Dumb it down for me

Options
2

Replies

  • tigersword
    tigersword Posts: 8,059 Member
    Options
    Where it says "Remaining", try to get that to as close to zero as reasonably possible.

    Repeat daily for months and/or years.

    Done.
    This. It's really a very simple concept.
  • trudijoy
    trudijoy Posts: 1,685 Member
    Options
    thats great, Im doing the lower calories just for the first 30 days in order to jumpstart a loss, then Im going to up my calories to what is better for me, I come up to about 1800 a day which seems like a lot..and thats with one lower activity then I actually am...1-3 days instead of 3-5 where I actually am at.

    You have quite a bit of weight to lose, so set your goals to "Lose 2 pounds per week" for now. That will give you a fairly low number of calories to eat.

    Add in your Exercise and eat back those calories. That is how this tool is designed to be used. When you are prompted to update your Goals, do so. When you get within 40 pounds of your ultimate Goal, switch to "Lose 1 pound per week:"

    If you get stuck, come back and ask more questions.

    Be cautious with taking advice from just anyone (like people who are new here themselves.) This site works differently than almost any other calculator you will find. Just use the tool. It will work.

    my advice is valid. I'm on day 328 on MFP and i've lost 27kg. What part of that makes me not worth listening to?
  • AlongCame_Molly
    AlongCame_Molly Posts: 2,835 Member
    Options
    thats great, Im doing the lower calories just for the first 30 days in order to jumpstart a loss, then Im going to up my calories to what is better for me, I come up to about 1800 a day which seems like a lot..and thats with one lower activity then I actually am...1-3 days instead of 3-5 where I actually am at.

    You have quite a bit of weight to lose, so set your goals to "Lose 2 pounds per week" for now. That will give you a fairly low number of calories to eat.

    Add in your Exercise and eat back those calories. That is how this tool is designed to be used. When you are prompted to update your Goals, do so. When you get within 40 pounds of your ultimate Goal, switch to "Lose 1 pound per week:"

    If you get stuck, come back and ask more questions.

    Be cautious with taking advice from just anyone (like people who are new here themselves.) This site works differently than almost any other calculator you will find. Just use the tool. It will work.

    my advice is valid. I'm on day 328 on MFP and i've lost 27kg. What part of that makes me not worth listening to?

    Nobody was referring to you... Not everything is about you :wink: j/k
  • trudijoy
    trudijoy Posts: 1,685 Member
    Options
    thats great, Im doing the lower calories just for the first 30 days in order to jumpstart a loss, then Im going to up my calories to what is better for me, I come up to about 1800 a day which seems like a lot..and thats with one lower activity then I actually am...1-3 days instead of 3-5 where I actually am at.

    You have quite a bit of weight to lose, so set your goals to "Lose 2 pounds per week" for now. That will give you a fairly low number of calories to eat.

    Add in your Exercise and eat back those calories. That is how this tool is designed to be used. When you are prompted to update your Goals, do so. When you get within 40 pounds of your ultimate Goal, switch to "Lose 1 pound per week:"

    If you get stuck, come back and ask more questions.

    Be cautious with taking advice from just anyone (like people who are new here themselves.) This site works differently than almost any other calculator you will find. Just use the tool. It will work.

    my advice is valid. I'm on day 328 on MFP and i've lost 27kg. What part of that makes me not worth listening to?

    Nobody was referring to you... Not everything is about you :wink: j/k

    he quoted the response to my advice, so it's safe to assume he doesn't agree. That's fine, but the attitude annoyed me is all.
  • SkinnyBubbaGaar
    SkinnyBubbaGaar Posts: 389 Member
    Options
    Unless you are using the TDEE -X% method then, yes, plan to eat back the exercise calories that you burn. You might consider, however, only looking at eating back between 50-75% of the calories that MFP tells you that you've "earned" by exercise.

    That way you can help account for any over-estimation of calories burned (MFP can tend to be a bit high in the burned rate) and also any under reporting of estimated calorie consumption.
  • shutyourpieholeandsquat
    shutyourpieholeandsquat Posts: 1,394 Member
    Options
    thats great, Im doing the lower calories just for the first 30 days in order to jumpstart a loss, then Im going to up my calories to what is better for me, I come up to about 1800 a day which seems like a lot..and thats with one lower activity then I actually am...1-3 days instead of 3-5 where I actually am at.

    You have quite a bit of weight to lose, so set your goals to "Lose 2 pounds per week" for now. That will give you a fairly low number of calories to eat.

    Add in your Exercise and eat back those calories. That is how this tool is designed to be used. When you are prompted to update your Goals, do so. When you get within 40 pounds of your ultimate Goal, switch to "Lose 1 pound per week:"

    If you get stuck, come back and ask more questions.

    Be cautious with taking advice from just anyone (like people who are new here themselves.) This site works differently than almost any other calculator you will find. Just use the tool. It will work.

    my advice is valid. I'm on day 328 on MFP and i've lost 27kg. What part of that makes me not worth listening to?

    Nobody was referring to you... Not everything is about you :wink: j/k

    he quoted the response to my advice, so it's safe to assume he doesn't agree. That's fine, but the attitude annoyed me is all.

    I didn't take it that way at all lol. I think he was talking about someone else... I'm not going to point them out but I agree with him if it's who I'm thinking of LOL
  • bumblebreezy91
    bumblebreezy91 Posts: 520 Member
    Options
    Some people eat back the calories, some don't. Unless you are A: Starving or B: seeing awesome results I wouldnt eat back the calories as often they are grossly overestimated. When you exercise then you are forcing your body to actually burn fat once your glycogen levels are depleted....seems dumb to eat back that work.

    ^This.

    I try to eat back as little calories as possible unless I have to (too hungry, too big of a deficit) because then I feel like 1) the exercise I did was pointless (it's not, it's just what satisfies me personally) and 2) there was a horrible overestimation in calories burned and I'm going to eat back too much (I'm investing in a HRM when I get paid so it's not so much guessing work).

    HRM = heart rate monitor, in case you weren't sure. I have mine all picked out, just a matter of funds and waiting for it to ship. :)
  • SLLRunner
    SLLRunner Posts: 12,942 Member
    Options
    Some people eat back the calories, some don't. Unless you are A: Starving or B: seeing awesome results I wouldnt eat back the calories as often they are grossly overestimated. When you exercise then you are forcing your body to actually burn fat once your glycogen levels are depleted....seems dumb to eat back that work.

    It's not dumb to eat your exercise calories back, and you are not "eating back that work," as you put it. MFP has already calculated your calorie deficit. Eating back exercise calories is to properly fuel your body from working out.
  • Multisportsmom
    Multisportsmom Posts: 2
    Options
    if it confuses you, go the TDEE route. I eat consistently so I don't have to work out how much extra I 'can have'.

    http://thefitgirls.com/tdee-calculator.aspx

    eat 20% lower than the second number, as long as it's higher than the first number, and don't eat back excercise cals. Much simpler.

    interesting, so it factors in how many calories you should be eating based on how active you say you are?

    Yep. i undersell - I tell it i'm lightly active when really i'm moderately active, then if i skip a day or something it's no big deal. Doing it this way I eat 1750 daily vs about 1250 on MFP, and my intake is consistent which is vital for me as I have a metabolic disorder (hypothyroidism) I lost about 8kg the MFP way and then stalled, switched to TDEE and never looked back

    I too have hypothyrodism. I have looked at different calculators and BMR/TDEE and still confused or curious if that really works. I started out eating 1200 calories. Not eating exercises calories back(just got a HRM) lost some but for such a small amount of calories would have expected more. I have upped my calories to 1400 this week. I weigh again Monday. Hoping the scale goes down.
    As last week I exercised 5 days about 1200 per day and only lost 1/2 pound.
  • jensiegel39
    jensiegel39 Posts: 163 Member
    Options
    Believe me, I'm struggling with the same thing! Understanding what I'm supposed to eat or not and how much. It's better to ask than to be wrong, right?

    One thing I found today at others' suggestions was eating peanut butter and apples to increase my calories (yesterday, I had a serious deficit). That helped my numbers today and was really good!
  • trudijoy
    trudijoy Posts: 1,685 Member
    Options
    if it confuses you, go the TDEE route. I eat consistently so I don't have to work out how much extra I 'can have'.

    http://thefitgirls.com/tdee-calculator.aspx

    eat 20% lower than the second number, as long as it's higher than the first number, and don't eat back excercise cals. Much simpler.

    interesting, so it factors in how many calories you should be eating based on how active you say you are?

    Yep. i undersell - I tell it i'm lightly active when really i'm moderately active, then if i skip a day or something it's no big deal. Doing it this way I eat 1750 daily vs about 1250 on MFP, and my intake is consistent which is vital for me as I have a metabolic disorder (hypothyroidism) I lost about 8kg the MFP way and then stalled, switched to TDEE and never looked back

    I too have hypothyrodism. I have looked at different calculators and BMR/TDEE and still confused or curious if that really works. I started out eating 1200 calories. Not eating exercises calories back(just got a HRM) lost some but for such a small amount of calories would have expected more. I have upped my calories to 1400 this week. I weigh again Monday. Hoping the scale goes down.
    As last week I exercised 5 days about 1200 per day and only lost 1/2 pound.

    hypo has never affected my weightloss hugely. meds right? levels stable? then it operates pretty normally. It can be hard to push past the lethargy barrier to start with but that's about it. I understand it's diff for diff people but I got my doc to adjust my meds up and never looked back. He was content to leave me on the bottom of the normal scale - I asked to take an extra 300 mcg a week to function in the middle of the scale and it made a world of difference
  • MyChocolateDiet
    MyChocolateDiet Posts: 22,281 Member
    Options
    Where it says "Remaining", try to get that to as close to zero as reasonably possible.

    Repeat daily for months and/or years.

    Done.
    How come nobody quoted this? And how come OP ignored it? She asked for "dumb down" and to my eye this is IT! It is THE single most to the point no nonsense answer here.

    (Said another way OP. MFP is letting you input your workouts to estimate how many cals you burned to factor that into your daily goal. IF you did more, you burned more and need more cals. THAT"S why you try to get that number as close to zero as possible on a daily basis. I used to just try to get within 100 cals over or under.)
  • shscruggs82
    shscruggs82 Posts: 32
    Options
    Where it says "Remaining", try to get that to as close to zero as reasonably possible.

    Repeat daily for months and/or years.

    Done.
    How come nobody quoted this? And how come OP ignored it? She asked for "dumb down" and to my eye this is IT! It is THE single most to the point no nonsense answer here.

    (Said another way OP. MFP is letting you input your workouts to estimate how many cals you burned to factor that into your daily goal. IF you did more, you burned more and need more cals. THAT"S why you try to get that number as close to zero as possible on a daily basis. I used to just try to get within 100 cals over or under.)

    it was definitely helpful and to the point :) I just thought I was talking to much haha
  • liamfnb1
    liamfnb1 Posts: 4 Member
    Options
    I'm wondering is there a different way I should be thinking of this as I'm just starting off from a high weight. Even with the 1000 cal deficit built in, MFP says I need nearly 2700 cals a day, I then burn off 500 cals on a static bike leaving me with nearly 3200 cals for the day.
    Tbh, I can't eat that many cals from healthy food (which was my original plan) without feeling stuffed at each meal.
    While I can understand that as my weight falls (and it will!!) my target cals will decrease, does it make sense me "over-eating" to hit this goal?
    In the future I may be grateful for getting my exercise cals back but at the moment it doesn't quite seem the right thing to do.
    Any suggestions would be appreciated as I have a long way to go to change the habits of a lifetime.
  • PMCGL
    PMCGL Posts: 11
    Options
    "switched to TDEE and never looked back". So what is TDEE. Oops my newness is showing.
  • liamfnb1
    liamfnb1 Posts: 4 Member
    Options
    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/10589-for-those-confused-or-questioning-eating-your-exercise-calo

    This seems to suggest that the eating of exercise calories is more important the closer you get to your target weight and seems to make sense to me in my position.
    I'm consistantly eating between 1800 and 2000 calories a day before exercise
  • joyfuljoy65
    joyfuljoy65 Posts: 317 Member
    Options
    I lost almost 5 stone (always sounds more than 69lb!) by eating whatever the number was for the day - including any exercise I logged. It really was as simple as that. Try not to overthink and second guess - just enjoy the fact that you don't have to starve yourself, you don't have to feel guilty about eating a snack, and that you don't feel like you are on a diet, but on a path to a new way of eating.

    After 33 years of trying to lose weight on other plans (a lot of them!) and only ending up putting more weight on, after 16mths doing MFP I can honestly say its been the best discovery in my life - a free easy to follow plan that WORKS.

    Now on maintenance - and that is a whole new challenge!
  • trudijoy
    trudijoy Posts: 1,685 Member
    Options
    "switched to TDEE and never looked back". So what is TDEE. Oops my newness is showing.

    TDEE is Total Daily Energy Expenditure. Basically you work out your BMR (basal metabolic rate) and your TDEE, then subtract 20% from your TDEE number to give you your calorie intake goal. Then you eat the same amount every day, regardless of your exercise. TDEE method takes into account your height, weight, activity level and age, and works out what you should be taking in to lose weight with your lifestyle.

    I use http://thefitgirls.com/tdee-calculator.aspx to work out my numbers, but there are about a million calculators online....

    Edited to add: your calorie intake must always be over your BMR because your BMR is what your body burns regardless, ie if you were in a coma you'd still burn this much just by being alive.
  • Sarauk2sf
    Sarauk2sf Posts: 28,072 Member
    Options
    MFP method, you eat back those exercise calories because the number MFP gives you already has a deficit in it before exercise. When you exercise you create a larger deficit which is why MFP gives you calories back to eat so that you can stay within a healthy deficit. Too much of anything is not good, including too much of a deficit.

    ^^this.

    With one caveat - be conservative with your exercise calorie estimates as if you overestimate them you can end up wiping out, or significantly cutting into your deficit.

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/818082-exercise-calories-again-wtf
  • ILiftHeavyAcrylics
    ILiftHeavyAcrylics Posts: 27,732 Member
    Options
    thats great, Im doing the lower calories just for the first 30 days in order to jumpstart a loss, then Im going to up my calories to what is better for me, I come up to about 1800 a day which seems like a lot..and thats with one lower activity then I actually am...1-3 days instead of 3-5 where I actually am at.

    You have quite a bit of weight to lose, so set your goals to "Lose 2 pounds per week" for now. That will give you a fairly low number of calories to eat.

    Add in your Exercise and eat back those calories. That is how this tool is designed to be used. When you are prompted to update your Goals, do so. When you get within 40 pounds of your ultimate Goal, switch to "Lose 1 pound per week:"

    If you get stuck, come back and ask more questions.

    Be cautious with taking advice from just anyone (like people who are new here themselves.) This site works differently than almost any other calculator you will find. Just use the tool. It will work.

    my advice is valid. I'm on day 328 on MFP and i've lost 27kg. What part of that makes me not worth listening to?

    I could be wrong but I think she was referring to the newer person who said not to eat them back. Many new members don't realize that the deficit is built in so they go for a "undershoot the goal as much as possible" method.

Categories