Logging work out calories

Who says you are only supposed to eat 50-75% of your calories? This site is designed for you to eat 100% of them. Of course the site does sometimes give too high of estimates. I think the better way to do it, is to eat them, then if you notice you aren't losing weight, start rounding down (so if it tells you 679 calories, enter 600). I also use a heart rate monitor for any type of cardio to get better estimates.

Its_Haleeyy wrote: »

I always ready people on here saying that you're only supposed to eat part of them back because the gym machines aren't always accurate.

You're right, they are not accurate for everyone. So start at a percentage you feel comfortable with (if that's 50% then that's fine) and if you find yourself losing weight faster than anticipated after a few weeks adjust it up. If not, adjust it down. If you use the same machines/apps/devices to estimate those calories all the time, eventually you'll be able to zero in on a percentage that works for you. Everyone is different, that's why they aren't accurate. What you want to avoid is telling yourself to just eat back 50% and find yourself losing weight at an unhealthy rate because of it. Just don't adjust too often (try your percentage for a few weeks first) and you'll figure it out.

As far as your earlier question, I log ALL of my calories, that way I can adjust what I eat back. Any exercise calories you aren't logging are adding to your deficit. Losing weight too fast can lead to health issues and injury. Granted, if you're losing only 10-20lbs it might not affect you as much as someone trying to lose 100+ lbs but you get the idea. I, personally, eat back 70% of my exercise calories most days because that works for me. I also track my weight with a separate app from MFP that shows me trends monthly (Happy Scale) so I can see if I am gaining/losing/maintaining over the period of the whole month rather than freaking out about a particular day or week.

When I log my exercise, I choose the "light" or "slow" options even if I feel like I've had a really strenuous workout.

I also round the time down. So if I walked for 67 minutes, I might only log 60 minutes.

I also skip some. So if I walked 17 flights of stairs, I might only log 15 flights.

And then, when I was losing weight ...

If I only worked out for an hour or so, I ate about 50% of my exercise calories back.

If I worked out for, say 2 or 3 hours, I ate about 75% of my exercise calories back.

And if I was out for a 5 hour bicycle ride or something, I might eat about 90% of my exercise calories back.

Now that I'm maintaining, it's more like 90% all the time.