Confused over calories in/burned

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babyluthi
babyluthi Posts: 285 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
So if MFP sets my calories to 1400.
Then I do say 1000 worth of exercise...

Do I eat the 1400 or do I eat the 2400?

I have my goals set to lose not maintain.

Any help would be appreciated.

Replies

  • Establishedn1986
    Establishedn1986 Posts: 306 Member
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    MFP is set up for you to Net your calorie goal. Which means yes eat your calories back! :)
  • freyaheart
    freyaheart Posts: 220 Member
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    I'm a little confused on this too.
  • CMB1979
    CMB1979 Posts: 588 Member
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    So if MFP sets my calories to 1400.
    Then I do say 1000 worth of exercise...

    Do I eat the 1400 or do I eat the 2400?

    I have my goals set to lose not maintain.

    Any help would be appreciated.

    Eat the 2400. Or at least part of if back if not the entire amount. If you start to gain weight, cut back a little and maybe only eat 1900-2200.
  • AJ_G
    AJ_G Posts: 4,158 Member
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    Be careful, calorie burn estimates are usually ridiculously high and if you eat all those calories, you'll probably be eating over your TDEE for the day. I prefer using the Katch McArdle equation to find my BMR and my TDEE and input it into myfitnesspal manually, and it takes your activity level into account so you don't have to input exercise into MFP.
  • girlfury
    girlfury Posts: 27 Member
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    From my understanding you can eat 1400 calories and still lose weight...u can eat the extra calories u burn off from exercising.
  • SkinnyBubbaGaar
    SkinnyBubbaGaar Posts: 389 Member
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    MFP is already calculating your calorie deficit based on your daily expenditure/needs without the added exercise. That said, if you do not eat back (at least some) of the exercise calories then your deficit will become too high.

    I think a good plan is to actually target somewhere in between 50% - 75% of the exercise calories in order to account for inaccuracies in the calculation of your calories burned or calories consumed.
  • wilsoje74
    wilsoje74 Posts: 1,720 Member
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    How much are you exercising to burn 1000??? That's really high.
  • freyaheart
    freyaheart Posts: 220 Member
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    How much are you exercising to burn 1000??? That's really high.

    I can burn that after an 8 hour shift at work and my Zumba class. I useually walk 10,000+ steps before I even get done with work.
  • babyluthi
    babyluthi Posts: 285 Member
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    How much are you exercising to burn 1000??? That's really high.

    It is a hypothetical number.
    Although if you circuit,cross train and agressively garden I think it would be possible to do in a day.
  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
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    So if MFP sets my calories to 1400.
    Then I do say 1000 worth of exercise...

    Do I eat the 1400 or do I eat the 2400?

    I have my goals set to lose not maintain.

    Any help would be appreciated.

    MFP estimates your daily calorie burn before exercise and makes your goal a cut off of that number.

    Example:

    MFP estimated daily calorie burn ( no exercise): 2500
    2lb per week loss: -1000
    Goal to achieve 2lb per week loss (no exercise) : 1500
    Exercise burn: 500
    MFP estimated daily calorie burn (with exercise): 3000
    2lb per week loss: -1000
    Goal to achieve 2lb per week loss (with exercise): 2000 or NET 1500
  • babyluthi
    babyluthi Posts: 285 Member
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    What exactly is a NET calorie?

    (I get to ask the daft questions)
  • DopeItUp
    DopeItUp Posts: 18,771 Member
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    There's not much to be confused by. It says in big letters "Your daily goal". Eat what it says. It even has another big lettered portion that states "Remaining" as in, calories remaining. This is handy to determine how many calories you have remaining for the day (shocking, I know).

    Try to eat as close as you can reasonably get to your daily goal.

    Do this consistently.

    Succeed!
  • herblackwings39
    herblackwings39 Posts: 3,930 Member
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    What exactly is a NET calorie?

    (I get to ask the daft questions)

    Net is what you end up with after you subtract your exercise calories. If you physically eat 1500 calories then do an hour of exercise and burn 700 you have netted 800 calories. That's why you eat those 700 back so you NET 1500 or whatever you goal number is. On MFP you just have to look at the section of your food diary called "Your Daily Goal". If you haven't added an exercise it will have a static number. If you have the number goes up giving you a new daily target.
  • babyluthi
    babyluthi Posts: 285 Member
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    Thanks everyone:)
    I guess I have been reading too many "Eat your calories back/don't eat your calories back" forum posts.
  • wilsoje74
    wilsoje74 Posts: 1,720 Member
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    And don't include gardening in calories burned. Yes it's possible to burn 1000 but many who estimate they do are way off. I can ru. For 75 min and only burn 600 ish cals. Depends on your weight of course, but make sure not to overestimate exercise cals
  • CoderGal
    CoderGal Posts: 6,800 Member
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    If you have your calories set up correctly as MFP suggested and have incorporated your daily activities in (as in you have it set higher then sedentary):

    If you're using MFP exercise calories eat at least half of them back (but probably not all of them, they tend to over exaggerate for some people, they're usually in the ball park for me).

    If you're using a HRM and doing cardio then eat all of them back.

    If you're using a HRM and doing strength training eat most of them back.

    If you're using BMF eat all of them back.

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