Extra calories for exercise?

kelli543
kelli543 Posts: 24 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Hi All,
I've only recently started using MFP, am switiching from weight watchers because although I lost a LOT of weight and got to goal on their old plan I've steadily gained on the new one. I'm confused about how exercise fits in.

I have a fairly sedentary job, part time during school hours, and then have 2 small boys to wrangle the rest of the time. i do a fair amount of exercise: 2 x 30min front crawl swimming, 2 x HIITs, 1x medium length run (around 4-5 miles), 1 x long run (6-8 miles), 1 or 2 x 40min elliptical trainer on medium resistance intervals, and 1 x 75 min kayaking/canoeing. So although I have a desk job, I am quite active the rest of the time.

MFP has assigned me 1200 calories a day which I can just about manage on. I find i am hungry more, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing if i am losing weight - never good at knowing what is 'enough'. If I log exercise it adds on a 1:1 basis, the calories I earned through exercise to my target totals - isn't eating these undermining the effort? I mainly exercise for fitness and health rather than weightloss, (ie I'd be doing it even if not trying to lose weight) but if it increases the energy deficit isn't that a good thing? Aren't I undoing some of the good work if I then just eat a load to use up the calories?

Replies

  • 257_Lag
    257_Lag Posts: 1,249 Member
    #1 1200 is the lowest that MFP will give out as a goal. For most (not all) people this is too low. I would urge you to look into other methods to find your number but that is another topic altogether.

    #2 MFP is designed to eat the extra calories. Many people eat a portion of them, at least half. (I eat them all and am losing nicely) If you are eating 1200 calories and burning 1200 calories through exercise that is leaving you 0 for normal day to day life. Your body needs fuel to live and more fuel to exercise. A lot of us will admit to exercising for the SOLE purpose of getting to eat more :wink:

    Oh, and welcome aboard!
  • Phrick
    Phrick Posts: 2,765 Member
    No its not undermining anything. MFP is set up so that your calorie deficit is built in - even if you exercised exactly zero, if you ate your 1200 calories you'd lose weight. 1200 is the absolute minimum that MFP will assign to a woman, by the way. Anyway, so you are giving your body 1200 calories in a day - but then you go to the pool and do your swims and you do your HIIT and whatnot, and you burn (let's say) 600 calories. That means you've effectively stolen 600 calories from your body - you used it in exercising so it is no longer available to your body to use for fuel for you to do things like wrangle your young boys, pee, walk to the car, brush your teeth.... etc etc. In order to make sure your body does have enough fuel to get you through all the little stuff you do all day, you need to eat back the 600 calories, to make sure your daily NET CALORIES are still at the 1200 mark.
  • kelli543
    kelli543 Posts: 24 Member
    That is interesting, thanks for the replies (and wlecome :-) ). Is always hard getting one's head around a new plan.

    Perhaps I ought to up my intake a bit then, especially on the heavy exercise days. It always tells me I have too much protein - is always from lean meats/pulses/eggs/milk that it comes but it is always too high. it also tells me I am too low on carbs (so perhaps I should have a bit more of those) but too high on sugars - not sure how to increase one and decrease the other! Have already cut right back on fruit in an effort to decrease the sugars. i can see cherry tomatoes will become my new best friends :-D

    Is interesting that I am eating more like I did when on the old WW plan (I lost 9 stone on that) and much less like the new one.

    Thanks again!
  • susannamarie
    susannamarie Posts: 2,148 Member
    MFP's carbs are set on the high end of recommended and protein on the low end. Unless you have kidney issues that require you to keep protein low, there's no reason to worry about it.

    Many people manually set their carbs lower and their protein higher.

    Sugars from natural sources are not necessary to worry about unless you have a medical issue that requires you to track them. The MFP sugars seem very low because they are set at the government recommendation for *added* sugars.
  • melaniecheeks
    melaniecheeks Posts: 6,349 Member
    The default setting on MFP are low on protein, high on carbs. You can change this yourself via goals-custom - do you have an idea of what you would like to aim for?

    And the sugar target is low too - it's less than half of the UK daily recommendation, so I tend to just keep an eye on mine, but not worry overly much unless it's WAAAAAY over.ignore it
  • kelli543
    kelli543 Posts: 24 Member
    (Hi Bea! Recognised your photo, haven't done one myself yet...)

    I don't know what to aim for really, protein keeps the hunger pangs at bay, carbs (and particularly refined carbs) trigger over-eating, but not sure, if I monkey with the values, what to change them to. As for sugar, a couple of apples seems to blow that budget completely.

    Still haven't found a diet that lets me eat unlimited hot buttered granary toast and still lose weight ;-)
  • Phrick
    Phrick Posts: 2,765 Member
    (Hi Bea! Recognised your photo, haven't done one myself yet...)

    I don't know what to aim for really, protein keeps the hunger pangs at bay, carbs (and particularly refined carbs) trigger over-eating, but not sure, if I monkey with the values, what to change them to. As for sugar, a couple of apples seems to blow that budget completely.

    Still haven't found a diet that lets me eat unlimited hot buttered granary toast and still lose weight ;-)

    I'm set at 40% carb, 30% protein and 30% fat and doing pretty well with it. I see the advice over and over, 1g protein per 1lb of lean body mass, you could use the search feature on the forums to find more info about it :). I'm shooting for over 140g protein per day, but seldom hit it right on. I just try to get close and make sure it's at least over 100g if at all possible.

    also as far as sugar goes MFP has it set to the US's recommended daily ADDED sugars intake. So most people will recommend ignoring it unless you have a medical reason to track it (diabetes, etc)
  • iNkedFiTmama
    iNkedFiTmama Posts: 277 Member
    I don't eat my extra cals for exercising but I have a higher daily allowance & that's what works for me.
  • melaniecheeks
    melaniecheeks Posts: 6,349 Member
    Hi Kelli!

    Carbs tend to be person sensitive. I thought I had a gluten intolerance for a while, until I figured out that my body just didnt like lots of carbs. I aim to keep mine about 100-150.

    Protein - if you're doing strength training and weightlifting then protein is very important to build muscle. And yes it's more satiating. Some suggest aiming for 1g per pound of lean body mass (lbm) - that's usually around the 100g a day figure. I find that ambitious, so I'll go for about 75 g per day. But really, that level of fine-tuning is a "nice to have" rather than a must have.

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