Exercise Calories

I"m not sure but I want to know the answer too. Some people say eat those calories others say don't. I'm confused.

It depends on what you setup for your exercise profile. If your profile says you will exercise 3 times per week and burn, say, 200 calories with each workout, the program assumes that you will get 'credit' for 600 calories and increase what you can eat and still get to your weight goal.

The easier thing is to say you don't exercise in the profile. Let's say you get 1250 calories per day to meet your goal. If you get 150 calories of credit exercise for a given day, that means you can eat 1400 calories that day and still meet your goal.

I find that if I go over for my calories, it just motivates me to go exercise long enough to get back to by limit for the day.

I ignore the exercise calories assuming that I forget to add some food item or pick an inaccurate substitute when I'm logging my food.
Having said that, I have been known to exercise more and use them when I've got a big event on the calendar and I don't want to feel guilty!

Agreed!!

My friend is a personal trainer and says that you should eat them. Mind that, eat healthy calories. The more you exercise and burn, the more your body will need to burn. So he says that not eating enough calories will actually hinder your weight loss as your body goes into storing mode, thinking that you won't feed it and it will need those calories next time you exercise.

Keeping his advice in mind, I make it my personal goal to have some calories left over each day. Like others say, to accomodate for what I may have forgotten or whatever. And I use the food and exercise entries to help me stay on track. I, too, find it motivating to work out longer if I have gone over my calories for the day.

I'm not sure if that helped or not, but it was puzzling me too. I asked and that was the answer I received.

First off, changing the amount of exercise per week does nothing to your calorie alotment.

Here's my understanding of how it works. You put in your info, how active is your lifestyle, and all that. Based on that, MFP estimates your base amount of calories. Then it takes the amount you want to lose per week (.5, 1, 1.5 etc) and subtracts the appropriate amount from the first number. That is your calorie alotment. Whether or not you exercise, that's it.

Now, when you exercise you expend more calories (whole point, right?). MFP has already put you at a deficit so that you can reach your loss goal. As you burn more calories, it adds those back so that you stay at that same deficit. Some people are able to eat all, some or none of their exercise calories while still losing weight. Some people will either maintain or gain if they eat all, some or none of their exercise calories. Depends on the person.

When I started I was eating all of my exercise calories. I lost weight faster than my 1lb a week goal. Then after about 15lbs I just stopped losing weight. So I stopped eating my exercise calories. I started losing again. "Then I hit another plateau." That's when I started eating some of them back. So basically, you've got to try different approaches and find the one that's working. If it stops working, try something else. No answer is going to be correct for every person all the time.

Try what feels right for you. Give it a few weeks. If it's working, stick with it until it's not. Then try something else.

Good luck figuring it out!

Lisa, the profile does assume your exercise (or lack thereof). The 'active' lifestyle is part of that and it calculates how many calories you are likely to be consuming based on how active you are. On top of that, if you go to MyHome->Goals you will see the Fitness Goals. Those get added in order to calculate the calories you need to consume in order to meet your weight loss goal. My understanding from the math is that those are included in the calculation.

Maybe I misunderstood the first mention of it. What I was referring to was the part where you put in your exercise goal of _ days per week at __ minutes per day. I went into my goals and messed with that. I put 7 days a week at 120 minutes per day (don't I wish I could reach that!) and saved it. When I went back to my home, my base calories were still the same as they were at 3 days 30 minutes each. So I went in and zeroed it all out (0 days, 0 minutes) and saved that. Went back to my home and my base calories were still the same.

Now, if you change your activity level from sedentary to active, that changes your calories. However, it was my understanding that the activity level was your normal daily activity, NOT your workouts or exercise. An ER nurse (on their feet for 12 hours at a shot) needs considerably more calories just to function than an identical person who sits at a computer all day. That is what I took the activity level to mean. I didn't think it meant the amount of outside activities you do (working out, playing sports, etc.). If you've included your workouts in your activity level, then definately do not eat your exercise calories.

I still believe that each person is different, and they need to experiment to find the right combination of base calories and exercise calories that will work for them. It's working for me. It's working for my husband. I know many others that it is working for, whether they are eating all, some or none of the exercise calories. MFP provides basic guidelines, but that does not mean that it will work the same for every person. You've got to listen to your body. If you have exercise calories to spare at the end of the day and you are STARVING, then eat! If you have calories to spare and you are not hungry, don't eat. If what you're doing is healthy and it's working, stick with it. If it's not healthy or isn't working, change it up. It's a learning process.