Calorie counting. . . HELP

Your body burns a set amount by just breathing/digesting/moving etc.

Then you burn a certain amount through daily activity. You specify your daily activity when you set a weight loss goal on the website (Sedentary, lightly active, etc.)

You then subtract some of those calories so your body isn't getting all the energy it needs to maintain weight. This causes you to lose weight to adapt to the lower energy consumption.

You only add more calories if you did something strenuous out of your normal activity (ie. you decided to go for a run), otherwise the website already takes into everything into account.

Well, MFP calculates your daily needs based on how fast you want to lose the weight, and sets it accordingly. It takes -3500 calories to equal a pound lost. Over 7 days, that's -500 calories per day cut.

So lets say you maintain weight eating at 1600. To lose a pound per week, you'd have to chop that back to 1100 (MFP doesn't set itself any lower than 1200 though).

So, MFP says eat 1200 per day. That will slice off a pound a week, but wait, you worked out! you busted *kitten* in the gym, and burnt 400 calories being a MONSTER on the eliptical..

Should you still only eat 1200 for that day?

That's why they add back exercise calories.

Which makes me scratch my head, since MFP also asks you if you are sedentary, lightly active, moderately active, or work in construction. It uses that activity factor to increase your daily energy expenditure (bear with me here). BMR is how many calories you burn by breathing and being a couch potato (Basal Metabolic Rate). If you are sedentary, the amount of calories you spend a day is slightly higher (by about 20%) than your BMR, since walking around spends energy (we all really don't sit all day).

Ok, so if you work out 3-5 times a week, MFP takes your BMR and multiplies it by the moderately active factor (BMR x 1.55). so why is it adding exercise calories on top of that?? isn't that what the factor is adjusting for? I think MFP double counts calories spent when you add exercise cals.

If you want to log your exercise cals and eat them back, just set MFP to sedentary and log all your workouts, and eat them

If you put sedentary as your daily activity level and are actually sedentary (desk job or whatever) then YES you do eat those.

If you put active and you're just maintaining that active lifestyle, then no you don't eat them because they've already been accounted for.

Given that your daily allowance is 1200 (which is really low in my opinion), I'd say that you should eat them.

A lot of this is guesswork since there's no real way to tell EXACTLY how many calories you're burning. You have to do some trial and error to figure it out for yourself.

If your goal is 1200 and you burned an extra 400 through exercise then you need 1600 to keep to the weight loss goals you set.

Without any exercise you'd lose 1lb? per week eating 1200. Since you exercised today, if you didn't eat that extra 400 then your body will have only received 800.

This is generally frowned upon since that's really way too low for the body to function.

It may seem like exercising more and eating less will make you lose weight faster (mathematically at least) but this isn't the case. Feeding yourself too little will only hurt your body in the long run and you'll end up right back where you started.

thank you all for trying to help me understand but I still don't get it :sad: for example my thing says goal:1200/ food:1288/ exercise:-409/ net=879. . . is this good or bad?

With MFP you set up with your information, job type activity, and how many pounds a week you want to lose. If it gives you an initial goal of 1200 calories that has your weight loss deficit figured in. So if you do nothing outside of the work activity you should lose that number of pounds or around that number just by meeting the calorie goal. That's why when you exercise your goal goes up. So if you exercise and burn 400 calories your new goal will be 1600 for the day. It's expected that you will now eat 1600 so the deficit doesn't get too large. This way you are still netting your original goal, not under it.

Wow! I am glad y'all posted so much on here. It has really helped all my questioning as well!!!!

That it how I understand it. I "don't" eat the extra calories I worked off. So far I've lost 16 lbs in 2 months so it seems to be working the way I do it. So if your goal is 1200 and you worked off 400 your total would be 1600. I would say still keep your eating at 1200 and have a +400 calories left at the end of the day and you should lose weight quicker. Hope this helps. Like I say it's working for me great!

Thanks!

o so if I eat 1200 calories a day, I'm fine? No matter how much exercise I do?

No! If you do more exercise than you allowed for when you signed up to MFP (you chose from sedentary, lightly active, active, very active...) you SHOULD eat at least half of the calories you've earned from doing that extra exercise, otherwise the deficit for that day is too big.

The easiest answer I can give is where it says "Your Daily Goal"..... eat that number. If you eat that number you're getting a 1200 calorie day regardless of what the actual number is.

Because exercise is "extra." Think of it this way, I burn about 2200 calories in a day without any additional exercise. So if I have my calories set to 1700, that's a 500 calorie deficit. But if I burn 500 calories through exercise, that bumps my deficit to 1000 calories, which is way too low. I won't have enough "fuel" to get through my day, for my body to perform all of it's functions and to power me through my work outs. Calories are fuel, not fat. Your body needs fuel to run, same as your car needs gas. If you don't give your body what it needs, it's not going to work properly. We can eat below our requirements to lose weight, but if you bring it down too low, you're simply going to burn out. It's just not sustainable in the long run! Hope this helps!

ok so I set mine to lightly active because I thought that had to do with working. I run approx. 3 miles a day, walk to do crunches pushups, etc and also weight training should I change it to active or whatever the higher choice is?

There are 2 ways of doing this. You can either -

1) Keep your setting at "lightly active" to reflect your work and add in the extra stuff you do (Running, walking etc) and eat the extra calories MFP gives you.

or you can -

2) change your setting to "active" or "very active" depending on what you usually do and how often. MFP will automatically give you more calories to eat and you don't add more unless you do waay more than normal.

Personally, I've set my activity level as "sedentary" and I add everything I do via my Fitbit and eat those extra calories. Before I had the Fitbit gadget I'd add in all my daily exercise - walking to the shops, cleaning the house if I did it for an hour or more, gardening, everything. And eat at least half of the extra calories earned as calculated by MFP's database of exercise (which I've noticed is a bit more generous that the Fitbit)

I would keep things simple.

1. Pick one of the two middle activity levels (Lightly Active or Active) to start
2. Only track things that are true workouts. If you walk, or do some other other activity daily, just count that as part of your Daily Activity Level set above
3. Set your desired goal loss
4. Eat your goal calories for sure, and logic says you can eat all of your exercise calories because your goal is already set for a deficit. But some people like to leave a few exercise cals on the table
5. Track this for 6 - 8 weeks and see how you are doing
6. If you are losing at the proper rate, keep going. If you plateau or gain, then you need to adjust your Activity Level. This assumes you aren't starving your system by not eating close to your NET. So if you are eating close to your NET, then adjust your activity level down, and it will reduce your goal calories
7. Track for 6 - 8 weeks and rinse/repeat

The biggest thing to understand which most people miss is the fact that if you set a goal loss of say 1 pound a week, MFP already includes that deficit in your goal calories/day. When you workout, you are burning more than what MFP expects, so it gives you BONUS calories to eat. I normally leave more on the table than I should of those exercise cals, but that's also because I end up with more cheat days as we eat out a lot for lunch (STUPID BUFFETS!!!). But even what I'm doing is probably frowned upon. But I'm losing weight exactly at the rate I need, so it's working for me.

Good luck! :happy:

That's fantastic!! It's not about "diet" it's about a lifestyle change! I HATE the 'D' word!! Nothing should be off limits, but moderation needs to be set in our brains. You want pizza: have it for goodness sake!! Just sit back and savor the flavor of what you just put in your mouth...that bite...the flavor....the texture (Not to sound crude, but it's almost like making love to your food! Appreciate it!). Wait and figure out if you're still hungry or just wanting to eat. I've struggled all my life and have finally gotten ahold of my process.