How to count & not to trust.

MFP is using the fact that you stated you walked 2.5mph in one hour so you would have walked 2.5 miles. But in fact you only walked 1.42 mile in that hour according to your pedometer. So You have either your pedometer set incorrectly or you actually only walked 1.42 miles. I think the answer will be somewhere in the middle. One more thought, I make it approximately 70cm per step, does that sound about right? Because I don't think the pedometer will have got the step count wrong. I have probably confused you. I personally prefer a HRM. Anyway keep up the exercise good luck.

Under the "Exercise" tab, click on "My Exercises", then the "Create an Exercise" button. Name it walking, put in the information from the pedometer. You will be able to edit this exercise (time and calories) in the future. Trust the pedometer over MFP. The pedometer measured what you actually did, MFP is guesstimating based on general population stats and tends to be overgenerous with calories.

Not sure if this helps but for actual walks (where I go to and from someplace) I use my phone and an app called Endomondo. Tracks everything with GPS and pretty accurately.

I still find the calories it says I burned to be painfully over estimated, but that's sort of par for the course.

If you use the app, you can set it up to automatically put the sessions into MFP for you.

1.42 mph is very very slow. I walk easily 4 mph. Yes that's a brisk pace but it's also something I can do at my lunch hour without coming back sweating like I ran.

You need to check that actual distance and barring any physical maladies - pick up the pace. At first I read 81 calories and thought, that's basically sedentary breathing and surviving calories. Well, taking an hour to walk 1.42 miles isn't much more than that. I'm not trying to be harsh, but to call it exercise your arms should be swinging and you should notice an increased heart rate.

If you are walking on streets, remember your exact path and then after your walk, drive it. Set your trip odometer then you can take the distance you went, and compare it to the exact time you walked for. For my purposes, i decided to walk in my neighborhood for 30 minutes (i set a timer) away from my house, and then turn right around and come back. i figured that would give me a pretty good estimate of how fast i walk on average. do not trust to either the pedometer or the MFP, as they can both be misleading. I'd guess you more likely did 2.5 miles in an hour than 1.4, as that would be extremely slow.

:huh: Thank you all for the input. I figured the "miles" were off because of how far & the steps it tells me & hours walked but wasn't sure about the calories though. This is a NEW pedometer. I had used one last Summer. I would walk at least 10.000 steps on my walks & wouldn't stop until I was there. I did not wear it all day long. Only to count my "walks" in the evenings.
*** I agree with others: I can NOT figure out why you would exercise in order to burn fat just to eat more. Be rewarded with food. How does that make sense? Oh right ... It doesn't.

Well, it's not really meant to be "rewarded" with more food. In that thought, it would seem like undoing hard work.

It's meant to be to feed your body what it needs due to actually doing more work and expending more energy. Similar to if you drove your car further than a normal day, you'd put in more gas.

There are still goals to be considered it's not just eat all crazytimes but yeah, when you workout you have spent more energy and thus need to ingest more.

CAVEAT: unless all your workouts are already calculated into your MFP or TDEE cal goals.

:huh: Thank you all for the input. I figured the "miles" were off because of how far & the steps it tells me & hours walked but wasn't sure about the calories though. This is a NEW pedometer. I had used one last Summer. I would walk at least 10.000 steps on my walks & wouldn't stop until I was there. I did not wear it all day long. Only to count my "walks" in the evenings.
*** I agree with others: I can NOT figure out why you would exercise in order to burn fat just to eat more. Be rewarded with food. How does that make sense? Oh right ... It doesn't.

It doesn't matter whether you eat back your exercise calories or not. What matters is, at the end of the day, after you account for everything you ate and everything you burned, how much of a deficit do you have?

If you set MFP to lose .5 pound a week (ie, a 500 calorie per day deficit), and then you use the MFP database to estimate your exercise burn (which tends to way overestimate), and then you eat back all of your exercise calories, and maybe go just a tiny bit over, then you could end up with a tiny (or non-existent) deficit. You won't lose weight that way.

However, if you set your calorie goal really low to begin with (as many people do), and then you do some intense workouts (because you're committed to your goals), don't eat back your exercise calories, and maybe come in a little under your goal (very committed!), you could end up with a very large deficit. You'll lose weight all right, but you'll lose muscle as well as fat, and you won't be giving your body what it needs to thrive and be healthy.

You have to come in somewhere in the middle. Either set your calorie goal high enough in the first place to account for the extra work of your exercise routines, while still being low enough to maintain a reasonable deficit, or set your calorie goal lower and eat back your exercise calories. I like to do the latter, because it makes me feel like I have more control day-to-day. Many people find the former to be easier or more encouraging. But really, it's just a preference.

This "exercise" shouldn't be counted anyway...it is already accounted for in your daily activity.

Unless this is purposeful exercise and not just walking around the office or your house...don't log it.

As for eating back exercise calories MFP already has a deficit set in your calories and you should eat back exercise calories to fuel your next workout.

If you set MFP to lose .5 pound a week (ie, a 500 calorie per day deficit), and then you use the MFP database to estimate your exercise burn (which tends to way overestimate), and then you eat back all of your exercise calories, and maybe go just a tiny bit over, then you could end up with a tiny (or non-existent) deficit. You won't lose weight that way.

A lot of what you say is right, but pound of fat is about 3500 calories, so if you wanted to lose half a pound a week you'd need a 250 calorie deficit.

I use the app runkeeper!

This gives me totally accurate pace and distance.

I purposely have set my fitbit stride to less to "sandbag" myself.

It is all about being consistent.

I would be heart broken if I only burned 81 calories after walking for an hour. No way that is right.

I would trust the pedometer over MFP in this case. If your pedometer was set up correctly, you were walking at a 1.4mph pace, which is pretty slow; 80 calories sounds about right. Since you inputted it as 2.5MPH in MFP (which is a faster speed), of course the burn is going to be higher, since it was a faster walk.

Regardless, good for you for getting over a mile in that day!

Kazz -I asked a trainer/nutritionist I know for the answer.... Here you go. I know I was asking the same thing. Keep going strong!

You are right in saying if you don't eat back the calories you burn you will lose weight faster but you are also right in saying you should refuel. If you aren't eating appropriately after workouts your muscles won't repair or recover as fast which will leave you not being able to workout hard for your next workout.

So what do you do? You can eat only
Your allotted calories for the day but you need to make sure you are eating a good source of simple carbs and protein after workouts. This will take care of the muscle recovery and give you a good calorie deficit.

I would eat around 1400-1500 calories on the days you exercise. So your food column should say 1400-1500. Your net will probably be around 1000-1200 which is perfectly fine.

Finally someone who says what I have been thinking all along that eating back your calories was just kind of dumb (not your exact words but still). I made a decision to stop eating abck all my calories a while back! And yeah 13 pounds in two weeks, Ill take that! I know its not sustainable but it will still continue to go down!:bigsmile:

Most likely you were underestimating your intake and overestimating your output...when you're as accurate as possible with both, MFP's method works just fine. It also helps to understand how the tool works...if you and others truly did then you would see exactly why you're supposed to eat back exercise calories.

It's also pretty important when you really get into fitness as proper nutrients and calories are essential to fitness...also pretty essential to being able to maintain. It really does help to learn something about the tool you are using before you just go head first into using it. But hey...some people like driving screws with a hammer I suppose.