More calories added for exercise

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Cabinca
Cabinca Posts: 3 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Today, I've been a lot more active than usual and the systems giving me ALot more calories for that. I like that, of course. It's like 500 more. But I am leary about eating that many more. (And if I'm hungry of course) Any thoughts on this?

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  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
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    There isn't enough information here to give you an answer. Are you talking about adjustments from an activity tracker or activity that you've logged in MFP?
  • Cabinca
    Cabinca Posts: 3 Member
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    MFP automatically changed it to 583 more calories because of all the "steps" I've taken and other exercise today. I must have an activity tracker linked with MFP. It appears like it was just doing it on its own. Hmmmm. Anyway, it just seems like a lot of calories tacked on.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,853 Member
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    There are multiple schools of thought about this. If it's coming from an activity tracker, many people find that fairly accurate, so they're successful eating it back.

    If you're worried that it's over-stated, one option might be to eat half those calories, do that same thing for a couple of weeks or so, and see whether your weight loss is as expected. If you lose faster than would be healthy, eat back more exercise calories. If you lose more slowly than expected, eat back less. If you're spot on, change nothing.

    I ate back all my exercise calories while losing, and it worked just fine. But mine were manually calculated (from the MFP database, heart rate monitor, and other sources) fairly conservatively.
  • phrunch
    phrunch Posts: 115 Member
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    MFP automatically sets your calorie level to meet your needs.

    So, say you need to eat 1450 calories per day to lose 1 lbs per week. Your eating will make that defect without exercise. If you burn calories from activity, you go past your goal of 1 lbs per week and MFP recommends eating them back.

    In reality, you can choose what you want to do with those calories. Many people eat them back so they don't experience fatigue or hunger. Other people find they're comfortable without eating them back.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    Yep - an unknown amount of steps and mysterious "other exercise" logged via an accidentally linked activity tracker gave a precisely accurate 583 calories. :wink:

    For me 583 isn't a lot at all.

    Not really worth using an activity tracker if you aren't going to take any notice of it IMHO.
  • cecitas2016
    cecitas2016 Posts: 2 Member
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    I guess that if you want to loose weight you need to eat less calories than actually required...then it would be better not to eat them back. Am I right?
  • Jruzer
    Jruzer Posts: 3,501 Member
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    I try to get 600 - 1000 kcal or more of intentional exercise per day. And I eat 'em all up.
  • BeergirlinIowa
    BeergirlinIowa Posts: 3 Member
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    Cabinca - I noticed that MFP was adding back calories for me, too. I don't want to eat these added calories, so I changed my exercise descriptions from the "cardio" section to the "strength training" section. If I do 30 mins walking, I just log 30 reps, etc. The system doesn't add back calories from "strength training", but I can still log them daily.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    cecitas2016 wrote: »
    I guess that if you want to loose weight you need to eat less calories than actually required...then it would be better not to eat them back. Am I right?

    @cecitas2016

    No you are wrong. Your calorie goal on here assume you will log and eat back exercise calories.
    Losing quicker than desired isn't a good thing.

    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/818082/exercise-calories-again-wtf/p1

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