Exercise Calories

I eat all of my exercise calories. I've learned over time that my Fitbit provides an accurate estimate of how many calories I'm burning.

I worry about MFP overestimating exercise calories, especially because the results vary so wildly between MFP, MapMyRun, other online calculators, etc. They're all based on height and weight but the results are still so different. Personally I try to eat them back minus ~100 calories or so. So if MFP says I burned 400 I will try to eat 300.

But if you want to eat them all back, I say go for it! Since you are working out, it's important to provide your muscles enough energy & nutrients. I'd say that's way more important for your overall health and fitness than having a deep calorie deficit.

I do eat all of my exercise calories. However I no longer use the MFP exercise calculator and do use the Omni calculator because it seems to be a lot more accurate for me.

I eat half or most of all of mine...depending how hungry I am

When I first got started on MFP (almost 4 years ago now), I did some research to figure out how to best estimate calories for the activities I do regularly. I read a bit on the strengths/deficiciencies of the estimating methods; compared results from different "calculators" both generic (like MFP's) and activity specific; used cases where I had a more-sound estimating method in conjunction with my heart rate monitor's estimates and my Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE) to gut-check estimates for similar-stressor activities**; and - when in doubt, with no better idea - used the estimating method that gave me the lowest number for that activity.

Then I ate back all of the calories, most of the time, through a year of losing 50ish pounds, and 3 years maintaining a healthy weight since. (Once in a while, when it isn't crazy, I add them to my deficit or bank them for an upcoming special event).

IMO, it's important to be consistent in how you estimate your routine activities, i.e., use the same method. That's what makes the "try it for 4-6 weeks and adjust intake" method work out reasonably well in practice, even though the exercise estimates may not be strictly accurate.

** I had been active for a long time, over 10 years, even while obese, and had long used a HRM to guide training, so I had a good amount of data to draw on, and my RPE was somewhat more helpful because my fitness level wasn't changing dramatically anymore. (For those new to regular exercise, the exercise starts feeling easier pretty soon and initially quite dramatically, so RPE would be less helpful as a gut check.)

As a side comment: I'm a person for whom my fitness tracker is not very accurate, as compared with almost 4 years of logging experience. It's a Garmin Vivoactive 3, but the tracker isn't the problem. Some model works for many people.

I'm just statistically weird. MFP mis-estimates my calorie requirements by roughly the same magnitude. It's the nature of statistical estimates to be close for most people, a bit off for a few, and substantially off for a very few, not necessarily for any reason one can pinpoint. I got this device only about a year ago, so I already had a long history of careful logging data. I could use it to guide intake, by tracking the variance from reality for a while, then making adjustments - my guess is that it's off by a similar percentage or amount most of the time. But, since I already knew methods that worked for me, and had made them a habit, I don't rely on its all-day calorie estimates. I do use its estimates for some exercise activities, similar to how I used to use my HRM estimates.

When I was doing MFP I ate all of them back from whatever my HRM told me for steady state cardio less my BMR calories. It worked very well and I lost weight at the average pace I had selected.

This is particularly important if you're doing long duration or higher intensity workouts. I wasn't so much concerned with fueling the walking of my dog for a mile...but a 30 mile road ride is going to require fuel for recovery and improved performance.

It depends on the exercise. Walking and running is very easy to calculate, so I absolutely trust those calorie numbers. If anything, I burn more than I'm given because I live in a hilly area so work a little harder. Something like stationary bike moderate effort is harder, because how do you define moderate effort? Same with calisthenics or yoga. Are you moving non-stop or resting between movements? Or gardening - How hard are you actually working? So for those exercises, I'll only include them if I do more than 30 minutes and I might not eat all the calories given.

marcyincny wrote: »

When I want to lose weight I want to drop more than 3-4 pounds/month so I eat the recommended 1200 kcal and do what I guesstimate to be 500 kcal of exercise for a net of about 700. That's how I lose 5-6 pound/month.

This is extremely unhealthy and not realistic in long term. Don’t listen to this advice please.