Recording of Calories Burned - still Confused?!

Woah, I think you are reading way too much into this. If your daily goal is 1670 cals, and you burn 400 by exercise...then you record 400 cals burned. That would bring your cals for the day to 2070, and you should then eat 2070 cals. MFP will automatically figure it out for you if you enter your cals burned. No math necessary.

ETA: make sure your MFP settings are set to how much you want to lose per week, or whether you want to maintain your current weight. It will adjust as needed according to what settings you enter.

SInce all the calorie estimations are estimates, since everybody is a little different, it is not worth the trouble to try and calculate out the difference.

If your using a HRM you would subtract your BMR for the minutes you exercised before entering them into MFP.
If your just using what MFP calculates for exercise then you don't have to subtract anything.

i know what you mean, jellybean! i've thought about that too. but then i decided that it was too pain in the keister to mess with, so i just put in what my hrm says. i figure at some point during the day, i'll probably catch up those leftover calories by checking the mail or watering plants or sneezing or something!

Yeah you're making it way too hard This site is set up to be easy. Just record what your equipment/hrm said you burned for your calories under exercise and MFP will do the rest. Did I mention I LOVE MFP?

Woah, I think you are reading way too much into this. If your daily goal is 1670 cals, and you burn 400 by exercise...then you record 400 cals burned. That would bring your cals for the day to 2070, and you should then eat 2070 cals. MFP will automatically figure it out for you if you enter your cals burned. No math necessary.

ETA: make sure your MFP settings are set to how much you want to lose per week, or whether you want to maintain your current weight. It will adjust as needed according to what settings you enter.

Agree 100%...........this is correct to maintain weight, you dont have to eat all your exercise calories back if your trying to lose.
Dont read to far into the number, MFP does everything for you.

Hi -

I am still confused as to whether or not when I record my "calories burned through exercise", I subtract what my body uses in that very same time span just to maintain. ( I don't mean BMR, I mean to maintain. )

For example -

I exercise for one hour and burn lets say 400 calories according to either my HRM or the MFP database.

Since I maintain my current lifestyle and weight at 1670 a day or 69 calories per hour, would I subtract 69 from the 400 I've burned to find out the truest amount of actual burned calories??

And then record THAT number?

If you don't know the official answer - which I hope someone will, what do you do?

thanks and all the best

Yup, this is what I do. Think of it this way - MFP ASSUMES you burn a certain number of calories per day - you can work it out to an average per hour, like you did. You should only count calories burned above and beyond that. While I haven't contacted all the companies personally, it is my understanding that HRMs, MFP, Bodybuggs, etc. don't back out your "normal" burn - so included in their number is what MFP already assumes you are going to burn.

So... Yes, to be most accurate, you should back out that 69 (maybe round it up to 70 to be easier) calories per hour of exercise before logging it. Once you get used to doing it, it's really not that much trouble.

Theoretically MFP takes into consideration your daily burn rate to maintain your current weight. they then give you a deficit, without exercise, based on your daily burn rate to lose a certain amount of weight per week if you weren't to exercise. Your exercise burn rate is based on your weight as well (average). So no....you don't need to subtract the 69 calories.

The problem is that most calorie burn calculations don't back out the calories you would've burned anyways during that time if you weren't exercising... which can be anywhere from 60-100 calories per hour, depending on the individual. MFP assumes you burn a certain amount of calories per day, and exercise calories are what you burn over and above that. You would be double-counting your "normal" calorie burn if you didn't back them out of the exercise calorie estimate. If you overestimate exercise calories by 60-100 per hour, and you're exercising more than just one or two hours a week, that could have a noticeable effect on your progress, assuming you eat most of your exercise calories.

Hi -

I have read many different posts on MFP for awhile now on similar topics. I am not a pro or I might even be doing it wrong. My goal it to eat good food to total 1700 cals. So, I do just that, I eat that number period. I ran a 3K yesterday and I didn't subtract the 500 cals burned. MFP did, I just ignored it. I just eat good stuff after, I had a good portion dinner later on and I hit my 1700 cal total. I feel great and not starving.