

.

loseweightjames

I try not count my calories that I get from exercise.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^ this.

MaggieCorbs

I just started today, and was happy to get the 150 calories from a walk.
Good for you, I have to take up swimming!!!

caviarblack

I would definitely get a heart rate monitor for better accuracy. Just to give you an idea of how off MFP's calculator can be, my elliptical screen will say I burned about 330 calories in 30 minutes, but MFP will say it's more like 600. If I do eat any of my workout points, I do so as a last resort, and try not to eat more than 25% of them. Good luck!

Kendralatricewilliams

I dont eat back my calories

bigredhearts

I lap swim. 2000yards in an hour. I used their calculator and just plugged in what type of exercise I chose freestyle swim light/moderate and 60 minutes and that is what it gave me.
Like I said I am really confused.

safely, i would start with eating half those cals back, just in case mfp over-estimates (which it can). then if you find your losing, you can stick with that number and tweak it as you go

britexmom

that might be a really high estimation of cals burned...unless you are using a HRM that is really accurate. i just checked out a couple of other websites and unless you weigh 300-400lbs and are swimming nonstop at a moderate to fast pace i doubt you burned that much...i would go with 50% to be on the safe side, and then maybe eat back 35% of that to allow for over estimation of food cals (we all overestimate w/out menaing to).

BigMamy

When you say you lap swim. Are you constantly at it for a whole hour? My kids swimming coach says swimming doesn't eat up that many calories. An hour of breastroke give 848 calories according to MFP but the swim coach says it more like half of that. To get what you got, you must have been doing frontcrawl or butterfly the whole 60 minutes non stop and probably more. I reckon 600 calories would be more like it for a constant hours swim. But I'm no profesional.

cynthiaj777

Unless you are using a heart rate monitor when you exercise you really cant know that you burned that many calories. I found that when I put my exercises in before purchasing an HRM that My fitness pal WAY over estimated my calories burned. Just FYI in case you were not using one. Hope that helps

Exactly.

I realized I was highly undereating because my basic calorie burn for a normal day was around 2300 BEFORE exercise. I had been eating 1200. That's an 1100 deficit plus any more deficit gained from exercise, and I wasn't losing anymore. My body had entered a pseudo starvation mode, and I was holding onto fat.

I upped my calories slowly after using my HRM to find out my REAL average daily calorie expenditure. On a normal day, app. 2300. On days that I sit on my couch for 9 hours then go right back to sleep, 1300 (I do this on Saturday and Sunday). So, I set my calories to 1450 per day for maintenance. And if I exercise for the day, which I do Monday through Friday, and depending on the exercise, I burn between 400-1000 calories a work out. So, on a normal day I'm BMR burning 2300ish plus an additional 400-1000, which is 2700-3300 calories a day I'm burning.

Because of this, I eat from 1800-2200 calories a day. And guess what? I haven't gained any weight almost doubling my calories, and I've lost body fat percentage. If you take my lowest NORMAL burn of 2700 minus what I'm eating at my highest 2200, I still have a deficit of 500 calories AT LEAST a day. I'm 5'2" and 122 lbs. with 20% BF.

None of this possible without a HRM.

Buy one.



edit: To more plainly answer your question. I have my calories set to 1450, and I'm eating 1800-2200 a day. So, yes, I am eating back my exercise calories. Almost all of them. Just never more than them. MFP doesn't give the right calorie burns for exercise. Calorie burn is specific to weight, height, age and HR.

arcticbutterfly

There is no way you burned 1411 doing any kind of swimmimg in an hour. thats about 1000 calories to much. I am burning 500 for an hour of kickboxing and 680 for an hour on the treadmill at a 9 incline.

tinkermommc

I lap swim. 2000yards in an hour. I used their calculator and just plugged in what type of exercise I chose freestyle swim light/moderate and 60 minutes and that is what it gave me.
Like I said I am really confused.

Yayy swimming! ignore all the neighsayers. They don't swim. And it burns calories like crazy!! I swim too if you can't tell ;-) We have a Swimmers! group. You should join us if you haven't already. For swimming it's a whole day thing for me. I eat more calories at breakfast, add a glass of milk or a piece of toast. Not much but it helps I can't swim if I've not eaten enough. Then before swimming a little snack, nuts, dried fruit, cheese stick, something. After swimming lunch, heavy on protein. Usually large because I'm starving. Then an afternoon snack with a smoothie of some kind or milk if I didn't have some earlier in the day. Dinner is usually my splurge for the week, we'll do pizza or spaghetti something higher calorie that normally I couldn't enjoy. And after all that I usually have 600-800 calories left. I might have a treat of some kind but I never eat all the calories back.

Swimming is awesome. But remember as you lose weight you will burn less so if you swim now you get to splurge but later it will be less. But always something to be proud of!

cynthiaj777

:grumble: Merrr I wish I could delete blank comments on thread. WHY CAN'T I DELETE MY OWN COMMENTS MFPPPPPP