Can I really eat my exercise points???

Sunlight2011
Sunlight2011 Posts: 75 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Or is it just a cruel ploy. I've done at least three hours of fairly heavy gardening today and it says I've burned over 700 cals which its added to my available calories. Is this right? Could all of the digging up roots have paid off?
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Replies

  • kgprice11
    kgprice11 Posts: 749 Member
    Or is it just a cruel ploy. I've done at least three hours of fairly heavy gardening today and it says I've burned over 700 cals which its added to my available calories. Is this right? Could all of the digging up roots have paid off?

    To be frankly honest I would not add that to my "exercise" portion of the MFP. But thats up to you. Yes I would eat my exercise calories. Good Luck and keep it up
  • mollyv09
    mollyv09 Posts: 7
    My rule of thumb is to eat only half of your exercise points. It's a little bonus, but you're not over-doing it, either!!
  • staceyhavard
    staceyhavard Posts: 7
    I try not to eat my exercise calories...as I don't want to just break even, I want to end the day within my calories given only. For instance, today, my caloric intake is 1200, but according to my calories I have, (1600 some) I don't want to eat all of those. I'll stick to the 1200 to see the greatest change in my body.
  • souperficial
    souperficial Posts: 122 Member
    I eat about half of them. That leaves wiggle room for mfp overestimating calories burned, and me underestimating calories eaten.
  • MikeInAZ
    MikeInAZ Posts: 483 Member
    I wouldn't. I used to do that and weight loss was slow. I started eating back only about 1/3 to 1/2 of them and weight dropped off quickly. Don't believe you are going into "Starvation mode" if you are under eating about 500 calories per day 3-5 days a week, you might have a problem after a couple of months (according to Dr. Oz).

    Don't go out of your way to eat back ALL your exercise calories, just some of them to make you feel comfortable.
  • Brandie1029
    Brandie1029 Posts: 183 Member
    I usually eat back half to allow for error and over estimation. Seems to be working for me for the last 7 months! :drinker:
  • chantels1
    chantels1 Posts: 391 Member
    Never trust the gardening calories burned... It lies! I think it is calculating if you are shoveling for hours! LOL! As for eating back your actual exercise calories, YES!!! Eat at least 1/2 of them back. I try to. My diary is open to friends if you want to see. It's been working great for me!
  • happythermia
    happythermia Posts: 374
    I think sometimes MFP overestimates exercise calories. So, I wouldn't eat all of them, but I'd eat some for sure...lol!

    I think the half rule is a safe way to go! If you want to know how many calories you burn, wear a heart rate monitor while you're gardening to see if your heart rate goes up. :-)
  • Sunlight2011
    Sunlight2011 Posts: 75 Member
    Thanks for the advice. Its just when I saw those extra calories I imagined all the stuff I could have but now I've settled down I'm not going to eat them all but maybe have a treat. Thanks again.
  • Shoshannah68
    Shoshannah68 Posts: 14
    That's what I do and I'm down quite a bit. I never eat them.
  • fatonthemountain
    fatonthemountain Posts: 3
    i eat back only the calories burned from regular exercise. there is too much room for error in everything else. it is a slower weight loss, but more satisfying to me and hopefully lasting.
  • JaySpice
    JaySpice Posts: 326 Member
    Depends on how you calculated your calories. If you let MFP calculate how many calories you should eat...then yes. Eat back your calories. If you calculated your calories from a formula that includes your exercise level...then no.

    Oh. Just read your post more carefully and saw you were talking about gardening. No. Don't eat back those calories.
  • CyberEd312
    CyberEd312 Posts: 3,536 Member
    I eat every last one of them little critters!!! lol Got to fuel my body for these workout's... MFP still has a deficit built in (1/2 lb. a week for me) of 250 calories less a day off my BMR... So my exercise calories are just that to fuel my body...... Best of Luck....
  • Genem30
    Genem30 Posts: 431 Member
    Stuff like gardening, cleaning, etc. are exactly what an HRM should be used for. MFP tells me I lose 1k calories after an hour in the pool, not swimming laps or anything, just "Swimming, leisurely, general". I don't even know what that means, lol. It tells me I burn over 1400 calories in an hour on the elliptical, but with the HRM it's actually only right at 1000. The figures on MFP are a rough generalization at best, a "best case scenario" if anything. Cutting them in half is probably about right in most cases.
  • Excellentia
    Excellentia Posts: 182
    My rule of thumb is to eat only half of your exercise points. It's a little bonus, but you're not over-doing it, either!!

    LIKE!
  • runfatmanrun
    runfatmanrun Posts: 1,090 Member
    If you can eat you can eat you exercise cals. And I say eat them.
  • DanRyan44
    DanRyan44 Posts: 6 Member
    You can really simplify weight loss by looking at it this way.
    If you burn MORE than you consume, you will lose. BUT you have to know what your Resting Metobolic Rate [RMR] is. My RMR is 1950 calories. I have my diet set at 1650 calories, so I am burning more calories than I am consuming. I like to walk a couple days a week [3-4 miles]. I only eat a portion of my activity calories if I really "hit" it hard. Like a 15-20 mile bike ride or something that gets my heart rate going for a long time and I really sweat alot.
    Just my .02. It is working for me. I am down 46 lbs in 3 months. That's a 3.8 lb average per week.

    Thanks for the post and good luck.
  • temsabi
    temsabi Posts: 45 Member
    I always eat back my exercise calories. When I do I still lose considerably. However, don't eat way over your calories on weekends like I do. It makes all that loss pointless... :I
  • FrugalMomsRock75
    FrugalMomsRock75 Posts: 698 Member
    I try not to eat my exercise calories...as I don't want to just break even, I want to end the day within my calories given only. For instance, today, my caloric intake is 1200, but according to my calories I have, (1600 some) I don't want to eat all of those. I'll stick to the 1200 to see the greatest change in my body.

    But ask yourself: do I want to do this most healthy way, or the unhealthy way? 1200 calories is already eating at a deficit. Eating 800 net (as in your proposed example) is neither healthy, nor sustainable. You WILL reach a breaking point, and it won't be pretty. Aside from that, instead of losing fat, you are losing more muscle than if you were properly fueling your body.

    Take it or leave it. I'm just giving a solid POV.

    OP-yes; you really can eat your exercise calories. Whether you include the gardening should be based on what you set your lifestyle to. If you put it to sedentary, I'd count it and eat back about 75% (to give room for error). If you set your lifestyle to active, I wouldn't count it. That's part of an active lifestyle. I eat my exercise calories, and I still consistently lose weight. I have an HRM for a little more accuracy than the calculations here...
  • Spanaval
    Spanaval Posts: 1,200 Member
    I did some gardening (2 hrs. 45 minutes) a couple of weekends ago, and logged about an hour or hour and a half of it. I wore my HRM for 45 minutes of it, but I know that I wasn't doing strenuous stuff the entire time, and subtracted my hourly BMR (guesstimate) from it.
  • adam1885282
    adam1885282 Posts: 135 Member
    I use them as cushion but never eat more than half. I think MFP overestimates. Runkeeper consistiently gives me credit for fewer calories than MFP does. If you're not using a heart rate monitor, no measure will be perfectly accurate.
  • jennifermartinez1112
    jennifermartinez1112 Posts: 120
    i was told by my nutritionist that i should eat them to back, but i only eat back about half of them
  • Leslie85
    Leslie85 Posts: 265 Member
    Or is it just a cruel ploy. I've done at least three hours of fairly heavy gardening today and it says I've burned over 700 cals which its added to my available calories. Is this right? Could all of the digging up roots have paid off?

    To be frankly honest I would not add that to my "exercise" portion of the MFP. But thats up to you. Yes I would eat my exercise calories. Good Luck and keep it up

    I don't add anything like this either. I don't garden, but I work on a University campus, so I do a ton of walking (sometimes light jogging when I'm running late haha) and I don't log it. I only log actual exercise- and I eat back the calories, but I've got wiggle room because there's a lot of stuff I don't log.
  • msmata
    msmata Posts: 1
    MFP is a great app to manage what you eat so that you do not over eat. But I have realized that what you log in for your daily exercise and the calories it says you burn is not accurate. Actually it is waaaayyy over what you are truly burning. I would suggest if you want to keep using MFP to log your exercise maybe trying finding a great calorie calculator and figure out what you are really burning that way you know what you are really doing.
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,294 Member
    Or is it just a cruel ploy. I've done at least three hours of fairly heavy gardening today and it says I've burned over 700 cals which its added to my available calories. Is this right? Could all of the digging up roots have paid off?

    MFP is designed for you to eat them, but the cals burned the site gives tend to be too high.
    You may have burned 700 during that time, but some of it you would have burned had you not gardened anyway. In 180 minutes you probably burn 180 to 270 cals if you did nothing, and those would already be accounted for in your daily intake in MFP. If you are going to eat the exercise calories I would urge you to back out what you would have burned had you not exercised, so in this case you would override the number MFP gives you with 430-520 (700-180 to 270)
  • softballsharie
    softballsharie Posts: 154 Member
    I eat every single calorie that I exercise off back, and I've lost 47 lbs. in 6 months. MFP already sets you at a deficit, so no matter what, you're still eating at a deficit. Also, it's dangerous to not eat enough calories. So I say if you've earned it, indulge a little. ;]
  • ZombieSlayer
    ZombieSlayer Posts: 369 Member
    Or is it just a cruel ploy. I've done at least three hours of fairly heavy gardening today and it says I've burned over 700 cals which its added to my available calories. Is this right? Could all of the digging up roots have paid off?

    YES! That's the way the site is designed to work... and gardening burns a ton of calories if you're doing it right. (Per BodyBugg, my highest calorie burn days, over the last year, were heavy cleaning or gardening days).
  • reggie2run
    reggie2run Posts: 477 Member
    My rule of thumb is to eat only half of your exercise points. It's a little bonus, but you're not over-doing it, either!!

    This!
  • Leslie85
    Leslie85 Posts: 265 Member
    MFP is a great app to manage what you eat so that you do not over eat. But I have realized that what you log in for your daily exercise and the calories it says you burn is not accurate. Actually it is waaaayyy over what you are truly burning. I would suggest if you want to keep using MFP to log your exercise maybe trying finding a great calorie calculator and figure out what you are really burning that way you know what you are really doing.

    Another reason I don't log things like walking all over campus multiple times a day and cleaning and cooking and all that good stuff. I log my exercise, which I figure is more than I actually burned, but I don't log anything else that burns calories (like walking all over campus and climbing 3 flights of stairs several times a day). That way, it probably all evens out in the end.
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,294 Member
    MFP is a great app to manage what you eat so that you do not over eat. But I have realized that what you log in for your daily exercise and the calories it says you burn is not accurate. Actually it is waaaayyy over what you are truly burning. I would suggest if you want to keep using MFP to log your exercise maybe trying finding a great calorie calculator and figure out what you are really burning that way you know what you are really doing.

    Another reason I don't log things like walking all over campus multiple times a day and cleaning and cooking and all that good stuff. I log my exercise, which I figure is more than I actually burned, but I don't log anything else that burns calories (like walking all over campus and climbing 3 flights of stairs several times a day). That way, it probably all evens out in the end.

    If you do a lot of non-exercise stuff, then you should have your activity level set to active or light active, which will give you cals towards those extras.

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