exercise calories explained

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  • Reza151
    Reza151 Posts: 517 Member
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    see below change
  • Reza151
    Reza151 Posts: 517 Member
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    Great post and now I get it. But my question is - what if you are eating healthy (80% good/20% cheat), have a sedetary job but w/o hard 5/6 days a week (weights, cardio (never repeating the same machine 2 days in a row), cross fit, muscle confusion, etc) and am not hungry. (est. 60 to 90 min each w/o)

    Does the body every get used to the lower calories and eventually cause the stupid *kitten* scale to move. I've lost more inches than weight (13" v. 10 lbs).

    Remember, muscles is leaner than fat but it WEIGHS MORE than fat as well. Inches lost is a better estimate;)
  • blueday617
    blueday617 Posts: 50 Member
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    Bump! Great post!
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,293 Member
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    Not to hijack the thread, but to add to it, the following pertains to goal setting based on how much you have to lose:
    If you have 75+ lbs to lose 2 lbs/week is ideal,
    If you have 40-75 lbs to lose 1.5 lbs/week is ideal,
    If you have 25-40 lbs to lose 1 lbs/week is ideal,
    If you have 15 -25 lbs to lose 0.5 to 1.0 lbs/week is ideal, and
    If you have less than 15 lbs to lose 0.5 lbs/week is ideal.

    This is roughly based on weight loss goals using the BMI scale and where you fit in it. Since I don't buy into BMI this breaks it down so everyone can use it. This also assumes that at your goal weight your BF% will be in the healthy or athletic range, not just "normal". The other source uses was a complicated one that based deficit on BF% (which is the best way to do it) but since most people don't know there own BF%, this chart makes it much easier to follow.

    Too large of a deficit can lead to a large % of your weight loss coming from lean muscle instead of fat. The less you have to lose the more likely this is to happens, which is why the goal/week gets smaller the less you have to lose.
    what is this based off? what are you using as a source for this information?
  • ell5bell5
    ell5bell5 Posts: 38 Member
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    I really appreciate this. Mfp told me I needed to stay at 1200 calories. After looking around my BMR is 1317 ish this confuses me. But still ...I think I'm going to put my net goal to 1330 and eat my excersise calories.... ? soundsabout right I think ?
  • ChetThaker
    ChetThaker Posts: 186 Member
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    Bump.

    Interesting and useful. I'm set to lose 1 llbs but am often below my net for the day. If this is going to see me lose lean muscle I may need to ensure I'm hitting my net target. I don't mind eating more :)
  • Gemmapartridge
    Gemmapartridge Posts: 1
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    I am confused still :( I am new at this!
    When I started my profile I logged my daily exercise but it still says I should only eat 1200 calories a day.
    That is fine with me but it seems too low for my exercise.....Don't want to stay on a plateau!
    Please help!!
  • Losingthedamnweight
    Losingthedamnweight Posts: 535 Member
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    [
    I would say if you are set at very active the only time you should add anything is that if you go above and beyond your typical workouts. So if you usually do 1 hour 4 days/week, that would be included, but if you did that and also ran a 10K, then you probably should enter the 10K as extra exercise, otherwise don't enter/eat exercise cals if you chose very active, unless without taking into account you are very active.

    As for logging walking when set as sedentary, some walking is assumed probably 3000-5000 steps, if you walk to get somewhere far, or for the purpose of exercising log it, but if you are walking 1 min to the bathroom 4 times/day, don't log it it is included in the calories above BMR that you get from the sedentary setting.

    I walk at least 10,000 steps a day. Yesterday i did 14,000 and my MFP is set to lightly active. My fitbit added in extra "exercise calories" to eat when i got home. It would be cool to eat those as that's extra exercise on top of my lightly active activity right?
  • betterbestbestest
    betterbestbestest Posts: 35 Member
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    I wondered what all that "net" this and "net" that meant. Thanks for explaining it. I get it now.
  • adrienne_ut1
    adrienne_ut1 Posts: 14 Member
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    Thank you Jacksonpt!! I just went to check my profile and sure enough I had my daily activity set for active when in reality I have a desk job AND I was inputting exercise calories....oops! Thanks again for taking the time to post this :smile:
  • CM9178
    CM9178 Posts: 1,265 Member
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    If you set your goal to include exercise, and you don't exercise that day, then you shouldn't eat all of the calories MFP assigns to you, or you will be netting too high. So unless you absolutely know that you are going to exercise every day, I would probably suggest setting it to not include exercise and then enter that manually.
  • theodddone
    theodddone Posts: 3 Member
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    Thank you so much for this post! I'd been aiming to eat around 1200 calories a day (allowing up to 1300-1400) and then thinking brilliant if my net was below the 1200. I didn't actually realise you could lose lean muscle by eating under your net calories... So I'm now going to aim to eat back the majority of my calories!
    I also changed my goals from 1.5lb a week to 1, increasing my net goal to 1350, thanks to someones earlier post that you should reduce your goal once you only have 15lb or less to lose :)
  • Frigs
    Frigs Posts: 745 Member
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    Bump for later
  • nathanielsmom01
    nathanielsmom01 Posts: 17
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    BUMP
  • xDaniix
    xDaniix Posts: 51
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    Phew! This is something i debate all the time! So glad ive been doing it! Clearest explanation ive read! Thanks for posting!! :)
  • carlysuzanne85
    carlysuzanne85 Posts: 204 Member
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    Bump. I wish I had seen this on my first day here! This should be required reading, along with the Road Map, for week one of MFP. Thanks, OP.
  • taymarie4
    taymarie4 Posts: 2
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    This has helped me so much...thank you. :smile:
  • joet60
    joet60 Posts: 13 Member
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    bump
  • Pangea250
    Pangea250 Posts: 965 Member
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    As for logging walking when set as sedentary, some walking is assumed probably 3000-5000 steps, if you walk to get somewhere far, or for the purpose of exercising log it, but if you are walking 1 min to the bathroom 4 times/day, don't log it it is included in the calories above BMR that you get from the sedentary setting.

    Just something for the "what the...?" category: there was a person who rode the bus to get to a pool to swim. She logged "sitting quietly on the bus," calculated cals & ate 'em back. --smacks forehead--
  • Vailara
    Vailara Posts: 2,452 Member
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    Good post.

    Another thing to add about setting your weekly goal, most MFP users set their weekly loss goal much to aggressively say 2 lbs/week when it should really only be 1lb.

    Not to hijack the thread, but to add to it, the following pertains to goal setting based on how much you have to lose:
    If you have 75+ lbs to lose 2 lbs/week is ideal,
    If you have 40-75 lbs to lose 1.5 lbs/week is ideal,
    If you have 25-40 lbs to lose 1 lbs/week is ideal,
    If you have 15 -25 lbs to lose 0.5 to 1.0 lbs/week is ideal, and
    If you have less than 15 lbs to lose 0.5 lbs/week is ideal.

    That's strange - MFP recommends for me to lose 1 lb/week, when it "should" be recommending more. I presume that's because I can't increase the speed without manually altering my goal to below 1200 (MFP gives me 1200 regardless). I think MFP calculates my calorie burn based on my activity level as around 1600. To lose 1 1/2 lb a week (as this chart says I should be doing), I'd have to net 850 calories a day. It's just too low for me. In fact I prefer to eat closer to 1/2 lb a week loss.

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