Stationary bike - more resistance or more time/speed for more calorie burn? Accurate calories?

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  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    Again - it's a goal-only figure just for exercise - it's not used in any math anywhere related to food goal.

    It gives no estimate of calories for your selected minutes/hours weekly - you can change both goals.

    It really sounds like you are attempting to use a tool in a manner you really didn't understand anyway.

    Just saying - the advice has been use the tool as designed and then see where you are in 2 weeks.
    Frankly if a woman - it takes 4 weeks since there are literal changes to metabolism through the month.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    brisadeldesierto wrote: »
    heybales wrote: »
    Those are exercise goals for the Exercise Diary.

    It has absolutely no bearing on your eating goal - which is based on daily activity with assumption of no workouts until done.

    If you saw daily calories go up - it's because of some other reason.

    If you can find a treadmill merely to get a MPH reading of what feels like equivalent effort to your bike effort, and similar HR (for now, that will improve) - you can get decent enough estimate based on walking/jogging speed.
    Got a Planet Fitness nearby - they may allow a free trial or paid visit.
    After 5 min warmup - you could get several speed levels and HR levels for comparison later.

    But it does give you an estimate of how much you can burn from those X amount of exercises in a week. So I divided the total weekly burn by 7, then increased my daily calorie goal by that number. I get that it doesn't take into account what type of exercis you would be doing or the intensity, but it's actually very close to what I was getting from estimating from the HR (my bike does measure the HR). So it felt like a good place to start.

    No - the exercise setting in your set up is only an aspiration. It might just as well be "I will brush my teeth three times a day".
    It does not increase your calories. That would be completely contrary to logging/estimating/eating back exercise calories as that would be double counting.
    Your activity setting (not exercise) changes your calories, your stats change your calories, your weight loss goal changes your calories.

    You seem to be describing a TDEE calculator and not the way MyFitnessPal works.
  • brisadeldesierto
    brisadeldesierto Posts: 41 Member
    I get that it's only an aspiration/goal. But if I am currently doing those exercises, and the advice is to eat the exercise calories back, what's the difference between 1) adding extra calories on average for each day and not logging the exercises and 2) log every day the exercise and then eat X amount of calories back on that day? So far I have not been skipping the workouts, and if for some reason one day I skip it, it sounds simpler to me to just eat less calories that day and move on, than to each day start loging every exercise. The food logging & planning is already time consuming as it is, so since I didn't see a clear answer here as to how to log the exercises, I thought it would be easier to take this approach.
    heybales wrote: »
    Just saying - the advice has been use the tool as designed and then see where you are in 2 weeks.

    Am I the only one who doesn't see the concensus of the "advice" in the comments? I see only 1 person that suggested to use the MFP tool before you, and she said to eat only 50% of the calories back. She also got "wooed". Other opinions were: eating 50% of the calories back is wrong, use a power meter/compare with a bike with power meter, compare it to outdoor biking, estimate using HR and eat 100% of those calories back, HR is not a good estimate but might be better than my bike's estimate (which I said is almost the same from MFP exercise stationary bike light effort, so I assumed this one would be wrong as well).

    And I know that it will take some weeks for me to see the weight trend, I'm not new in the weight loss journey. I just started increasing the exercise and needed some advice on that, but honestly I feel a little overwhelmed with all new information and all the different opinions.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    Your method would be the average weekly TDEE method. And very valid method - what most websites use.
    But then you better do the planned workouts or weight loss slows or stops.
    So not really learning the life lesson.

    But that is not what MFP does - though it can be tweaked to use that way.

    Come up with an average weekly level of activity that includes daily and workouts - average out to daily - and eat that daily with a reasonable deficit for the weight loss.

    Try this to get that level of activity and how to setup MFP to do it. Then don't log your workouts.

    Just TDEE Please spreadsheet - better than rough 5 level TDEE charts from 1919 study.
    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1G7FgNzPq3v5WMjDtH0n93LXSMRY_hjmzNTMJb3aZSxM/edit?usp=sharing
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    Yes the TDEE method is perfectly valid, what it isn't is a better estimate.
    (It's actually worse as you are estimating your duration as well.)

    That guessing in advance how much, what intensity and what exercise you will actually do works perfectly well for weight control for loads and loads of people should reassure you that although accurate estimates are nice they are absolutely not required to successfully manage your weight.

    Yes you should include your significant exercise routine in your calorie calculations.

    No it doesn't matter that your estimates aren't precise. Reasonable is good enough to be effective.

    Unless you are doing endurance cardio then either method works (both have pros and cons).
    If a simple every day goal appeals to you then go for it. If a varied daily allowance appeals more then choose that.
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