What are exercise calories?

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JacksonZehnder
JacksonZehnder Posts: 3
in Getting Started
New to exercise and eating. So I worked out for about 15 minutes (Yes I know it's not long at all but it's all about baby steps to getting more better.) I went and added my foods I ate and it said I added 113 extra calories from exercise. Does that mean I gained more calories exercising?

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  • AllOutof_Bubblegum
    AllOutof_Bubblegum Posts: 3,646 Member
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    Yes. Most people will recommend eating back up to half of the calories burned through exercise.
  • jperelst
    jperelst Posts: 4
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    I think the first answer misunderstood your questions.

    The "added xxx calories" means that you can eat that many more calories and still lose weight. For example, if you were supposed to eat 1500 calories to be on a 1 pound per week schedule, and then added 113 calories from exercise, it means that you can eat 1613 (1500+113) calories today and still be on the 1 pound per week schedule.
  • KHolladay36
    KHolladay36 Posts: 10
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    Calories are tracked based on your intake. The calories from exercise results in calories being expelled or reduced.. The more exercise calories you have, means that you can actually eat more from food while still maintaining your diet. For example, if your tracker suggests that you consume 2000 calories a day and that you exercise to burn 500 calories, then in reality you have actually only consumed 1500 calories in a day. So the more you exercise, the more extra calories you could potentially consume. However, the point of "extra calories" is to aid in weight loss. If you consume more than your recommended amount, the less weight you will lose. If you ate 2100 calories in a day, to maintain your diet you would have to exercise and burn 600 calories to maintain the 1500 calorie balance that is needed.
    These are only examples to explain your question. I don't actually know what your tracker has set up for your caloric needs or your goals. It is only to explain the idea of "extra calories". I hope this helps you. Extra calories does not mean you have added calories, you have actually decreased calories from exercise. Good job on the 15 minutes. Every little bit helps. I only spend 15 min on my eliptical, but I do it once in the morning and once at night, which works out to be 30 minutes of exercise. As long as you have increased your heartrate, you are doing fine. If not, ramp it up a tad but don't overdo it.
  • alereck
    alereck Posts: 343 Member
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    The way MFP works is that you gives you how many calories you should eat a day based on normal everyday activities. If you exercise they recommend adding the amount of extra calories you have burned to your daily goal. So if you have 1200 daily, burn 100, now you should consume 1300 for that day.

    I do not recommend you do that however, especially if you are working out less than an hour. The reason is that there is no way to find out exactly how many calories you have burned with exercise. No matter what method or gadget you use at the end of it all it's all a guestimation. Which means that you could easily be eating too many calories and slowing your progress.

    I cannot tell you how many times I see people adding 1,000 calories burned a day and it makes me cringe. No one burns that many calories daily for extended periods, not unless they are a professional athlete. If they are eating their calories back they are probably overeating 500-700 calories daily, they probably will gain weight not lose it.

    Keep it simple, after MFP tells you how many calories you should consume a day, if you are going to exercise at least one hour, three times a week I would add about 100-200 calories to your daily intake everyday and see how that works out. If you need to adjust then do it after about 4 weeks. Or start with the recommended and if you are too hungry or with low energy then add the calories.

    But if you exercise anything less than 1 hour x 3/week I would not add any extra calories.

    I hope this helped
    Good luck
  • mikegerber1
    mikegerber1 Posts: 38 Member
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    I don't think the first answer misunderstood, I know what she was saying, your answer is more complete.

    to the OP, the math is pretty simple when you think about it, however the math doesn't mean a thing if you aren't accurate enough. If you try this for a couple weeks and don't get results, you might want to get a food scale and a set of measuring cups to stay accurate on the amount of food you consume, then be honest on how much you exercise. I think I am not very accurate with my consumption but I try to stay accurate with my exercise sooooo... I think I under estimate my food and I've heard MFP over estimates calorie burn. so I would imagine that even though my graphs don't show it, I think I'm still eating the right amount for how much I exercise. It's working though, so far I've had good success.

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