Should I log exercise calories or not?

jwh225

When I joined MFP I weighed 204. MFP put me on 1780 calories a day, with moderate exercise, in order to lose 15 lbs in 15 weeks.

I added my exercise calories daily in MFP and kept within the calorie count of 1780 plus exercise. Just like clockwork I lost a pound a week for 12 weeks. I've been stuck art 192, 3 pounds short of my goal weight, for about two months.

I figured my personal metabolism was keeping me there. After all, it was only 3 pounds short. I decided to reset my goal weight another 5 pounds. When I entered my weight, lifestyle, and exercise level MFP told me "My new daily calorie goal was 1700 calories, assuming I burned 1800+ calories a week or 257 calories a day."

So, is the 257 calories already calculated in the 1700 calories? Or, can I eat 1957 a day including exercise?

jwh225

bump

Hoping for an answer.

astrampe

You can eat 1700 plus whatever exercise calories you earn for the day...It is still very little for a guy, not sure how much you need to lose, but I'm 5'8, 176 and lose slowly eating around that much per day.....

myfitnessnmhoy

I guess I'm unclear as to your settings.

Let me offer you myself as an example. I'm a desk jockey by trade, and alternate between no exercise, light walks, 45 minutes of cardio, 30 minutes of strength, or when I can 120 minutes of bicycling back and forth to work. My exercise is very irregular.

I could do one of two things with my lifestyle setting:

1. I could (and did) choose "sedentary" as my lifestyle. Sedentary basically assumes I do very little all day, and no exercise is included in my budget. In this case, to keep my deficit reasonable and lose weight at a healthy pace, I log exercise and eat the calories back.

2. I could have chosen "lightly active" or "active" as my lifestyle - setting my lifestyle to include my exercise. In that case, I've already been given the calories for my exercise on an average day, and logging and eating back exercise calories would cut into my deficit and slow my weight loss.

Currently stalled about 4 pounds from a "normal" BMI, but focusing more on making up for my complete lack of weight training, which has given me a slightly high body fat percentage, rather than trying to make the scale happy.

adam1885282

This is an extremely frequent debate on MFP. Yes, you can eat your exercise calories. In fact, trying to reduce calories too much will stall your weight loss. Eat your exercise claories. The only change I make is to calclulate net, not gross, exercise calories. That is, while you're exercising, you're using exercise calories, but some of the calories MFP gives you would have been lost anyway. For me, it's abotu 75 calories an hour just laying in bed. I deduct those calories from exercise. So, if I exercise 2 hours, I deduct 150 from whatever loss MFP or Runkeeper calculates for me.

jwh225

I guess I'm unclear as to your settings.

Let me offer you myself as an example. I'm a desk jockey by trade, and alternate between no exercise, light walks, 45 minutes of cardio, 30 minutes of strength, or when I can 120 minutes of bicycling back and forth to work. My exercise is very irregular.

I could do one of two things with my lifestyle setting:

1. I could (and did) choose "sedentary" as my lifestyle. Sedentary basically assumes I do very little all day, and no exercise is included in my budget. In this case, to keep my deficit reasonable and lose weight at a healthy pace, I log exercise and eat the calories back.

2. I could have chosen "lightly active" or "active" as my lifestyle - setting my lifestyle to include my exercise. In that case, I've already been given the calories for my exercise on an average day, and logging and eating back exercise calories would cut into my deficit and slow my weight loss.

Currently stalled about 4 pounds from a "normal" BMI, but focusing more on making up for my complete lack of weight training, which has given me a slightly high body fat percentage, rather than trying to make the scale happy.

OK, let me see if I've got this right.

I could have set my fitness goal as 6 workouts a week at 45 min per workout. Those workouts would already be calculated in my daily calorie allowance and I would not log those workouts daily. Or, I could have set my fitness goal as -0- workouts per week and logged those daily as I completed them. Right?

Thanks all for your help.

CINDYRN33

If you are 3 lbs away from your goal weight. You might try changing your goal to losing 1/2 pound per week you will eat mor calories each day but when you are so close to your goal it is more reasonable and will make maintaining easier. just a suggestion...