Calorie Burned and Eating back Calories burned

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suznjane
suznjane Posts: 10 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
A couple of questions.....I'm fairly new to this. Is it me or is what MFP says for calories burned on the exercises listed really inflated? I have a treadmill and an elliptical. Neither one takes into account my weight, but gives me a calorie count. I expect my actual burn to be higher than what the machine says, as I weigh 250 and my heart rate really gets up there, but the calories burned that MVP gives is WAY higher than I would expect. Is there a reliable online calculator?

Second question: I keep reading how for this program to work you HAVE to eat back your calories burned? why is that? I get the issue about losing slow is best, is that the reason? When I first signed up, it gave me the calorie count I should consume each day, and that was lower than I expected, so I'm just a little confused on the methods here. (although I'm not complaining! it's working for me, although I haven't been eating back my exercise calories).

oh, another question, why is my app on my kindle so different than what I can do on the website? I can access graphs and tables and weekly summarys that I can't seem to do on the webpage. just curious if there are things I haven't learned to do yet here!

Thanks for the info!

Replies

  • steph1278
    steph1278 Posts: 483 Member
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    The estimates that MFP gives for calories burned tend to run on the high side, so unless you have a heart rate monitor or device such as Body Media, I wouldn't trust those totals completely. As far as eating back your exercise calories, MFP is designed with a deficit in place before you exercise so in theory, if you just ate the amount that you are given without exercising at all, you will still lose weight. When you exercise, your body requires more fuel.
  • Pandorian
    Pandorian Posts: 2,055 MFP Moderator
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    MFP uses what YOU entered as weight to calculate a calorie burn, if you had a typo in a weigh-in that could mess up.

    The second depends on how you set up MFP... did you set up your profile and enter a goal of weight loss? If so then your daily calorie goal already includes your deficit for weight loss before any exercise is entered (MFP doesn't use your "planned" exercise, exercise is ONLY factored in once you actually log it as completed - try it, set 0 minutes of planned exercise, view your daily calorie goal... now set something really high like 3600 minutes of exercise... exact same calorie goal) If your profile is set up to lose weight then you could eat back your exercise calories maintaining your deficit. If you set your profile to maintenance and are using your exercise calories entirely to BUILD your deficit then in that case you would NOT eat back the exercise calories. If you're using MFP via the TDEE - % for deficit then you also wouldn't eat back the calories as the TDEE takes in your TOTAL daily calories... (if you're using this method you'll know it, if you don't know what it is you're "not doing it")

    Apps and website were meant to "compliment" each other so some features are found on one platform and not the other.
  • suznjane
    suznjane Posts: 10 Member
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    Thanks for the answers. I don't usually eat back all my calories, but I'm hesitant too because I think the expenditure is on the high end.
  • wilkinsonlk
    wilkinsonlk Posts: 9 Member
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    I just started Weight Watchers because my insurance pays for it and we have an at work meeting. I figured it would help to wiegh in every week. I have been comparing the two with calories vs points and exercise calories vs activity points and they both are about the same. The only thing that calculates differently is the extra points that Weight Watchers gives you to use for the whole week, so MFP actually allowes less calories than WW does in points. You would probably loose slower on WW. MFP also has an easier app than Weight Watchers. I think I will still weigh in and go to mtgs but not follow the points.
    Just thought you might like to know that the calculations are the same and ppl loose on WW too.
  • prokomds
    prokomds Posts: 318 Member
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    When you enter your height/weight/goal/weight/activity level on MFP, it gives you its guess at how many calories you burn per day. Then you say how much weight you'd like to lose per week (say, 1 pound), and it subtracts the number of calories per day to help you get to that goal (for 1 pound, 3500 calories/week, or 500 calories/day).

    So say I put my activity level at "light activity" and it gives me 1900 calories (hypothetical numbers). If I want to lose a pound a week, it'll tell me to eat 1400 calories per day. But if I work out really hard and do a lot more than "light" activity over the week, and I meet my goal of 1400/day, then I've created a deficit of 3500 calories through diet, but also an extra deficit because I worked out above and beyond my goals. That might be "bonus," as in, hey, you'll lose more than a pound this week, which could be cool. But it could also mean that you're not fueling your body enough

    Like most things, moderation. If you exercise a little beyond your goals and don't eat those calories, it's probably not the worst thing in the world. But if you're doing really heavy workouts, you should probably be eating back more of those calories. You can say you'll eat back half of the MFP calories (to account for how it tends to inflate things), or you can buy something like a heart rate monitor and get a more accurate exercise calorie count and eat back that amount. Just know that if you eat your diet calories + your (accurate) exercise calories, you'll be on the right track to move towards your goal at the rate you chose

    Yeesh, long winded. Hope that helps a little.

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