Exercise Calories on MFP

mommymeryl

Hi there. . .I am new to the MFP site. . .thanks in advance for any help. I am also on WW and have been since November. ..double tracking for the moment to see if there is any difference.

So, on WW, if I workout I get Activity Points that i can choose to eat or not eat during the week.

On MFP if I workout, I get extra points for that day. . .to make up for those calories burned. But if I eat those calories, isn't it like I dind't work out at all? Do I have to eat them? Can I choose not to? And if I want to eat them, I need to eat them that day, versus on WW where I have them for the week?

Also -it appears that if I stick straight to the 26 points on WW that I can have and no extra weekly or activity points, that works out CLOSE (but a bit more) then the 1200 calories MFP says I can have to lose 1 lb a week. . .but if i eat the allowed weekly its much more. .

Any thoughts anyone?

JesterMFP

You don't [i[have[/i] to eat them back, it is of course completely up to you how much you eat. However, to follow MFP the way it was designed, yes you are supposed to eat them back.

Eating back your exercise calories won't ruin your calorie deficit. When you set up with MFP and put in your activity level etc, MFP gives you a calorie goal with a built-in calorie deficit that corresponds to how much you said you wanted to lose a week. This calorie goal is given to you based on the assumption that you log any exercise you do (over and above your activity level) and eat those calories back. When you do extra exercise, you make your calorie goal bigger, when you eat the calories back, you bring that deficit back to what MFP recommends for the rate of weight loss you chose. For most people, 1200 calories is not a lot to eat when you are actively exercising.

A lot of people on here will say they don't eat their exercise calories back - it can be a bit controversial! People don't eat them back for a number of reasons - because they don't understand how MFP works, or because they want to make their calorie deficit bigger than what MFP gives them (not necessarily a good idea), or because they don't trust the calorie burn estimates given by MFP. Finally, some people create their own calorie goals after working out their TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) - their calorie goal already includes all the exercise that they do, so there's no need for them to log it and eat back any calories. If you'd rather do that than follow MFP's way, you might find this helpful: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/654536-in-place-of-a-road-map-2-0-revised-7-2-12

If doesn't matter if you eat the extra calories on the same day, or if you spread them out across the week. If you are using MFP's exercise database to estimate your calorie burns - that can be quite inaccurate so you might want to only eat back a portion of the extra calories to leave room for error.

mommymeryl

Thank you soooooooooooooooo much!!!! Very helpful!!!