Do you have to eat back your step calories?

MilllaS536
MilllaS536 Posts: 13 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
My activity is set to sedentary. Some days I walk to the gym and that shows I burn 50 cals. So do I have to eat this back?!

Replies

  • mph323
    mph323 Posts: 3,565 Member
    edited July 2019
    MilllaS536 wrote: »
    My activity is set to sedentary. Some days I walk to the gym and that shows I burn 50 cals. So do I have to eat this back?!

    I wouldn't. If your total step count for the day is under around 3000, the calorie goal MFP set for you includes that activity already. You would log anything you do at the gym of course, and any intentional exercise outside of that. Can you post your total daily step count? Thanks!

    eta - You would eat back at least a portion of those calories to maintain your net calories at the goal MFP set for you.
  • MilllaS536
    MilllaS536 Posts: 13 Member
    mph323 wrote: »
    MilllaS536 wrote: »
    My activity is set to sedentary. Some days I walk to the gym and that shows I burn 50 cals. So do I have to eat this back?!

    I wouldn't. If your total step count for the day is under around 3000, the calorie goal MFP set for you includes that activity already. You would log anything you do at the gym of course, and any intentional exercise outside of that. Can you post your total daily step count? Thanks!

    Hello, thank you! Yes I log my gym workout calories.
  • MilllaS536
    MilllaS536 Posts: 13 Member
    pontious11349 wrote: »
    really depends what your goal is? If its to drop weight I wouldn't eat back any exercise calories....unless you are fatigued from your workouts.

    Thank you! My goal is to lose weight. I thought you have to eat them back
  • mph323
    mph323 Posts: 3,565 Member
    MilllaS536 wrote: »
    pontious11349 wrote: »
    really depends what your goal is? If its to drop weight I wouldn't eat back any exercise calories....unless you are fatigued from your workouts.

    Thank you! My goal is to lose weight. I thought you have to eat them back

    Yes, you are correct :) Some people find that MFP overestimates calorie burn and eat back only a portion, but you need to fuel your activities.
  • MilllaS536
    MilllaS536 Posts: 13 Member
    mph323 wrote: »
    MilllaS536 wrote: »
    pontious11349 wrote: »
    really depends what your goal is? If its to drop weight I wouldn't eat back any exercise calories....unless you are fatigued from your workouts.

    Thank you! My goal is to lose weight. I thought you have to eat them back

    Yes, you are correct :) Some people find that MFP overestimates calorie burn and eat back only a portion, but you need to fuel your activities.

    Thank you!! x
  • earlnabby
    earlnabby Posts: 8,171 Member
    MilllaS536 wrote: »
    My activity is set to sedentary. Some days I walk to the gym and that shows I burn 50 cals. So do I have to eat this back?!

    Does your tracker sync with MFP? If so, and you have both your tracker and MFP set to sedentary, you would only eat back the calories your tracker says you earned ABOVE the sedentary setting. If you are not syncing, don't eat back any calories your tracker says you earned, only those earned by purposeful exercise you enter separately.
  • MilllaS536
    MilllaS536 Posts: 13 Member
    earlnabby wrote: »
    MilllaS536 wrote: »
    My activity is set to sedentary. Some days I walk to the gym and that shows I burn 50 cals. So do I have to eat this back?!

    Does your tracker sync with MFP? If so, and you have both your tracker and MFP set to sedentary, you would only eat back the calories your tracker says you earned ABOVE the sedentary setting. If you are not syncing, don't eat back any calories your tracker says you earned, only those earned by purposeful exercise you enter separately.

    Thank you, nope I don’t have an actual tracker. I use my iPhone to track my steps. So let’s say I burn 150 cals from a workout, so I only add this?
  • earlnabby
    earlnabby Posts: 8,171 Member
    MilllaS536 wrote: »
    earlnabby wrote: »
    MilllaS536 wrote: »
    My activity is set to sedentary. Some days I walk to the gym and that shows I burn 50 cals. So do I have to eat this back?!

    Does your tracker sync with MFP? If so, and you have both your tracker and MFP set to sedentary, you would only eat back the calories your tracker says you earned ABOVE the sedentary setting. If you are not syncing, don't eat back any calories your tracker says you earned, only those earned by purposeful exercise you enter separately.

    Thank you, nope I don’t have an actual tracker. I use my iPhone to track my steps. So let’s say I burn 150 cals from a workout, so I only add this?

    Correct.

    Most recommend starting out by eating back 50% of exercise calories since many databases overestimate. As long as you are accurate in logging your calories eaten, you can see how your weight loss has averaged. Take about 6 weeks, see what your average weekly loss is, and adjust the % eaten back accordingly to make sure you are not losing too fast. My happy place is eating 75% of earned calories back but everyone is different.
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 13,525 Member
    edited July 2019
    I would consider all step calories above 5k steps to be fair game. Sedentary starts topping up at around 3.5k
  • MilllaS536
    MilllaS536 Posts: 13 Member
    edited July 2019
    Thanks everyone for the replies!! Means a lot. Now I know that I dnt need to eat back my steps. I don’t get a lot of steps anyways. However I’m kinda frustrated about my exercise cals. Like I dnt know how much to add in. I go to the gym mon wed and Friday. I do a mixture of weight training and 15 min HIIT. I walk back home after gym and mfp said I burned 50 cals. My mind is debating between 100 and 150 cals. I don’t know what to put in. Ugh.. I’m only 5.2ft and weigh 59kg and my goal is 52kg. I also do 2 karate sessions per week. This is mixture of low and high intensity stuff.
  • TallGent66
    TallGent66 Posts: 84 Member
    I don't count smaller life activities in my daily excercise, trimming trees or such.

    I do enter specific, intentional excercising - initially walking (1-2 hours), treading water, hiking.

    I roughly aim to eat back 50% of excercise calories; sometimes more, sometimes less.

    When I recently joined MFP I was way undereating - 800 - 1,000 calories per day at 6'6". Hit a wall. Upped calories, really upped protein. Last night had 3 chicken thinghs (skinless) and a small portion of Chilly Cow ice cream.

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