How do I get a calorie deficit if I eat back exercise calories?

TavistockToad wrote: »

Susieq_1994 wrote: »

Your deficit is already accounted for by MFP. If you selected a loss of 1 pound per week, for example, MFP automatically calculated your deficit into the number of calories provided by calculating your expected total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) and subtracting 500 calories from it. Eating your exercise calories just maintains that deficit, rather than making it larger.

actually MFP uses NEAT, not TDEE, which is why you then eat back exercise calories.

TDEE should include exercise.

Ah, oops, that's right! That was a ridiculous mistake. Thanks!

@lunarlake The area where you enter how much exercise you plan do do per week is not actually factored into your calorie deficit. It's there simply as a target to reach for.

Your stats (height, weight, age), your daily activity level (not including intentional exercise) and the rate you choose to lose are what is used to calculate your goal number.

Then you add exercise separately which increases the amount of calories you have available to eat.

sijomial wrote: »

lunarlake wrote: »

Apologies for the silly question... but if I told MFP I was exercising 6 x 30 mins pw (which I am - weights, cross training and stretching), does the daily calorie amount still hold true? I have set it not to subtract my workouts at this stage.

I am losing at a steady rate so no worries there - I’m just a bit confused about this one factor.

Thanks!

@lunarlake

On the free version that exercise goal has no impact on the calorie allowance you are given. You could set it to zero or eleventy million and your daily calorie goal would still be nnnn + exercise calories.
It's not a silly question at all as it's not clear that is just an aspiration not a calculation.

Might be different on the paid version where I believe you can choose to use the TDEE method instead.

The paid version still calculates NEAT and then has a switch to turn off exercise calories. So, to do TDEE you would have to customize your calorie goal based on numbers from outside calculators.