Little confused about the excercise diary

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weslfuss
weslfuss Posts: 22
in Fitness and Exercise
So i noticed that, when you set your goals, it asks you how many times a week you plan to work out. I'm taking P.E twice a week, so I put two workouts a week. Does this mean that I shouldn't add calories that I burn while at those classes? I'm a little worried that the calories it automatically factors into my daily goal will be too high or too low compared to the calories I actualy burn, Should I just put no workouts a week and add them as I go? Somehow that doesn't sound like the right thing to do.

I'm just a little confused about the workout-adding guidlines.:embarassed: How do you guys record your workouts?
(and do you eat back everything you burn?)

Replies

  • ladyhawk00
    ladyhawk00 Posts: 2,457 Member
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    When you set those goals, it doesn't actually add any exercise or cals to your numbers - it's just sort of a measure to help you see if you're meeting your goals for exercise. For that kind of exercise, you need to log it each time individually. Then MFP will add cals to your goal for that day, to keep your deficit at whatever loss/week goal you chose.

    You'll want to carefully choose the database entry for each workout - some of them are quite high cal burns, some are about right, some are well under (it depends on who entered it.) And you may burn more or less than whoever entered it. If you don't feel comfortable estimating the burn, you might get a HRM to get a better idea of what you burn.

    That said, you'll get lots of different responses regarding eating those exercise cals, but here are some threads that explain how the MFP cal deficits work, metabolism and why you should eat at least some of them.

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/61706-guide-to-calorie-deficits

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/10589-for-those-confused-or-questioning-eating-your-exercise-calo

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/153704-myth-or-fact-simple-math-3500-calories-one-pound-eat

    Hope this helps. Good luck to you!
  • Pandorian
    Pandorian Posts: 2,055 MFP Moderator
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    I put my activities as I do them so I don't get credit for something I didn't get the time to do, or weather kept me from doing like tonights gym session got scuttled by the icy conditions.

    I'm on here doing the food diary daily anyway so might as well do exercise at the same time
  • MrsSassyPants
    MrsSassyPants Posts: 223 Member
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    Find a workout on this program that best matches your workout. Mine is biking so I put in moderate and then the amount of time I rode and it figures it for me. When I do sprints I may adjust the workout to vigorous for that time only then moderate for the rest of my ride. It seems to work well for me. Other people may have better advise for you. I don't usually eat all my calories back...IF I am not hungry. What I understand is the starvation theory has a 500 calorie give or take depending on your metabolism. Banks wrote a really good example of this. I just don't know how to direct you to it.
  • jAdorelife
    jAdorelife Posts: 95
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    I try to eat at least half of my work out cals to make sure my body has enough nurients to burn fat instead of muscle, which only takes 2500 cals to burn one lb over fat which takes 3500
  • allegoriedesoie
    allegoriedesoie Posts: 26
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    When I had a trainer--it got too expensive--he recommended I didn't eat back my exercise calories. He said it should be a problem if I was eating 1200-1460 (my BMR) calories a day, and I would be creating a bigger deficit. Also, after getting and HRM, I realized how off the exercise calculator on the website is, so, I don't recommend you eat them back.
  • ladyhawk00
    ladyhawk00 Posts: 2,457 Member
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    When I had a trainer--it got too expensive--he recommended I didn't eat back my exercise calories. He said it should be a problem if I was eating 1200-1460 (my BMR) calories a day, and I would be creating a bigger deficit. Also, after getting and HRM, I realized how off the exercise calculator on the website is, so, I don't recommend you eat them back.

    But you don't want a larger deficit... MFP is set to calculate a deficit (with or without exercise) that allows for a healthy weight loss rate of 2 lbs per week, at most. More than that is often unhealthy, unless you have a very large amount of weight to lose and are under the care of doc, nutritionist, trainer, etc. Some people can afford to not eat them, but the majority need to eat at least some.

    Congrats on your progress, BTW!

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