Recording my excerise. Necessary or no?

I do not always track my exercise. The exercise calculators are not accurate and they give me more calories than I should consume. I do track my weights and cardio everytime I increase it though just so I have a record of what I am doing. If you are exercising and hoping to gain muscle you need to eat back some protein though. In general I find eating a bit more protein when I have been working out makes me feel better, less sore, more energetic, so I would recommend tossing in a bit more of that even if you are trying to lose.

If your goal is already something as unsustainable as 1200, then yes I would add exercise calories.

cwolfman13 wrote: »

yes...

also, if you can't even manage to consume a paltry 1200 calories per day, how did it become necessary for you to lose weight?

I also wonder.

hiaaitsmegan2 wrote: »

All of this is so new to me. I've never counted calories or really tried to excerise (when I wasn't thinking about it). I used to play sports when I younger and that's what kept me in shape but as I'm getting older I'm starting to gain a little weight in areas that I don't want. It just started recently to bother me so I decided to do something about it. I only put 20 pounds as a goal weight loss because I don't really need to loose that much. I'm 5'6 and my weight usually stays around 140. I just mainly need to tone up my stomach and legs so I feel better about myself and stop beating my self up. And yes my weight loss goal is 1lb a week.

Well, you can't spot reduce your belly and legs but if you eat at a deficit you'll lose fat...from wherever it chooses to come off. With your stats, you can eat more than 1200 calories anyway. How are you having a hard time meeting this? It is very little food. Are you using a food scale?

There are somedays I do to much Cardio (stree relief) and am below 1000 calories NET most sundays and wednesdays because I'm very active on those days and have noappetite after 10 am. I have realized its not so healthy and try to eat more the other five days but have considered a High calorie weight gainer for those two days to get above 1500 calories and would highly recommend it to you too- 1200 calories and doing cardio is very dangerous.. Mind you I use to eat a 24 ounce ribeye, huge potatoe, and a couch (joke) everday so you would think I could eat more but its just the way I am now.. Oh french onion dip and a bag of chips every night thank god those days are in the past!!

The short answer is that I think it is helpful to track exercise. I don't trust the calorie numbers it gives me back, though, so I generally try to hit my original mark but allow myself to fudge it a little by maybe 1/3-1/2 the calories it assigns me. I'm not sure that is the right number, either, but if my blood sugar gets too low I am miserable and no fun to be around. But I think if you're exercising daily then you should probably try to eat at least some but probably not all of the calories you earned by exercising.

Long answer, I don't think this is the right question to ask. As some people have already said, 1200 calories is pretty low for most people, especially if you are fairly active. It may be a good idea to talk to a doctor or nutritionist to get a second opinion on that number. However, it should easily be possible for most people to eat at least that many calories, and it is possible that something else is going on, either physically with your body or maybe in how you are calculating your intake. As some people have said, a food scale can help you to better understand the actual amounts you are eating. It is very easy to underestimate quantities, especially if you are lucky enough to be new to thinking about food this way.

Give yourself some time to adjust. Get a food scale and prepare your meals in advance, with careful measuring and planning from a nutritional standpoint, and see if it is easier to meet your calorie goals. Try it faithfully for a couple weeks before you decide if it is working or not. Our bodies are more like a big cruise ship that takes hours to turn around, not so much like a helicopter that can turn on a dime. A change must be sustained over time to have a lasting effect. Anomalies of low calorie count or high energy expenditure for a couple of days will have only an immediate effect (unless it is really extreme and then it is usually because you have hurt yourself!!) and your body tends to be able to keep the status quo. You have to maintain the change for longer to get a lasting effect, or in some cases for you to even have any noticeable impact.

Weight gain and weight loss are a lot more than just the calories you eat **right now** and the calories you burned on the treadmill today. There are a lot of factors that affect how each individual body metabolizes things, and those factors change over time based on things that are happening in our lives and biochemistry. Weight gain in people who used to be extremely active can be a combination of subtle changes in activity levels, subtle changes in eating habits and just the effects of aging on hormone levels, along with things like stress levels, how much sleep you're getting and so many more things. It is good to get a handle on which things are at the root of the weight gain in order to effectively fix habits or health issues to have a sustainable change.

Especially if someone is not used to thinking about food, it can be a surprise to wake up one day and realize that your comfy jeans are feeling tight and you can't button your skinny jeans. And then of course it is a struggle to change your habit and pay attention to those calories and food without going too far in the opposite direction and possibly undermining your own efforts. Focusing on food for dieting is, in my experience, a very mixed activity. On the one hand, you have to pay attention or you won't change your habits. On the other hand, by paying more attention to it, you may feel more cravings and feel hungrier than the change in eating in itself would cause.

At the same time, if someone is not used to thinking about calorie count, it is possible to miss some calories that are being consumed. If you have a salad, you might be underestimating the dressing or things like sunflower seeds or egg that you might add to it. You may be drinking more calories than you realize in your coffee or juice or when you go out with friends. It is important to figure out what is really happening in your diet and in your body and in your mind in order to be successful with weight loss.

sixxpoint wrote: »

MFP works better when you exclude exercise tracking, target the appropriate macros based on your individual needs, and set your own calorie goal based on TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure).

If you are recording exercise with this app, you are likely spinning wheels and getting nowhere. Also, 1200 calories is likely VERY wrong for you, and can be harmful over the long term.

This is really not necessarily true. Many people do well or better with the NEAT method.

sixxpoint wrote: »

arditarose wrote: »

sixxpoint wrote: »

MFP works better when you exclude exercise tracking, target the appropriate macros based on your individual needs, and set your own calorie goal based on TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure).

If you are recording exercise with this app, you are likely spinning wheels and getting nowhere. Also, 1200 calories is likely VERY wrong for you, and can be harmful over the long term.

This is really not necessarily true. Many people do well or better with the NEAT method.

Can you say that tracking calories burned (likely inaccurately so) is more effective than tracking consumed calories and setting an activity level?

Can you also say that 1200 calories a day is even appropriate for most people unless they are not laying in a coma in the hospital?

I was only responding to NEAT vs. TDEE. I already stated earlier she should eat more.

TDEE is great, but it's a generalization to say that it works better.

NOT to be a "D" but your argument that one person can believe that they know they burned a certain amount of calories vs a person who ate a cetain amount of calories is really the same argument. Advanced Nutrition is bro- science unless your getting blood drawn every hour and hooked upto machines 24-7 and since most scientists today are funded by someone trying to make money I really don't trust so called science with a spin..so sad!!

science has discovered that if we start the message off with" a new study shows" the majority of people will beieve it

hiaaitsmegan2 wrote: »

What is TDEE? And when I went to finish my log for the day it said that the recommended intake is 1200 for an average woman so idk what I'm doing wrong. I signed up, put my info in, and that's what it said to do. I'd rather not have a debate I just need help with knowing what to do and how to do it properly. This site isn't exactly helpful with explaining itself and like I said this is the first time I've really taken this seriously and if I'm going to do it I want to do it right but I can't force myself to eat X amount of calories if I'm not hungry.

If you read the link MissJay posted it will be a great help to you.