I know this has been asked before, buuut...

stephreed11
stephreed11 Posts: 158 Member
edited September 22 in Health and Weight Loss
I need help with the whole "exercise calories" thing...I read a post the other day about MFP giving too high of calories back for exercise, people not eating them, people eating all of them & still losing, etc. There's another site I used a couple times to find how many cals I burned doing a certain exercise, & it gave me 100 more than MFP...so are you sure MFP is giving more than the right amount? & how many of you can actually eat them all & still lose? I would love to eat all mine & not have to go elsewhere to track exercise...let me know how it's going for you...thanks! :)

Replies

  • lilRicki
    lilRicki Posts: 4,555 Member
    I stagger...sometimes I'm dead on with eating them all back, sometimes i'm down a hundred calories...as long as I stay above 1200 calories i lose weight...but i do make sure I have enough calories for my protein drink
  • nhendri
    nhendri Posts: 236 Member
    I would highly suggest investing in a heart rate monitor!!!! I would say everything else is a gestimate.
    When i bought mine and was using it I found that I was burning more then mfp said. Keep in mind that its differant for everyone.
  • chelekaz
    chelekaz Posts: 847 Member
    I eat back a portion. The exact amount depends on the day. I generally try to eat back about 1/2 and have had no issues with losing weight doing it this way.
  • sweetheart03622
    sweetheart03622 Posts: 928 Member
    I'd really suggest getting a HRM to keep track of the calories you burn with exercise. If you're worried about it, underestimate the calories you burned off while exercising. And I routinely eat back almost all of my calories and am going down (but I just started about a month ago)
  • karenmi
    karenmi Posts: 242 Member
    I always eat all of my exercise calories and have been steadily losing an average of 1 lb a week for almost a year.

    I do, however, use a heart monitor when I work out so I know my calorie expenditure is pretty accurate. I don't trust the numbers from MFP, the machines at the gym or anywhere else. The treadmill at the gym can sometimes be over by 100 calories, which is not huge in one day but would really add up in a month.
  • monibee
    monibee Posts: 19 Member
    I've always seen that MFP is pretty straight on as long as your weight and other profile things are correct. My husband uses a heart rate monitor which is one a great way of measuring how many calories you burn. My treadmill always gives me more calories than MFP. Either way, we never eat all of our calories back from what we work out. We stick to the same calories every day whether we worked out or not.
  • lfbarrett
    lfbarrett Posts: 8 Member
    I tend to err on the side of caution and not eat all my exercise calories. most sites or exercise equipment are only guesstimates but as you'll probably figure out they are all within a similar range. if you find that you're not losing then maybe your exercise is recording too many calories burned so adjust your meal plan to compensate for that. likely the amounts will be within a 100 cals or so, not a huge variance. in the big scheme of things what it boils down to is exercise daily (or at least 4x/week) and eat healthy, if you find you're hungry (not just bored or stressed) then eat a piece of fruit or some other low cal snack to curb your appetite. Best of luck!!
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