Exercise calories inaccurate?

mgreen10
mgreen10 Posts: 229 Member
edited September 28 in Fitness and Exercise
I know that MFP gives you the amount of calories that you burn per workout...which is somewhat accurate. For example, lets say you burn 200 calories walking for 1 hour. (This is hypothetical)....But my instinct is to subtract from that...I mean, if I didn't walk and just sat on the couch, I would still burn about 70 calories in that hour. Right? Just by living and breathing. So....shouldn't I only count that I burned 130? (200-70). Let me know what you think about this. This is something I have been thinking about for a while.

Replies

  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,294 Member
    You are correct you should back out maintenance calories from calories burned from exercise to get extra calories burned due to exercise, and that is the amount of exercise calories you should be eating.

    MFP already factors in maintenance calories as part of your goal, and cals burned under the exercise tab or your HRM, is total calories burned, which means if you enter that number you are double counting maintenance calories.
  • amyradelle
    amyradelle Posts: 20
    You should just get a HRM..That way you can enter in your personal info...height, weight, age, and then it keeps track of your HR and tells you exactly how much you have burned.
    I have one and it was one of the best fitness investments I have ever made!!
  • triciawebb78
    triciawebb78 Posts: 142 Member
    I believe MFP already calculates what calories you burn just by "living" so count that 200!
  • aghartley
    aghartley Posts: 3 Member
    I completely agree that you should subtract your resting calories from your exercise...that is why I never eat ALL of my exercise calories back, because you are actually eating back calories that MFP counts towards your "daily deficit".
  • texastae1010
    texastae1010 Posts: 165
    This is funny driving home I was just thinking about that.....I do have a HRM but I only wear it when I am working out...and went well does that really count meaning like you said I didn't really burn 500 calories doing x .....I understand that MFP has a deficit built into it but if I add my exercise calories back exactly as my HRM says then actually I am double adding some of them like said above....I am going to figure out my resting heart rate or calories burned for a time period and then if subtract that from my calories burned ....guess that just means I have to sweat more huh :( but thank you for thinking the same as me because I was wondering if I was a little bit crazy as I hadn't seen any other posts on it (not saying that they aren't out there I just haven't seen them lol)
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,294 Member
    You should just get a HRM..That way you can enter in your personal info...height, weight, age, and then it keeps track of your HR and tells you exactly how much you have burned.
    I have one and it was one of the best fitness investments I have ever made!!

    You still have to back out maintenance calories from your HRM. Your HRM tells you total calories burned during exercise, not extra calories burned, so if you don't back out maintenance cals and enter into MFP you will be double counting those calories.
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,294 Member
    I believe MFP already calculates what calories you burn just by "living" so count that 200!

    No, MFP does count that as part of your daily goal, but the exercise calculator is based on non-MFP equation that would double count those cals if entered in as it is poster.
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,294 Member
    This is funny driving home I was just thinking about that.....I do have a HRM but I only wear it when I am working out...and went well does that really count meaning like you said I didn't really burn 500 calories doing x .....I understand that MFP has a deficit built into it but if I add my exercise calories back exactly as my HRM says then actually I am double adding some of them like said above....I am going to figure out my resting heart rate or calories burned for a time period and then if subtract that from my calories burned ....guess that just means I have to sweat more huh :( but thank you for thinking the same as me because I was wondering if I was a little bit crazy as I hadn't seen any other posts on it (not saying that they aren't out there I just haven't seen them lol)

    To see the amount you should back out, go to your goals tab and look at calories burned from normal daily activity. That is your maintenance calories. So take that divide by 1440 to get maintenance cals/minute so for every minute you workout you back out that amount and enter it into MFP.
  • skbruewer
    skbruewer Posts: 144 Member
    I have a BodyBugg that I wear roughly 23 hours a day. I track my food on MFP then transfer it to BodyBugg. I look to have a 500 cal deficit per day, so I don't normally rely totally on MFP.
  • triciawebb78
    triciawebb78 Posts: 142 Member
    I still dont get that! sorry I feel kinda dumb on this...prob cuz i am so new to this whole thing...but if MFP already calculates your resting burn and then you go for a twenty min walk and it says you burned 100 cal...for example...why wouldnt you count that?
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,294 Member
    I still dont get that! sorry I feel kinda dumb on this...prob cuz i am so new to this whole thing...but if MFP already calculates your resting burn and then you go for a twenty min walk and it says you burned 100 cal...for example...why wouldnt you count that?

    because the calculation MFP uses is for total calories burned during the walk to be 100 calories, but this fails to acknowledge that if you didn't workout you still would have burned some calories, which MFP already gives you to eat, and if you eat all 100 some of those you are already eating even if you didn't exercise.

    So the exercise calculator tells you during this workout you burned 100, but does not tell you you would have burned 20 if you didn't do the workout, that 20 MFP has included in your intake, and if you are eating your exercise calories you should only enter 80 (100-20) as those are the extra calories burned from exercise, above what you would have burned had you not exercised.
  • Jizes318
    Jizes318 Posts: 409 Member
    I did not know any of this. Wow
  • alb_photog
    alb_photog Posts: 110 Member
    great thread!
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