Earned Activity Calories

Eat it back. How are you measuring calories burned? Some ways are more accurate than others.

I eat back 50-75% of exercise calories and so far I have lost 30 pounds. If you are at 1200 and don't eat them back then your deficit will be too much and you may not be getting all the nutrients your body needs.

monicamfp20 wrote: »

kimaboyd wrote: »

So I am allowed 1200 calories so that is my minimum right? If I workout and earn 400 calories from excersise I don't have to then net back to 1200? How many people eat back their excercise calories? So would I need to eat 1600 that day? Or as long as I eat the 1200 I have the option of going to 1600 if I wanted? What is more beneficial for weight loss?

if you want to lose weight at the rate of 1200 calories, thats about 5 lbs a month, then don't eat them back.

No. 1200 includes the deficit to lose weight without any exercise. Exercise takes that moderate deficit which you want, to a large deficit, which you don't want since it results in losing lean mass rather than primarily fat mass. Eat your exercise calories.

]

No. 1200 includes the deficit to lose weight without any exercise. Exercise takes that moderate deficit which you want, to a large deficit, which you don't want since it results in losing lean mass rather than primarily fat mass. Eat your exercise calories.
[/quote]

So you are saying by not eating exercise calories back, it is not burning fat but muscle? How can that be?

Vanessalookingood wrote: »

]

No. 1200 includes the deficit to lose weight without any exercise. Exercise takes that moderate deficit which you want, to a large deficit, which you don't want since it results in losing lean mass rather than primarily fat mass. Eat your exercise calories.

So you are saying by not eating exercise calories back, it is not burning fat but muscle? How can that be?
[/quote]

I am saying that your body can only burn a certain amount of fat in a day. When the deficit you eat at gets bigger than that, the extra deficit is made up from other sources, that is lean mass, primarily muscle. Depending on how much fat a person has, the amount they can burn off in a day changes as well. So a person who is obese can lose at a rate of 2 pounds per week and have the vast majority of that be from fat. A person who is only overweight would not have enough fat to be able to burn off 2 pounds per week, so if they set their goal that high they would lose substantially more muscle as fat could only be burned off at maybe a pound a day, so it is far better to see ones goal when overweight to one pound a day. When a person is getting close to their goal, say 20 pound, even a pound a week would likely be too much, meaning a goal of .75 or .5 pounds a week would be far better.

Now take that and realize that a deficit is already built into the goal you have been given based on the information you have set up on this site including our weight loss goal. If you exercise, that deficit is increased, but your body cannot necessarily burn enough fat (depending on how much fat you have on your body) to meet that larger deficit, so it goes to the other source it has, lean mass, muscles and organs. That is why using the goal from this site, you need to eat your exercise calories at least in part.

Vanessalookingood wrote: »

OK but say for me I need to lose 100 more lbs and I don't usually eat my exercise calories back, unless it is my treat day or I'm hungry. Surely this must be ok?

With 100 pounds to lose you have a fair amount of flexibility in your deficit size. Having said that, once you get to about 80 pound that starts to decrease and 2 pound a week is probably the max, so eating at least part of those calories back would be wise. When you get to 50 to go, that becomes even more important, as does logging more accurately. By the time you get down to 30 pounds to go, 2 pounds a week is probably going to be too aggressive. By 20, 1 pound a week would be aggressive. Last 15, .5 to .75 would be best.

Vanessalookingood wrote: »

Ok, Thanks.

Just to note, most people who end up at 1200 which is the minimum needed for a female to get the nutrients she needs to stay healthy, are people who have often set their weekly goal at too aggressive a setting. In situations like that eating exercise calories is far more important.

kimaboyd wrote: »

Thanks everyone - so everyone says to make sure you are accurately measuring your activity calories earned - I was just going to enter them into this site - is it accurate enough? Or something else better with more accurate calorie burn?

Depends on the exercise which is the best source.
MFP is fine for some, some is more like guesswork, some are comically high, some may be low, some exercises are remarkably difficult to estimate, some are easy.
There isn't a one size fits all answer so what is your exercise of choice?

Personally with your exercise mix I would suggest....

For walking use formula:
Net Walking calories Spent = (Body weight in pounds) x (0.30) x (Distance in miles)

Rowing - if a decent quality indoor rower like a Concept2 then would use the machine's estimate corrected for your weight:
http://www.concept2.co.uk/indoor-rowers/training/calculators/calorie-calculator

For hand weights just log duration as strength training, circuit training as appropriate.

For swimming - sorry can't help (my idea of swimming is more like not quite drowning!)