Which one is it...calories net or total calories from food

3foldchord

MFP always says you burned waaaaay more than you actually burned. I don't log my exercise because I don't plan on eating them back. The only time I'll log exercise is on special occasions like thanksgiving when I might eat a little more. Even then, I only eat half of them back.

I think it must be the opposite for me. According to MFP, I should only be losing 1/3 of a pound each week, yet I am actually losing over two pounds a week.

This is why everyone has to fiddle around with their settings to find what works best for them. Try one way, if it doesn't work then try a different way.

RaineMarie

I always just go by my net calories. I have learned over time that if I NET around 1500-1600, I will lose weight. If I NET around 1800 I will maintain. So I eat back some of my exercise calories in order to stay consistent with that NET goal.

nanainkent

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The MFP calories for activities isn't the most accurate thing. If you are using a heart rate monitor that tracks calories, then you can use that...not 100% accurate, but close enough. Please note, you MUST subtract your daily-do-nothing calories from your exercise calories. For example, if your heart rate monitor says you burned 500 calories in 2 hours of exercise, and you are on a 1500 calorie/day plan, then you need to subtract (1500 cal divided by 24 hours divided by 60 minutes) multiplied by minutes exercises, then subtract that from your exercise calories. So, for the example, you would subtract 125 calories, meaning you have 375 exercise calories to work with.

bump for this but could you dumb it down even more so a clown could do it too? edited to add: oops I figured it out, too much helium I guess

WendyTerry420

MFP always says you burned waaaaay more than you actually burned. I don't log my exercise because I don't plan on eating them back. The only time I'll log exercise is on special occasions like thanksgiving when I might eat a little more. Even then, I only eat half of them back.

I think it must be the opposite for me. According to MFP, I should only be losing 1/3 of a pound each week, yet I am actually losing over two pounds a week.

This is why everyone has to fiddle around with their settings to find what works best for them. Try one way, if it doesn't work then try a different way.

Yes, and I am still fiddling. I just increased my calories up to 1900.

Flamenquero

If you want to lose weight within a reasonable amount of time, then you bank the deficit, you do not eat it back.

serenapitala

If you are logging your exercise then you will see that MFP increases your total calorie allotment. If you are doing that you should be watching your net calories. You don't have to eat them all back. The goal is always to come in under your calorie allotment. I don't view my exercise calories any differently than my given calories. They're there if I'm hungry, but if I don't eat them that's not a bad thing. The only place total matters is in your minimum. You have to eat a minimum of 1200 with or without exercise or MFP gives you the little health risk warning. I'm averaging 2lb a week weight loss, so it works for me.
All of this is assuming you let MFP adjust the calories for you and you log everything. If you do TDEE and set your own calorie goals then it depends on what you used to calculate your goals.

CatherineDavis516516

Thanks guys interesting discussion. I just got the MFP app and was wondering what to do with the exercise calories. I now log my exercise under exercise notes so it doesn't affect my net calories for the day. Thoughts?

PAnn1

I think the answer depends on the individual. If you are eating your exercise calories and not seeing the weight loss you are hoping for I'd say to not eat them back. If you are not eating them and you are getting the results you want I'd stick with it. And of course if you are finding yourself weak and hungry all day and aren't eating them back I'd say to eat all or some of them back based on the results you are seeing.

Someone already mentioned it and I agree completely that MFP waaaay over estimates calories burned with almost all activities. You have to be realistic and adjust them based on what you know or else you will be lying to yourself and the results you are working for will not be there.

Good luck to you.

I agree with this. When I started my journey back in Jan. 2008 I didn't ever eat back my exercise calories. I never got overly hungry, never hit one plateau, and I lost 1-2# weekly, some weeks more. I am a walker and walked hard 6-7 days a week. Everyone has to find what works for them. Best wishes to you :-)

cwolfman13

I'm in the "what works for you" crowd. Personally, I leave my settings at "sedentary" (because I'm an accountant and spend long hours sitting on my *kitten*) and only log my "real" exercise...as in, I don't log emptying the dishwasher, vacuuming, doing yard work, etc...I assume that stuff like that is more or less built into my sedentary setting. I will generally eat back 75%-90% of my exercise calories back and I've remained on my target pace of about 1 Lb per week lost.

Just keep in mind that if you're not eating those exercise calories back, you may lose weight too quickly and feel downright crummy. You can also end up doing more harm than good as your body goes into starvation mode and slows your metabolism.

zaph0d

Thanks guys interesting discussion. I just got the MFP app and was wondering what to do with the exercise calories. I now log my exercise under exercise notes so it doesn't affect my net calories for the day. Thoughts?

Your halfway to enlightenment. Make sure you manually set your calorie target to your TDEE minus 500 (or so), and you will be all the way there.

CatherineDavis516516

sorry lol what is TDEE? I'll look into this

pilk32

I never have and never will eat my excercise calories back. I would have NEVER lost 100 lbs. if I did.

I would only consider eating some of them back if I were to get into a very serious training routine (P90X or Insanity type of program). Otherwise, the general cardio routine, and light weight training would never allow me to lose weight if I ate it back.

bymyslf892

Personally I try not to eat back my exercise calories BUT I have a cheat day a week I don't log. So eventually I eat them back. I just save them up for my cheat day. It's really however you want to do it, but I suggest you eat your calories back. If your body burned it then it means you need to replace at least half of what you burned! Hope that helps!!!

zaph0d

I never have and never will eat my excercise calories back. I would have NEVER lost 100 lbs. if I did.

I would only consider eating some of them back if I were to get into a very serious training routine (P90X or Insanity type of program). Otherwise, the general cardio routine, and light weight training would never allow me to lose weight if I ate it back.

So you took a TDEE-based approach? Or are you just another wizard?

I'm trying to parse this and make sense of what you think you're saying...

A moderate calorie deficit is not enough for you to lose weight? You require a moderate calorie deficit that is increased arbitrarily by the amount of exercise you perform day to day? But if you were to do a "very serious routine", you would consider making your arbitrary calorie deficit smaller by a random amount (i.e., "some calories").

Cool story.

This thread hurts my head and I'm sorry that I ever entered it.

zaph0d

P.S. unicorns. Unicorns are the secret. Doesn't matter if count calories or not; just whether you believe in unicorns. Unicorns are what worked for me. Everybody's different.

CatherineDavis516516

Personally I try not to eat back my exercise calories BUT I have a cheat day a week I don't log. So eventually I eat them back. I just save them up for my cheat day. It's really however you want to do it, but I suggest you eat your calories back. If your body burned it then it means you need to replace at least half of what you burned! Hope that helps!!!

Hey bymyslf892,
How do you find the cheat day works for you? are you still losing weight?

kaervaak

The deficit you can run is based on how well your body can mobilize fat for a fuel source. The less fat you have the less mobile it becomes and the less of a deficit you can maintain.

The basic math is as follows:
Free Fat Mass (FFM) = total fat mass (TFM) - essential fat mass (EFM)
TFM = Body Weight * Fat%
EFM = (Lean Body Mass [LBM])*0.03 for men or (Lean Body Mass)*0.12 for women
LBM = Body Weight - TFM

Maximum Daily Fat Mobilization = 2.5grams*FFM
Maximum Daily Deficit (MDD) = 2.5grams*FFM*9calories/gram

This is the largest deficit that you can maintain per day and theoretically have all of the deficit be supplied by fat oxidation.

So, let's say you're a 30 year old woman, 5'5'' tall and 180 lbs with 40% body fat. Your total daily energy expenditure is about 2200 calories (lightly active).
BW = 180 lbs
LBM = 180 - 180*.4 = 108 lbs
TFM = 180*.4 = 72 lbs
EFM = 108*.12 = 13 lbs
FFM = 59 lbs
MDD = 59 lbs * 2.5g/lb * 9 cal/g = 1327 calories per day

Now let's say that you eat 1200 calories per day and do no additional exercise. This gives you a 1000 cal/day deficit which is less than your MDD, so you're fine for now. Most of your weight loss will be from fat stores since your body can effectively mobilize enough fat per day to fuel your energy needs. However, if you burn 500 calories per day from exercise, your TDEE increases to 2700 calories and now if you only eat 1200 calories you have a deficit of 1500 calories per day. Your body cannot mobilize this much fat per day, so the energy has to come from somewhere else. The first thing that happens is your body uses up its glycogen supplies (we have about 2400 calories of glycogen in our muscles and liver). It will take about 2 weeks at this kind of deficit for your body to exhaust all of its glycogen stores. During this period you'll feel fine though you may find your self tiring more quickly during workouts. Eventually, all the glycogen will be gone and your body won't be able to make any more. This is when things go downhill. Now to properly run itself, the body has to start relying on some tricks to get by. This is effectively where the dreaded "starvation mode" begins, though in the first stages its not all that terrible. The first thing your body does is it effectively turns down the thermostat (metabolism) to save energy. This is a hormonal process that results in a decrease to the resting metabolic rate. Concurrently, it increases its use of triglycerides and muscle protein for energy, resulting in muscle catabolism and a further decrease in BMR. If this goes on long enough, your body will start turning off "non-essential" functions such as reproductive functions, skin, nail and tooth enamel production, decreasing digestive function and impaired cognition. It takes quite a while for this kind of stuff to happen and generally, the first measures employed by the body are enough to stave off starvation.

Now most of this is pretty extreme and won't happen to the average person (plus it takes a long time and willful disregard of your body's distress signals), but it is one of the things that contributes to plateaus and diet failure followed by regaining the lost weight plus some. A month at too high of a deficit can lead to a relatively significant decrease in metabolic function which can be fairly hard to undo.

love4fitnesslove4food_wechange

My calories eaten are my calories eaten, my net calories are my net calories. At the end of the day the net calories are more telling.

zaph0d

My calories eaten are my calories eaten, my net calories are my net calories. At the end of the day the net calories are more telling.

It's almost as if you're trying to deny that unicorns have anything to do with it. Weird.

heybales

The deficit you can run is based on how well your body can mobilize fat for a fuel source. The less fat you have the less mobile it becomes and the less of a deficit you can maintain.

The basic math is as follows:
Free Fat Mass (FFM) = total fat mass (TFM) - essential fat mass (EFM)
TFM = Body Weight * Fat%
EFM = (Lean Body Mass [LBM])*0.03 for men or (Lean Body Mass)*0.12 for women
LBM = Body Weight - TFM

Maximum Daily Fat Mobilization = 2.5grams*FFM
Maximum Daily Deficit (MDD) = 2.5grams*FFM*9calories/gram

This is the largest deficit that you can maintain per day and theoretically have all of the deficit be supplied by fat oxidation.

So, let's say you're a 30 year old woman, 5'5'' tall and 180 lbs with 40% body fat. Your total daily energy expenditure is about 2200 calories (lightly active).
BW = 180 lbs
LBM = 180 - 180*.4 = 108 lbs
TFM = 180*.4 = 72 lbs
EFM = 108*.12 = 13 lbs
FFM = 59 lbs
MDD = 59 lbs * 2.5g/lb * 9 cal/g = 1327 calories per day

Now let's say that you eat 1200 calories per day and do no additional exercise. This gives you a 1000 cal/day deficit which is less than your MDD, so you're fine for now. Most of your weight loss will be from fat stores since your body can effectively mobilize enough fat per day to fuel your energy needs. However, if you burn 500 calories per day from exercise, your TDEE increases to 2700 calories and now if you only eat 1200 calories you have a deficit of 1500 calories per day. Your body cannot mobilize this much fat per day, so the energy has to come from somewhere else. The first thing that happens is your body uses up its glycogen supplies (we have about 2400 calories of glycogen in our muscles and liver). It will take about 2 weeks at this kind of deficit for your body to exhaust all of its glycogen stores. During this period you'll feel fine though you may find your self tiring more quickly during workouts. Eventually, all the glycogen will be gone and your body won't be able to make any more. This is when things go downhill. Now to properly run itself, the body has to start relying on some tricks to get by. This is effectively where the dreaded "starvation mode" begins, though in the first stages its not all that terrible. The first thing your body does is it effectively turns down the thermostat (metabolism) to save energy. This is a hormonal process that results in a decrease to the resting metabolic rate. Concurrently, it increases its use of triglycerides and muscle protein for energy, resulting in muscle catabolism and a further decrease in BMR. If this goes on long enough, your body will start turning off "non-essential" functions such as reproductive functions, skin, nail and tooth enamel production, decreasing digestive function and impaired cognition. It takes quite a while for this kind of stuff to happen and generally, the first measures employed by the body are enough to stave off starvation.

Now most of this is pretty extreme and won't happen to the average person (plus it takes a long time and willful disregard of your body's distress signals), but it is one of the things that contributes to plateaus and diet failure followed by regaining the lost weight plus some. A month at too high of a deficit can lead to a relatively significant decrease in metabolic function which can be fairly hard to undo.

Two points to above scenario.

Studies have found that people taking a 1000 cal deficit without any resistance exercise do lose muscle mass.

Muscle glucose stores cannot be put into the blood stream for general availability for rest of the body. Only your liver stores are, 400-450 cal's worth.

Your body is going to use the fat and carbs about the same ratio. What the study said for the above formula is that fat metabolism shuts way down or off and glucose is all that's left, once the liver is low and blood sugar must be raised, it's time for muscle breakdown.

Easier than doing the math.

http://www.weightrainer.net/losscalc.html