Eating back calories - why? Confused!

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  • mschicagocubs
    mschicagocubs Posts: 774 Member
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    I've seen other posts about exagerated calories burned. How acurate is the database here on mfp? I don't have anyother way to judge my calories burned so am I ok in just using mfp?

    I dont have the money right now to spend on an expensive HRM ... I just got a $30 one. Is it better to just save and get a more expensive one? I dont want to be using a HRM that isnt getting anymore accurate than the MFP database?
  • MeanderingMammal
    MeanderingMammal Posts: 7,866 Member
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    I just havent seen a lot of pounds yet. I definitely feel better in my pants (especially after cutting soda out of my diet for a month). SO...PATIENCE!!!

    I haven't weighed myself in a couple of months. I'm measuring success in part by my clothes actually fitting me better than they did before, and my running performance is improving significantly.

    In nine months I've gone from not running at all to being able to do 12Km without a huge problem, and getting down to a 28 minute 5Km. My target is to get down to 25mins this year and hopefully a sub 55 min 10Km
  • Mr_Knight
    Mr_Knight Posts: 9,532 Member
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    I've seen other posts about exagerated calories burned. How acurate is the database here on mfp? I don't have anyother way to judge my calories burned so am I ok in just using mfp?

    It really depends on the exercise and the fitness level of the individual. For reasons that are unfathomable, MFP provides gross burn numbers for activities like running and walking. This means your BMR is effectively double-counted.

    As a rough guideline...

    - for running, knock of 25%
    - for walking, knock of 50%
    - for anything "intervaly", knock of 50% if you are fit (i.e., can run 5k regularly), or knock off 80% if not fit
  • snufs
    snufs Posts: 78
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    Just fair warning - the calorie burns in your diary look..."exaggerated"....if you're going to eat them back, be very very careful. Eating back exercise calories that don't actually exist is one of the most common source of problems in the MFP community.

    And if you're going to say "but it's from an HRM!" let me just pre-emptively kick your virtual *kitten*. :laugh: HRMs do not give accurate burns for intervaly type exercise like "tabata" training.

    I don't eat back all my calories, no. I'm very careful of overeating, even tough I've worked out during the day. But thanks for you warning.

    If the HRM isn't giving accurate calorie burn, then why do people even use them? Also, do you know what tabata is? Doing a 20-minute workout of tabata can burn up to 200 calories and more. But once again, thanks for the warming thought. I'm a newbie, just had my hrm for about a month, but I really think it's giving me the accurate calorie burn since I often check my pulse during my workout. Feel free to say otherwise, but please tell me why! Maybe we have different HRMs here in Finland, what do I know. (Kidding ..)

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