How exactly do you eat your exercise calories back?
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That was incorrect about calories being stacked. MFP does the math right no matter your choices of Activity setting. For the day as a whole, your mid-day adjustments may or may not be beneficial to your planning.
The difference is merely how big the adjustment remains throughout the day.
But I'm betting by now you already have a handle on about how much the eating goal per day will be - the adjustment merely fine tunes the evening food choices.
The benefit of the Sedentary setting is the evening hours when you are indeed not moving - couch/chair and bedtime.
If you go to bed early, say 4 hrs before midnight, the adjustment is based on MFP estimating calorie burn rate at say Active for rest the night, when in reality you are below Sedentary and around BMR actually.
Your Fitbit will sync that fact the next morning to MFP.
If you hit your eating goal at say 8pm - you'll have the adjustment the next day go down for prior day - and you'll be over your goal actually.
But again - this is going to be a set number (can calculate it if desired), and then just leave that much in the green, knowing it'll disappear and you'll be right at eating goal when adjusted the next day.
Then again - non issue if you go to bed close to midnight and reach goal right then.
I go to bed closer to midnight and have mu last meal an hour or so before bed. The thing is, even after I sync my fitbit the next day, it still tells me I should have eaten more, like, hundreds of calories more. To explain, my goal deficit is 250 cals. On days where my intake is, say, 2000 and TDEE according to fitbit is 2250, MFP should tell me no calories left to eat. But even if I check it the next day after syncing it tells me I should have eaten 500+ calories more. But that would have put me over my TDEE! For a very long time now, I've been using fitbit TDEE estimate to calculate my deficit manually and according to my loses and gains its estimates are correct. So something is not right with fitbits math and I can't figure out where's the problem...
Well, Fitbit is only sending new calorie info when it's 100 higher than prior sync.
So at most in the evening, you could have the worst timing of syncs and have another 100 just ready to come in right after you have checked it. But not 500.
For the evening last check, you might note the extra info available in that Fitbit adjustment - press and hold the adjustment, or click "i" for online account.
Note the time and calories of last sync. With BMR level burn it'll likely take more than 1 hr to get next sync.
I'd note the next morning too - what does Fitbit say prior day total burn was?
What did MFP report under more info?
You can look at yesterdays at this point.0 -
MelanieCN77 wrote: »I just stick to daily, I don't want to have to keep mathing.
This. The KISS method. But if I know I've way overeaten one day, I may cut back a little the next day. Other than that, I don't worry about it, as long as I continue toward my goal.0 -
I run a lot, so I eat my exercise calories on the day I exercise. I usually do this by eating larger portions on those days. On long run days where I burn a ton, sometimes I'll bank those calories for a large meal the next day. I get the rungries, so I pretty much eat the calories as soon as I have them. I'd say I eat about 90% of my exercise calories.0
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AwesomeOpossum74 wrote: »MelanieCN77 wrote: »I just stick to daily, I don't want to have to keep mathing.
This. The KISS method. But if I know I've way overeaten one day, I may cut back a little the next day. Other than that, I don't worry about it, as long as I continue toward my goal.
Yep. Me too. Math is hard, so unless it's within 1-2 days of when I need extra calories, I usually "use it or lose it" but actually I almost always use it.0 -
I eat mine back usually in the form of chocolate covered raisins...lots of them!1
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I don't eat back exercise calories.8
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ladyhusker39 wrote: »I have my Garmin connected to MFP. It adjusts my calories throughout the day based on my activity. I eat what it tells me to. I lose/maintain weight as expected. It's something I don't care to particularly overthink.
How did you manage to sync the two so that it shows you the correct amount to eat? I just connected them in the app. Nothing fanct. What kind of activity level did you enter on mfp? SedentaryDid you allow for negative adjustments? [bYes[/b]
I can't seem to sync the two correctly. I put my activity level as sedentary so that all of my activity would be counted by my fitbit but it seems to be still overestimating the amount if calories I can eat. My target daily deficit is 250-300cal and I have no choice but to calculate it myself by substracted intake according to mfp from the TDEE estimate given by my fitbit. This way I gain or lose as expected. If I'd eaten according to what mpf adjustment tells me I wouldn't lose anything. I used to have a Fitbit and it overestimated my calories burned as well. That's one reason I switched to a Garmin. It's been very accurate. YMMV
I guess part of it is due to the fact that "sedentary" doesn't mean zero activity, it's still higher than BMR. But isn't mfp supposed to take that into account and adjust accordingly. Since there isn't a lower activity setting than sedentary.
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Hi,I try and eat back all my calories. I have a very active job, and my fit bit flex tracks anywhere from 14000- 26000 steps, just at work. I am on leave and I set my calories to maintenance at 71 kilos, and that's 2570 calories. Usually my tdee seems to be about 2500- 3000 average. I only burn a few hundred from additional exercise. This is weights and I have dabbled in some fitness blender Pilates videos.
I work night shift, and generally take 15000 calories worth of lunch. This varies as also whether I can eat this much. I don't always want to eat right before bed because it then takes me longer to get to sleep. Dinner or my night meal is usually whatever amount I feel like and depends on whether I am up in time to eat with my kids, or if I sleep longer and have to eat after the bedtime routine. I seem to always be under 200 cals a day , this is with a deficit. Usually when I do weights it's before work and the 130 or so calories I earn aren't enough lol. So the next day I have no trouble eating my calories. I find that Friday mornings (I start at midnight) I am so stuffed when I get home that I often can't be bother eating, sometimes for the rest of the day. Also if I am off my normal job, but lifting more at work, I am often hungrier. I try to eat more on a Saturday and Sunday before going back to work and it sort of works out. Though my loss rate is still too fast, but I still have some leeway.0 -
Back when I was calorie counting to lose weight my preferred calories for eating back was a hamburger or a Blizzard from Dairy Queen.2
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I eat about 1/2 my exercise calories back on the same day I accrue them. I am fairly predictable with my exercise so I just incorporate them into my regular meals.0
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Duck_Puddle wrote: »What is your weight loss goal setting on MFP? Your activity level setting is only going to control how big your adjustment is, but as @WinoGelato said, in the end, the numbers should be the same. Meaning-if you’re set as sedentary, your MFP calorie goal wil start lower but MFP assumes a lower TDEE so your Fitbit adjustment will be large. If you’re set as active, your Mfp calorie goal will start higher but MFP assumes a higher TDEE so your Fitbit adjustment is smaller. Either way, the end result should be the same (for total number of calories to consume).
If you’re manually subtracting 250 calories off your Fitbit TDEE and that’s NOT the same as your MFP calorie goal (including your Fitbit adjustment), it sounds like your Mfp is set to something other than 1/2 lb/week loss and/or you’ve manually entered your own calorie goal maybe?
Double check and make sure your weight loss setting in Mfp is at 1/2 lb/week.
Oh-and it’s just one straight calculation. MFP thinks you’ll burn 1800, fitbit says you burned 2300-Tada-your Fitbit adjustments is 500. There’s no adding on top of anything. A lot of people leave themselves as sedentary because that way they don’t overeat on a low activity day. But if you’re really active and set as sedentary on Mfp-you’ll just have really high Fitbit adjustments. That would be expected.
But where this could go awry, is if you have your MFP set to maintain (or you’ve entered your own calorie goal).
Just say your NEAT is the 1800. You tell MFP you want to lose 1/2 lb a week. It gives you a calorie goal of 1550 (the amount to eat if you do no exercise). Fitbit adds in the 500. Now your MFP goal is 2050 - which is 250 less than your actual 2300 TDEE.
If you’ve set your mfp to maintain, your calorie goal is 1800. Fitbit adds 500. Now your goal is 2300.
If you’ve entered your own calorie goal manually - let’s say 2000. When Fitbit adds the 500, now your goal is 2500-which is above your TDEE.
Fitbit is only adjusting your activity calories.
If your Fitbit adjustment is landing you with a total calorie goal that is greater than your TDEE, then your weight loss setting in MFP is either set to gain, or the calorie goal has been manually entered.
Well, Fitbit is only sending new calorie info when it's 100 higher than prior sync.
So at most in the evening, you could have the worst timing of syncs and have another 100 just ready to come in right after you have checked it. But not 500.
For the evening last check, you might note the extra info available in that Fitbit adjustment - press and hold the adjustment, or click "i" for online account.
Note the time and calories of last sync. With BMR level burn it'll likely take more than 1 hr to get next sync.
I'd note the next morning too - what does Fitbit say prior day total burn was?
What did MFP report under more info?
You can look at yesterdays at this point.
Thank you both so much for taking your time to explain all of it. I have a better understanding of how the adjustments are made now.
But I still have the same problem. I doubled checked everything and mfp goal is set to lose 0.5lb per week. I changed my activity to active, though people say it doesn't really matter in the end.
For example, I just synced my fitbit and yesterday my intake was 2390 cals and my TDEE according to fitbit was 2180. So I actually went OVER my TDEE by 210 cals and by 460cals over my goal of 250cal deficit, right? But MFP tells me I still have 351 calories that I should have eaten yesterday !! But that would have put me 810cals over my goal! It says I earned 881 calories with exercise.
Something is very wrong here and I just can't seem to figure out where the problem is coming from. Or maybe I'm just really dumb and still not getting something after you've explained it to me. I guess, I'll just have to keep using the good ol' manual TDEE-intake subtraction method and just estimate my activity level ahead to know how much I can eat.ladyhusker39 wrote: »I used to have a Fitbit and it overestimated my calories burned as well. That's one reason I switched to a Garmin. It's been very accurate.
No, but that is the thing. My fitbit is accurate. It doesn't overestimate anything. Like I said I've been tracking my deficit manually subtracting my intake from fitbit's TDEE estimate and losing as expected. It's MFP that's telling me to eat much more and it's basing this on the same data it receives from my fitbit. So the problem is somewhere in the adjustment, not with my fitbit.0 -
It depends for me. I go through phases of what I feel like doing. My activity level also varies, sometimes I'm consistently burning roughly the same every day, other times I have large dips and mountains, but in almost all cases, I look at my calories as a single pool of what's available to me.
Sometimes I keep monthly tally of my calories, exercise calories included, and eat each day without a target for calories but using common sense taking into account needs and wants. Sometimes that ends up being over MFP calories, other times under. I keep borrowing and carrying over calories as the days go by. If my calorie debt accumulates and reaches 1000 calories, I have a few days where I eat strictly to MFP target without exercise calories until my debt is paid (usually 3-4 days). Rinse and repeat making sure I start next month without debt.
Sometimes I plan my meals to my MFP calorie target, then use exercise calories for snacks or bigger meals.
Sometimes I do alternate day eat and compensate days, exercise calories included. I eat whatever I want one day and stick to a limit next day. For example, if I was 200 calories over my target, I eat 200 calories under the next day, if I was 200 calories under my target, I eat 200 calories more next day.
Sometimes I don't eat my exercise calories for 2 weeks whenever I can push myself to do it, then distribute whatever I accumulated over the next 2 weeks and eat back exercise calories on top. Usually roughly averages 750 calorie deficit for the first 2 weeks and 250 for the next two.
Sometimes I designate 1 maintenance day a week and distribute the difference over the rest of the week, treating all calories as a single pool, exercise calories included.
Sometimes I do a deficit percentage instead of a deficit number and basically eat to the previous day. For example, if my total calories were 2500 and I wanted a 20% deficit, I would eat 2000 calories next day regardless of activity (2500 x 0.8), and keep eating each day as a percentage of previous day's total.
I'm sure I do more things, but I can't think of anything right now. I basically don't have a single system and just do what I feel like doing at any given time, and I like maths, so there is that.1 -
Do you aim for a daily or weekly or monthly goal with your intake?
Sometimes daily, sometimes weekly. I like flexibility. I take a monthly view if I'm adjusting my weight.
Do you exercise about the same amount every day and eat about the same amount every day? or does your activity level varies from day to day? If so do you eat back the extra calories on the day you burned them or do you redistribute them evenly throughout the week? Or bank them for weekends/special occasions?
My exercise varies from 0 (rarely) to 4500cals (very rarely). I'm a long distance cyclist. On long rides I must fuel the ride (before, during the ride and recovery afterwards) but often it's partial fuelling.
My activity varies a lot too, inactive days are rare but I might spend a whole day gardening or property maintenance as part of my semi-retirement job. But I regard activity as a rough average to set my base calories.
If you eat them on the day you have burned them how do you incorporate them into your intake? Do you have an extra snack/meal before and/or after your workout? Or do you add the extra calories to your regular meals? Do you account for these calories in advance or do you add them to your plan only after the workout?
I don't normally specifically fuel exercise under 2hrs as it's pretty irrelevant for performance.
I don't incorporate the excercise calories in any particular way - depends on what I feel like on the day. More snacks, bigger meals, more meals, different food choices....
If your activity level varies every day do you think it's easier to eat according to your activity level on any given day or do you think it's easier to redistribute the calories evenly to eat about the same amount daily?.
Average for me but I listen to hunger cues - if I've done hard physical work for 8hrs and I'm hungry I feel it would be perverse to not eat more. Conversely if I've had an easy day and feel hungry I might think that's greed not need!
When I had a desk job I was on average lightly active but varied both ways.
Now in retirement I'm active on average, very active in summer.
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I've had my Fitbit synced to MFP for about three years now so I usually have a pretty good sense of how many calories I'm "earning" on a given day. I pre-log my meals to meet my base calorie goal and then add my exercise calories in things like snacks at work, adding vegetables to dinner, and alcohol. Whatever I don't eat, I roll into the weekends when my dinners are typically higher calorie.
I'm a runner and I also walk a lot, so my adjustments tend to be pretty large. On a day when I don't run, I will usually have 200-300 extra calories. On days when I run (which is most days), I will see adjustments from 400-1,500.0 -
For example, I just synced my fitbit and yesterday my intake was 2390 cals and my TDEE according to fitbit was 2180. So I actually went OVER my TDEE by 210 cals and by 460cals over my goal of 250cal deficit, right? But MFP tells me I still have 351 calories that I should have eaten yesterday !! But that would have put me 810cals over my goal! It says I earned 881 calories with exercise.
Something is very wrong here and I just can't seem to figure out where the problem is coming from. Or maybe I'm just really dumb and still not getting something after you've explained it to me. I guess, I'll just have to keep using the good ol' manual TDEE-intake subtraction method and just estimate my activity level ahead to know how much I can eat.
Yes, something with the adjust is messed up. Using your figures, if correct.
Fitbit 2180 - 2180 MFP estimated daily burn = 0 adjustment.
MFP estimated daily burn 2180 - 250 deficit = 1930 eating goal.
You ate 2390 = 460 over goal.
Now - I find it odd your Fitbit TDEE exactly matches what MFP estimated your daily burn with no exercise and whatever activity level you selected would be. Possible in theory, but in practice exactly matching ....
So I'm guessing there is something being read wrong.
If it says on Food diary 881 in exercise - that means Fitbit adjustment and any exercise you manually logged.
You log anything manually on MFP as exercise? Get the start time/duration right for what you want to correct so Fitbit side is overwritten correctly? If that was done, is workout showing on Fitbit side?
In that case it would actually be:
Fitbit 2180 - 1299 MFP estimated daily burn = 881 adjustment
1299 as non-exercise even Sedentary TDEE - sounds unlikely.0 -
Having been doing this for 4 years now I have a decent idea of how many calories I need to eat back and add/subtract a bit based on workout intensity.
I focus primarily on the day - eat small meals in the morning and afternoon and saving the bulk of my calories in the evening when my activity winds down. For long cardio sessions I plan ahead and eat in advance of workouts.
As long as my metrics - weight, bodyfat %, performance is in line I don't really concern myself with much else. If I'm preparing for a competition I get more strict on diet, but for me that means holding to 4 Red Vines instead of 8.
I review the logs (CI, run/bike/swim performance, sleep) at the end of the week and look for anything unusual and adjust for the next week.0 -
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I eat them back. I have read here that most machines overestimate but dont think that's always true. I can work out hard for 30 minutes with a heart rate of 170 plus and it will only tell me I burned 150 calories. There is no way I burned less than that so I should eat the calories back is what i think.0
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It really depends. I tend to track very loosely (which is fine with me given my situation) so I won't always eat all of them back. That's especially true for any calories that weren't cycling related. I'm not losing weight at a rapid rate so it works for me as far as not eating too little. Occasionally I will try to bank calories but it's easier for me to just work day by day.0
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