App adds calories to my daily goals

wchavez78
wchavez78 Posts: 3 Member
edited November 21 in Getting Started
Hi,

New to all this. I have a daily calorie goal set at 2200, trying to lean up and lose some fat. I have the app synced with my Garmin and after a workout, the calorie goal goes up. Why is that? Can someone explain this please? Thanks in advance.

Replies

  • slimmingforme
    slimmingforme Posts: 12 Member
    edited September 2017
    Your goal shouldn't go up, is it definitely the goal increasing and not your remaining calories? I have Strava and my Fitbit synced and after exercise it banks the calories I have burnt and adds them under the exercise category and increases the calories I have remaining for the day. In theory, you can eat what you burn as you still remain within your calorie goal for the day.

    If it is your calorie goal that is increasing it may be worth unpairing the apps and trying again

    Good luck on your journey!
  • wchavez78
    wchavez78 Posts: 3 Member
    Ok, thanks. It is the remaining calories that go up, so can I stick with 2200 or hit the increased target? Thanks for the reply!
  • CharlieBeansmomTracey
    CharlieBeansmomTracey Posts: 7,682 Member
    wchavez78 wrote: »
    Ok, thanks. It is the remaining calories that go up, so can I stick with 2200 or hit the increased target? Thanks for the reply!

    it goes up because of exercise calories. your deficit is built in without exercise so when you add calories you burned with exercise your "food" calories will go up. its how MFP works. I would eat back half of the calories you burned and do that for a month and gauge and see if you are still losing or not. you need to eat up to your calorie goal without exercise,and any exercise calories eat back at least half. if you arent real hungry then you can eat back less or more if more hungry and you will still lose weight if everything is accurate.
  • CharlieBeansmomTracey
    CharlieBeansmomTracey Posts: 7,682 Member
    slimmingforme wrote: »
    Your goal shouldn't go up, is it definitely the goal increasing and not your remaining calories? I have Strava and my Fitbit synced and after exercise it banks the calories I have burnt and adds them under the exercise category and increases the calories I have remaining for the day. In theory, you can eat what you burn as you still remain within your calorie goal for the day.

    If it is your calorie goal that is increasing it may be worth unpairing the apps and trying again

    Good luck on your journey!

    calorie goals will go up with exercise though.if you have say 1800 calories and burn 500 it will go up to 2300 calories.its how mfp works. but if you have 1800 and eat say 1300 leaving 500 calories, and you burn 500 your calories will now be 1000.
  • wchavez78
    wchavez78 Posts: 3 Member
    thanks! that really helps.
  • pielattes1
    pielattes1 Posts: 62 Member
    @slimmingforme - I am a new user of the Garmin. (using your example); If you have 1800 calories and burn 500 it will go up to 2300 calories. If I eat lets say 2000 calories, am I in deficit despite my TDEE being 1800?
  • cjv73
    cjv73 Posts: 240 Member
    @pielattes1 Yes, you will still be in a deficit of 2000 calories. Do keep in mind, however, that the exercise burn calculations on MFP and some trackers are notorious for overestimating burns.
  • pielattes1
    pielattes1 Posts: 62 Member
    @cjv73 - Have you found the Garmin to overestimate?
  • CharlieBeansmomTracey
    CharlieBeansmomTracey Posts: 7,682 Member
    pielattes1 wrote: »
    @slimmingforme - I am a new user of the Garmin. (using your example); If you have 1800 calories and burn 500 it will go up to 2300 calories. If I eat lets say 2000 calories, am I in deficit despite my TDEE being 1800?
    if your TDEE is 1800 calories why are you eating 1800 calories? that would put you at maintenance calories. to lose you need to be eating less than your TDEE. TDEE is your BMR plus calories you burn with activity. TDEE is maintenance.
  • CharlieBeansmomTracey
    CharlieBeansmomTracey Posts: 7,682 Member
    cjv73 wrote: »
    @pielattes1 Yes, you will still be in a deficit of 2000 calories. Do keep in mind, however, that the exercise burn calculations on MFP and some trackers are notorious for overestimating burns.

    how will her deficit be 2000 calories? if her TDEE is 1800(maintenance) and she burns 500 calories then she will be in a deficit which makes it a 500 calorie deficit(1lb per week). but if she eats 1800 and burns 500 and eats those calories back she will still be in maintenance.
  • cjv73
    cjv73 Posts: 240 Member
    edited September 2017
    Sorry, I meant to say 200, not 2000 (and anyway it should have been 300, not 200, so I totally messed it up!) :) And I totally read that wrong, thought she was saying if MFP , when including her exercise calories earned, allowed her 2300 calories and she ate 2000, would she still be in a deficit even if her original calorie allowance was only 1800. Skipped right past the TDEE bit. :pensive:

    @pielattes1 I don't have a Garmin, but I've read comments on here often enough about burn over estimations by MFP and many trackers, at least until the trackers get to "know" you.
  • CharlieBeansmomTracey
    CharlieBeansmomTracey Posts: 7,682 Member
    cjv73 wrote: »
    Sorry, I meant to say 200, not 2000 (and anyway it should have been 300, not 200, so I totally messed it up!) :) And I totally read that wrong, thought she was saying if MFP , when including her exercise calories earned, allowed her 2300 calories and she ate 2000, would she still be in a deficit even if her original calorie allowance was only 1800. Skipped right past the TDEE bit. :pensive:

    @pielattes1 I don't have a Garmin, but I've read comments on here often enough about burn over estimations by MFP and many trackers, at least until the trackers get to "know" you.

    yes trackers can be off which is why most say to eat back at least half or exercise calories and do that for awhile and then gauge if you are losing or not from there.
  • pielattes1
    pielattes1 Posts: 62 Member
    @CharlieBeansmomTracey - I mis-typed, I should have stated "If I have 1800 calories per day" as you mentioned in your example at the beginning of the thread, not TDEE, so the example I was *trying* to reference is the following:

    If you have 1800 and eat say 1300 leaving 500 calories, and you burn 500 your calories will now be 1000. Not TDEE
  • pielattes1
    pielattes1 Posts: 62 Member
    IF I have 1800, burn 500, eat 1300, am I in deficit?
  • cjv73
    cjv73 Posts: 240 Member
    @pielattes1 In your example above, you will definitely be in deficit! When you enter your info into MFP (height, weight, age, gender, activity level, desired rate of loss, etc.) MFP calculates a total daily calorie goal that should put you in a deficit. So if MFP allows you 1800 calories, that means that you should already be in a deficit at 1800. Then if you eat only 1300, you are already increasing your deficit by another 500 calories over what MFP calculated. Then if you burn another 500 calories, that means your net calorie intake for the day will be only 800 calories, which is clearly not going to be good for you! :) How you should be looking at it instead, is that if MFP allows you 1800 calories, and you burn 500 through exercise, that means you have "earned" another 500 calories to eat. That means your daily allowance would then actually be 2300, and if you eat at that, you will still be eating at the deficit that MFP originally calculated for you. However, as mentioned above, exercise burn calculations are not always accurate, so you are better off eating back only half of them to start, and then reassessing after a monthly to see how that's working for you. So in that case you would get 1800 from MFP, earn 500 through exercise (so your account now shows that you can eat 2300) but only eat back half of your exercise calories so that you aim to keep your daily total under 2050.

    @CharlieBeansmomTracey Did I do better here? :wink:

    I hope that helps...
  • tinkerbellang83
    tinkerbellang83 Posts: 9,129 Member
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  • CharlieBeansmomTracey
    CharlieBeansmomTracey Posts: 7,682 Member
    cjv73 wrote: »
    @pielattes1 In your example above, you will definitely be in deficit! When you enter your info into MFP (height, weight, age, gender, activity level, desired rate of loss, etc.) MFP calculates a total daily calorie goal that should put you in a deficit. So if MFP allows you 1800 calories, that means that you should already be in a deficit at 1800. Then if you eat only 1300, you are already increasing your deficit by another 500 calories over what MFP calculated. Then if you burn another 500 calories, that means your net calorie intake for the day will be only 800 calories, which is clearly not going to be good for you! :) How you should be looking at it instead, is that if MFP allows you 1800 calories, and you burn 500 through exercise, that means you have "earned" another 500 calories to eat. That means your daily allowance would then actually be 2300, and if you eat at that, you will still be eating at the deficit that MFP originally calculated for you. However, as mentioned above, exercise burn calculations are not always accurate, so you are better off eating back only half of them to start, and then reassessing after a monthly to see how that's working for you. So in that case you would get 1800 from MFP, earn 500 through exercise (so your account now shows that you can eat 2300) but only eat back half of your exercise calories so that you aim to keep your daily total under 2050.

    @CharlieBeansmomTracey Did I do better here? :wink:

    I hope that helps...

    yep you explained that well!
  • CharlieBeansmomTracey
    CharlieBeansmomTracey Posts: 7,682 Member
    also always eat to what MFP gives you so if they give you 1800 then make sure you net 1800 after exercise at the very least. The bigger the deficit does not always mean the better it is. too fast of weight loss can result in issues down the road.
  • slimmingforme
    slimmingforme Posts: 12 Member
    I must say I tend to eat back my exercise calories otherwise I find I'm too exhausted and hungry!! My daily calories is 1700 and I cycle commute too and from work which burns around 550 calories.. Normally I consume a total of around 2200 otherwise I end up reaaaaal hungry... Right now I'm still loosing weight however I expect in the future I will need to reduce the amount of exercise calories I eat in order to continue losing.

    I'd say listen to your body and work out what feels right, you don't want to end up binging later in the week because you've restricted too much earlier in the week :)
  • CharlieBeansmomTracey
    CharlieBeansmomTracey Posts: 7,682 Member
    slimmingforme wrote: »
    I must say I tend to eat back my exercise calories otherwise I find I'm too exhausted and hungry!! My daily calories is 1700 and I cycle commute too and from work which burns around 550 calories.. Normally I consume a total of around 2200 otherwise I end up reaaaaal hungry... Right now I'm still loosing weight however I expect in the future I will need to reduce the amount of exercise calories I eat in order to continue losing.

    I'd say listen to your body and work out what feels right, you don't want to end up binging later in the week because you've restricted too much earlier in the week :)

    for every 10 lbs you lose you are supposed to adjust your goal in MFP. your calorie goal will go down as well though. but the more active you are the more calories you can eat :)
  • Orphia
    Orphia Posts: 7,097 Member
    I find both Garmin and Fitbit to be accurate at calculating my exercise calories.

    I eat 100% of my exercise calories back since hitting maintenance, and have maintained my goal weight of 141 lbs for 17 months and I've used both Garmin and Fitbit during that time.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    pielattes1 wrote: »
    IF I have 1800, burn 500, eat 1300, am I in deficit?

    You are in a deficit if you eat 1800.

    If you are given a goal of 1800 - that is already at a deficit to what MFP figures you'll burn - say you selected 1lb weekly, or 500 cal deficit.

    So that means MFP figured you'd burn with no exercise base eating goal 1800+500 deficit = 2300 daily burn on average.

    If you burned 500 more with exercise - you really burned 2800 that day.
    When you log that - MFP smartly tries to protect you from yourself by increasing calories to 1800+500 exercise = 2300 eating goal.

    But you burned 2800 that day - so still 500 deficit.

    Isn't that wonderful how it works.

    Or you could eat 1800 and keep that up wonder why your workouts start sucking, tired during the day, ect.
    Perhaps because 1000 cal deficit is not smart at all, not reasonable, not sustainable, and not adherable when the binge finally comes after so many days.

    Eating 1300 in your described scenario - really bad idea - totally going the wrong direction.

    MFP is attempting to help people learn a life lesson regarding weight.
    You do more, you eat more.
    You do less, you eat less (that's the one that gets people as they age).

    In a diet, a tad less in either case.
  • sosteach
    sosteach Posts: 260 Member
    I don't eat exercise calories back unless I have a week-end social event. Otherwise I stick to my original 1200 calorie goal.
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