Exercise Calories?

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allycatnicole
allycatnicole Posts: 28 Member
in Getting Started
I’m working on trying to lose weight. I’ve been logging my food and excercises and I’ve noticed MFP is giving me a lot of calories burned. I’m wondering how accurate this is and if we are suppose to eat these extra calories earned? I appreciate the help guys!

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  • puffbrat
    puffbrat Posts: 2,806 Member
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    MFP is designed for you to eat those calories back. However, many people do find the exercise calories earned to be inflated and generally follow a guideline of eating back 50-75%. Try eating some or all of them back for a few weeks and see how if affects your goal, then adjust as needed.
  • kami3006
    kami3006 Posts: 4,978 Member
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    Yes, you're supposed to eat them. MFP's estimates are high for some and spot-on for others. It really depends on the type of exercise.

    This is an excellent video on using exercise cals:

    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10503681/exercise-calories-do-i-eat-these-a-video-explanation/p1
  • allycatnicole
    allycatnicole Posts: 28 Member
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    Thank you guys! That video was really helpful.
  • kami3006
    kami3006 Posts: 4,978 Member
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    allycatnicole wrote: »
    Thank you guys! That video was really helpful.

    SideSteel, the trainer in the video, is the man!
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
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    The problem is when MFP adds the exercise, it's adding a full burn figure for that chunk of time, on to a calorie eating goal that was based on you already being expected to burn a certain number of calories during that chunk of time.

    Say MFP thought you'd burn 2000 daily being sedentary - that's 83 cal per hour.

    Now say you log a long low calorie burn workout - like walking or slow bike riding, ect, that burns say maybe 120 cal/hr.

    Well, 83 of that 120 was already expected and accounted for - so only about 40 was really needed on top as extra.

    Hence the reason many starting noticing that eating back 50-75% worked better.

    Also why if walking more is the workout - better just to increase the activity level and don't log the walking.

    Short intense high calorie burn workouts don't have this issue nearly as bad. Though that type of workout may leave you more tired and less active for a chunk of time than expected.

    Sadly MFP could easily correct this, but perhaps they figure with popularity of activity trackers syncing in - that takes care of the issue already.

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