So confused extra calories earnt!

melfwells
melfwells Posts: 8 Member
edited November 2024 in Health and Weight Loss
Evening all, please can someone help. MFP tells me I should be eating 1250 cals, that's not an issue. However most days I earn around 1000 in exercise which it adds on, there's no way I could eat that and I definitely wouldn't loose weight if I did. Will I still loose it if not eating all the cals? I'm 14 stone currently, 5ft 7.

Thanks so much.

Replies

  • L1zardQueen
    L1zardQueen Posts: 8,753 Member
    How did you determine your 1000 calorie burn?
  • Seffell
    Seffell Posts: 2,244 Member
    1000 seem A LOT. What do you do? Maybe the estimate is inaccurate?
  • melfwells
    melfwells Posts: 8 Member
    Perhaps it is, it's just the fitbit sync over to MPG so I'm not sure how accurate.
  • melfwells
    melfwells Posts: 8 Member
    edited June 2017
    So today for example was 15000 steps and an hour in the gym.
  • Poisonedpawn78
    Poisonedpawn78 Posts: 1,145 Member
    you dont need to eat the calories back to lose weight. people generally eat 50-75% of the calories back to stay fueled to be able to keep exercising at a high level instead of feeling progressively weaker with poor performance.

    Also if you choose to eat some back, dont eat the full 1000 calories, chances are that its not your actual burn as machines can be inaccurate.
  • melfwells
    melfwells Posts: 8 Member
    That's helpful thank you. At the moment I'm not feeling tired/hungry etc however if this changes I will up it.
  • rheddmobile
    rheddmobile Posts: 6,840 Member
    Calorie estimates per the Fitbit are very inaccurate. However, as active as you are, you should probably eat back some portion of them. Take a look at your protein and iron, it's tricky to get the recommended value of those for protecting lean muscle on 1250 calories.
  • Poisonedpawn78
    Poisonedpawn78 Posts: 1,145 Member
    melfwells wrote: »
    That's helpful thank you. At the moment I'm not feeling tired/hungry etc however if this changes I will up it.

    Make sure you get enough protein and resistance train to maintain muscle.
  • melfwells
    melfwells Posts: 8 Member
    Thanks I'll have a look. My avergae gym day looks like porridge, chai seeds, honey for breakfast. Almonds and an apple snack. Sweet potato with either beans or tuna, cheese and beetroot or eggss and salmon.Then meat/fish with veg for dinner.
  • SusanMFindlay
    SusanMFindlay Posts: 1,804 Member
    edited June 2017
    You should eat back at least half of them - but it doesn't have to be today if you're not hungry today. If you want to save them for tomorrow or Sunday, that's fine. Your body doesn't have a little calendar inside it marking down which days you eat what.

    If you don't eat them back, you will lose more fat *but* if you consistently undereat (and not eating back any of them *would* be undereating), you will start to find yourself having less energy and will likely start to get less physical activity. Your body will also react hormonally - which may lead you to be more hungry. For some people, it leads to binging. For some people, it leads to a lot of water retention - which makes the scale stop moving and can lead to loss of motivation.

    I'm assuming you're set to sedentary. 15,000 steps is not sedentary. Were some of those steps in the gym? Or was the gym separate?

    If you're set to sedentary and you got 15,000 steps (which is about 12,000 more than "sedentary"), you have almost certainly burned at least 600 extra calories. The 1,000 may be an overestimate (or may be that 600 plus 400 from the gym), but 0 would be a huge underestimate.

    Plan to eat back at least 600 of those calories within the next few days. If you regularly burn that many calories, plan to increase your calorie goal to an appropriate level.
  • melfwells
    melfwells Posts: 8 Member
    Im not sure what level I'm set to do you suggest I change it? Around 3000 were in the gym I take it off for weights :-)
  • Seffell
    Seffell Posts: 2,244 Member
    15k steps (brisk pace) give me about 500cal. So since you're heavier than me but possibly haven't done all in cardio mode 500cal for the steps seems a good estimate to me. I have no idea about the gym. I would recommend to start by eating 50% of your fitbit added calories and reassess after a month (less than that will be innacurate). (my fitbit overestimates my burns a huge deal so I've put it in the drawer)

    P.S. Not eating any of them is a very bad idea.
  • melfwells
    melfwells Posts: 8 Member
    Ive just had a look im set at "lightly active" as i am desk/car based a lot at work.
  • melfwells
    melfwells Posts: 8 Member
    edited June 2017
    gebeziseva wrote: »
    15k steps (brisk pace) give me about 500cal. So since you're heavier than me but possibly haven't done all in cardio mode 500cal for the steps seems a good estimate to me. I have no idea about the gym. I would recommend to start by eating 50% of your fitbit added calories and reassess after a month (less than that will be innacurate). (my fitbit overestimates my burns a huge deal so I've put it in the drawer)

    P.S. Not eating any of them is a very bad idea.

    That's great thank you. I haven't intentionally not eaten them just struggling to fit more food in :-) I am out for afternoon tea tomorrow so definitely won't be under then!
  • Mugrat66
    Mugrat66 Posts: 2 Member
    I don't generally eat the extra calories earnt, but they are there in case you're hungry. Especially after a big exercise day.
  • Seffell
    Seffell Posts: 2,244 Member
    When I said "reassess after a month" up there... I was just thinking... Obvioulsy if you feel starved don't stick to those 50%.

    Just do what common sense tells you.
  • jenilla1
    jenilla1 Posts: 11,118 Member
    I have myself set to sedentary (just to be safe, since I hate overestimating my burns) and then I eat most to all of my exercise calories back. But I'm pretty good at getting my calorie burn estimates correct. (I've been maintaining at goal for over 5 years, so I have to be doing something right.) I have to run about 10 miles to get 1000 calorie burn, though. I couldn't do that every day or I'd burn out fast.

    Maybe your estimates are high, because if you really are burning that many calories most days, I'd think you'd get worn out pretty quickly if you weren't eating them back (refuel and repair are important.) Mentally, I don't like being way under my goal - I feel like I'm getting ripped off on food I could be eating - so I'd rather enter a lower, safer estimate for calorie burns and then eat it all back than put in an outrageously high calorie burn number and then only eat half back. All those extra, uneaten calories are such a tease. Plus, when I look back at my progress, when I see a high burn number, I want to know that was a day that I went above and beyond the norm with my fitness. But that's just how my mind works. Whichever way works for you is best! :)
  • AnvilHead
    AnvilHead Posts: 18,343 Member
    Excellent discussion of it here by a very knowledgeable trainer: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10503681/exercise-calories-do-i-eat-these-a-video-explanation/p1
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,343 Member
    So you have set up yourself as lightly active to lose 2lbs a week, and then you're under eating by an extra 1000 Cal.... y'ok! Might work short term. Not a great idea long term.

    15K steps by themselves correspond to MFP's very active setting. <-- if choosing to use that setting you would only log exercise ABOVE the 15K steps.

    Fitbit is arriving at an independent measurement of your activity... and thinking you're burning about 1000 Cal more than MFP thinks.

    Is it right? Contrary to many people I think that it is usually fairly right with errors of less than 10% of TDEE (and more often than not errors of less than 5% of TDEE IF YOUR LOGGING OF CALORIES IN IS ACCURATE).

    So 1250+1000 (deficit) + 1000 ("exercise") means Fitbit is detecting a 3250 TDEE day (which is not inconceivable for a 200lb very active person). Knock off 10% you're getting 2950. Knock off 1000 for your deficit, you're getting around 2000 to eat.

    Thus you're either over-exercising for what you eat, or under-eating for your level of exercise ;-)

    I suggest that you may want to connect trendweight.com to your fitbit.com account to see your weight trend.

    Then use your MFP logging and weight trend information to compute your progress. I used to use this spreadsheet: to do so...https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VDmqNpLPu7sbQSochUJNXdp2F7AN15AGgkvS3zLw1GU/edit?usp=sharing
This discussion has been closed.

Categories