Eating Back Exercise Calories? I burned 842 calories in 30 minutes?

MelanieEaton_ wrote: »

I've read that MFP can overestimate how many calories a person burns during exercise, so I have been very conservative about the way I record my exercise. Even though I recorded 30 minutes of activity, it was really 35 minutes, and although I was consistently at a 20mph pace, I recorded the activity at a 14-16mph pace. Now, I know I will burn calories at a much higher rate now at 358 lbs than I will when I am 250, 200, etc...but MFP says that I burned 842 calories today. Does that seem high to anyone else?

I am thinking that as well as being conservative with my time and distance when recording exercise, I am thinking it would also be a good idea to only eat back half of my exercise calories and see how that goes. Does anyone else do this, or have a different strategy? I'd love to hear your opinions. I would be happy with a 2lb/week loss, but I don't want to sabotage that with the way I handle exercise calories.

It does seem high to me as well.

I ride a stationary bike too, and I choose the "Stationary bike, light effort (bicycling, cycling, biking) " option, no matter what I actually do.

And yes ... it is recommended to eat only about half the exercise calories back.

MelanieEaton_ wrote: »

Machka9 wrote: »

It does seem high to me as well.

I ride a stationary bike too, and I choose the "Stationary bike, light effort (bicycling, cycling, biking) " option, no matter what I actually do.

And yes ... it is recommended to eat only about half the exercise calories back.

Probably would be a good idea for me to record it as light effort, just to be on the safe side Thanks Machka!

Yeah ... for some reason any of the other choices seemed really high to me too. I figured better safe than sorry.

And I have been losing weight so it seems to be working.

All the best!!

Hi,
My two cents- I would recommend getting a Garmin or a FitBit or similar instead if you can. This way you can sync the daily totals with the MFP app and not stress about what was actually burned.
If the fitness watches don't suit it may be safer to steer away from eating back the calories if you can help it. However, I personally get really really raheeeelly hungry towards 4pm and try to manage my hunger by drinking water, herbal tea, hot water with lemon or a spiced broth of some sorts or if I'm really desperate, eating a boiled egg. Usually I find this helps keep me going until dinner.
There are also a few good apps that you can download that will help you track calories spent but it would mean keeping your phone on you all day.
You will burn a lot more calories at the start as your body gets used to working out and healthy eating but it will slow down as your body gets used to the stress and you will have to push yourself harder. So be conservative with the calorie estimates as well. Most of the literature I have come across stipulates that we tend to under-estimate how much we eat and how many calories we actually consume (think mindless snacks in the form of a broken cookie or that one crisp that won't quite fit in the bowl). When I started measuring my food it really hit me how true this is.
We also tend to over estimate how much energy we expend exercising. I have friends who wholeheartedly believe that they can burn a whole pizza by taking a 20 minute walk (rather than the 150 odd burpees you would have to do per slice agghh). So it would probably safest to do the exercise as a value add rather than as part of the calorie tracking process.
I hope this is helpful to you. The world can be very confusing when it comes to weight loss.
Also well done for starting this amazing journey, I hope it will be a happy and rewarding challenge towards the amazing you