Advice please

jade_porter1614
jade_porter1614 Posts: 4 Member
edited November 2024 in Health and Weight Loss
Hi I'm new to all this calorie counting etc...I'm allowed 1300 calories a day according to the app but obviously when I exercise I'm burning the calories so it it making the amount higher that I still need, do I then eat more food or not????
Stupid question I know but I'm baffled

Replies

  • adamitri
    adamitri Posts: 614 Member
    Yes mfp is set to eat your exercise calories back, but you have to be careful and estimate your burn as accurately as possible.
  • GreenIceFloes
    GreenIceFloes Posts: 1,491 Member
    Yes, eat back your exercise calories. If you have burned 200 calories through exercise, your limit for the day would become 1300+200=1500 calories. You need to eat back those calories to maintain the same deficit.
    MFP overestimates losses, so you might want to use an HRM to calculate your calorie burn, if you don't already. If you use MFP to calculate your burns, then you should probably eat back around half or three-quarters of the total burned.
  • Rames221
    Rames221 Posts: 27 Member
    The amount indicated on the app is what your "recommended" net calorie count should be at the end of the day after you've exercised and ate for that day. It just means that if you consume more than 1300 calories, you should burn the necessary amount of calories that day to bring your total back to roughly 1300.
  • Lrdoflamancha
    Lrdoflamancha Posts: 1,280 Member
    Yes you do. But here in lies the rub. MFPs burn ratio is way too high for most things. So only eat back 50 percent of what MFP says you have burned.
  • 999tigger
    999tigger Posts: 5,235 Member
    Nope its a very common question. the MFP default methods is called NEAT and calculates a deficit without taking exercise into account. That means extra calories you burn can be eaten back and you will still lose based on your original deficit. The kicker is that MFP tends to overestimate the calorie burn you might do, so in order to avoid eating calories you havent really burned its suggested you eat between 25-50% of the calories. See how that works out and adjust. For weight loss its better to be conservative in your estimates.
  • jade_porter1614
    jade_porter1614 Posts: 4 Member
    This is very confusing haha. Should I be exercising at a specific time of day like of a morning before eating my calories?
  • Ninkyou
    Ninkyou Posts: 6,666 Member
    jade_porter1614 wrote: »
    This is very confusing haha. Should I be exercising at a specific time of day like of a morning before eating my calories?

    Nope. Whatever works for you.
  • jade_porter1614
    jade_porter1614 Posts: 4 Member
    Thank you I will give it a shot
  • DancingMoosie
    DancingMoosie Posts: 8,619 Member
    You can eat back your exercise calories. Use your best judgement on how many you actually burned. If using a machine (like treadmill/elliptical), input age and weight to get a more accurate count. There are also different web sites you can use to count calories burned. Just make sure your weight is correct and some also go by HR. You could also get a HR monitor.
    I've used this one:
    shapesense.com/fitness-exercise/calculators/heart-rate-based-calorie-burn-calculator.aspx
    Or try something like this:
    http://healthstatus.com/calculate/cbc
    or this:
    http://calorielab.com/burned/
    Compare to what mfp database gives you and pick the one that seems more correct. (Or just use the lowest number to be sure you stay in a deficit.)
  • jade_porter1614
    jade_porter1614 Posts: 4 Member
    Thank you x
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