Don’t want to subtract workout calories
sharonjsauve
Posts: 2 Member
Is there a way to get mfp not to subtract the exercise calories from your total daily calories?
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Replies
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Settings > Goals > Fitness-Edit > "adjust my calorie goal">off5
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Thank you!!0
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this only works if you have premium - but note that MFP calories are based on NOT including purposeful exercise in your goal calories - it expects you to eat calories back. Not adjusting is good if you plan to use a TDEE based calorie plan (that factors in your exercise level)8
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you are wrong MFP doesnt expect you to eat the calories back it is teling you the total amount of calories you can consume after the exercise calories are added in so you can still maintain the weight loss goal that you have already established2
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This is a misunderstanding of how MFP works.
If you use TDEE, your exercise calories are included in the calculation so you don't "add" them yourself.
But MFP uses NEAT, which does not include exercise calories.
So allowing for minor variations, MFP goal + exercise calories = TDEE calculator goal.
If you use MFP's calorie goal and don't add exercise, you risk under eating and losing faster than you intended. And while exercise calorie burns might be inaccurate, so is "0". We typically suggest people start out eating some of their exercise calories, and tweak as they go based on their results.22 -
And he is trying to put people in a deficit that is potentially too large for their size and their rate of loss. MFP does not include purposeful exercise in their calorie goals. It is giving you a goal under the assumption that you do not do any exercise, and you are going to add your exercise separately. If you are exercising, and not accounting for it, your deficit is going to be more aggressive, which can be potentially harmful. It is true that sometimes exercise can be overestimated, which is why almost nobody eats back every single one unless they high confidence that the estimates are accurate. But you should account something. The 100% wrong number for calories burned from exercise is 0.15 -
@slimdownt
Please stop posting this.
It's not just inaccurate and irresponsible - it's verging on the stupid.
1) A lot of tools or calculations give perfectly reasonable estimates. Not all estimates are high.
2) Highly unlikely any estimate is so inaccurate it could switch someone from a deficit to a surplus. For someone set to lose 1lb/week the estimate would have to be out by 500+ calories!
There's a whole lot of new users who understate their activity setting, select an inappropriately fast rate of loss and you are compounding that by suggesting people don't account for a perfectly valid energy need of their body.
If you don't like accounting for exercise expenditure this way at least promote a sensible alternative such as using a TDEE calculator.
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You can enter "1" manually for the calorie amount when putting in your exercise.
You can also make it 1,000,000 and eat anything you want.2 -
@slimdownt
Please stop posting this.
It's not just inaccurate and irresponsible - it's verging on the stupid.
1) A lot of tools or calculations give perfectly reasonable estimates. Not all estimates are high.
2) Highly unlikely any estimate is so inaccurate it could switch someone from a deficit to a surplus. For someone set to lose 1lb/week the estimate would have to be out by 500+ calories!
There's a whole lot of new users who understate their activity setting, select an inappropriately fast rate of loss and you are compounding that by suggesting people don't account for a perfectly valid energy need of their body.
If you don't like accounting for exercise expenditure this way at least promote a sensible alternative such as using a TDEE calculator.
I'll continue to lose weight while others gain not a problem. Have a good day.2 -
@slimdownt
Please stop posting this.
It's not just inaccurate and irresponsible - it's verging on the stupid.
1) A lot of tools or calculations give perfectly reasonable estimates. Not all estimates are high.
2) Highly unlikely any estimate is so inaccurate it could switch someone from a deficit to a surplus. For someone set to lose 1lb/week the estimate would have to be out by 500+ calories!
There's a whole lot of new users who understate their activity setting, select an inappropriately fast rate of loss and you are compounding that by suggesting people don't account for a perfectly valid energy need of their body.
If you don't like accounting for exercise expenditure this way at least promote a sensible alternative such as using a TDEE calculator.
I'll continue to lose weight while others gain not a problem. Have a good day.
Of course you're losing weight. You're creating an excessive calorie deficit. That's like saying "eating 500 calories a day works for me because I'm losing weight." No *kitten* youre losing weight. But that doesn't mean it is a good idea, or healthy to do so.
And it's crap and bad faith advice saying to people that eating back their exercise calories are going to make them gain, when scores of people here have successfully lost weight incorporating their exercise calories.27 -
I lost weight eating back my exercise calories, and have been maintaining doing the same. With a general understanding of how weight loss works, where the numbers come from, and how MFP works it worked exactly as expected.15
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@slimdownt
Please stop posting this.
It's not just inaccurate and irresponsible - it's verging on the stupid.
1) A lot of tools or calculations give perfectly reasonable estimates. Not all estimates are high.
2) Highly unlikely any estimate is so inaccurate it could switch someone from a deficit to a surplus. For someone set to lose 1lb/week the estimate would have to be out by 500+ calories!
There's a whole lot of new users who understate their activity setting, select an inappropriately fast rate of loss and you are compounding that by suggesting people don't account for a perfectly valid energy need of their body.
If you don't like accounting for exercise expenditure this way at least promote a sensible alternative such as using a TDEE calculator.
I'll continue to lose weight while others gain not a problem. Have a good day.
I lost about 70 pounds, and have kept it off for years, because I went about it the sustainable way that all the smart people in here are recommending. I've also continued doing well against my athletic goals, because I'm properly fueling my workouts.
People with unsustainable, excessive deficits don't sustain them. They either give up early, it reach their goal weight and then gain it back.26 -
I too lost all my weight and currenty maintain 'eating back my excise calories' Not understanding the difference between the NEAT system and TDEE is really the symptom why some people (e.g. slimdownt ) think they are superior in their approach. NEAT is really quite a good/smart system to work with.14
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@slimdownt
Please stop posting this.
It's not just inaccurate and irresponsible - it's verging on the stupid.
1) A lot of tools or calculations give perfectly reasonable estimates. Not all estimates are high.
2) Highly unlikely any estimate is so inaccurate it could switch someone from a deficit to a surplus. For someone set to lose 1lb/week the estimate would have to be out by 500+ calories!
There's a whole lot of new users who understate their activity setting, select an inappropriately fast rate of loss and you are compounding that by suggesting people don't account for a perfectly valid energy need of their body.
If you don't like accounting for exercise expenditure this way at least promote a sensible alternative such as using a TDEE calculator.
I'll continue to lose weight while others gain not a problem. Have a good day.
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10569458/why-eating-too-little-calories-is-a-bad-idea/p112 -
@slimdownt
Please stop posting this.
It's not just inaccurate and irresponsible - it's verging on the stupid.
1) A lot of tools or calculations give perfectly reasonable estimates. Not all estimates are high.
2) Highly unlikely any estimate is so inaccurate it could switch someone from a deficit to a surplus. For someone set to lose 1lb/week the estimate would have to be out by 500+ calories!
There's a whole lot of new users who understate their activity setting, select an inappropriately fast rate of loss and you are compounding that by suggesting people don't account for a perfectly valid energy need of their body.
If you don't like accounting for exercise expenditure this way at least promote a sensible alternative such as using a TDEE calculator.
I'll continue to lose weight while others gain not a problem. Have a good day.
If you think that it takes looking at and following that screen cap to lose weight then I'm not sure what to tell you.7 -
I am losing weight eating back my exercise calories, though I don’t eat them all. I consider exercise as my cushion. I don’t think that I could just limit my caloric intake to 1200 a day. I also need to get back in shape. Bonus. I get back into shape and I get to eat 300-500 additional calories of the 600-900 that I am (theoretically) burning. Even if I’m being lied to about the calories burned, I doubt it’s off by that much. Also, and this is important, on the days that I short myself on eating (+-1200 calories), I have zero energy to do anything the next day. I can’t work out effectively, I can’t work effectively, I can’t think effectively. So, anecdotally, this not eating your exercise calories back is a terrible idea.8
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Given that MFP does allow you to set your own calorie goals, which you can set based on TDEE if you like, then you can't just assume that everyone using MFP should always eat back their calories and that if they don't they are creating too large of a deficit.
I like to key in 1 for my calorie burn, no matter what MFP says because like any other user entered data, some of the calculated calorie burns are way higher than realistic for someone my size.2 -
So if I were to burn 600 calories exercising, which isn't unrealistic depending on what I'm doing, should I just not eat back those calories? What if this is a weekly occurrence in addition to my typical burning a minimum of 400 calories 4-5 days a week (that ~400 is from a 1 hour recovery ride - most of my rides aren't recovery rides). Are you saying that I should have a minimum 2,600 calorie weekly exercise calorie deficit in addition to deficit that MFP says I should have?
That seems like an impressively bad plan.10 -
yet another article that doesn't actually understand how MFP works and that it does not include exercise in its recommended calorie goal. if you used a TDEE (total daily energy expentiture) calorie recommendation (which i do) - then no i don't eat calories back - but if i were using the MFP ones i would...and wait for it...my number goals come out relatively close to the same (about 50cal difference)11
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Congratulations, you found someone else who typically knows what he's talking about, but doesn't know how MFP works.
A lot of knowledgeable trainers and fitness influencers are aware of MFP but haven't actually used it for themselves.
You are arguing with people who have been using MFP for years, and have lost a lot of weight with it already, some of us even now in maintenance. I'm not sure why you assume people who aren't active here know how it works better than we do.
If you use TDEE to get your calorie goal - don't eat back your exercise calories separately because they are already included in your calorie goal.
If you use MFP NEAT to get your calorie goal - eat back at least some of your exercise calories because they were not included in the calculations. It IS possible your calorie burns are inflated. Luckily there is no reason to force yourself into an all-or-nothing approach, just eat back some of them. If you really burned 300 calories, and your tracker says you burned 600, eating 0 is just as wrong as eating 600. So splitting the difference makes far more sense than ignoring them entirely.
And ultimately, the proof is in your rate of loss over 6-8 weeks and your fitness performance. If you aren't losing, you're eating too much. If you are losing faster than you expected, you should eat more. It's not rocket surgery.
If you are working out hard and can't lose weight if you eat back any of your exercise calories, that means your food logging is way off and all your numbers are pretty meaningless. Personally, I would rather get them right, but if logging is just your way of staying accountable and you don't really care about what the numbers actually are, than do it however you want. But don't claim the other way is wrong.16 -
tcunbeliever wrote: »Given that MFP does allow you to set your own calorie goals, which you can set based on TDEE if you like, then you can't just assume that everyone using MFP should always eat back their calories and that if they don't they are creating too large of a deficit.
I like to key in 1 for my calorie burn, no matter what MFP says because like any other user entered data, some of the calculated calorie burns are way higher than realistic for someone my size.
Exactly what I'm getting at.0 -
tcunbeliever wrote: »Given that MFP does allow you to set your own calorie goals, which you can set based on TDEE if you like, then you can't just assume that everyone using MFP should always eat back their calories and that if they don't they are creating too large of a deficit.
I like to key in 1 for my calorie burn, no matter what MFP says because like any other user entered data, some of the calculated calorie burns are way higher than realistic for someone my size.
Exactly what I'm getting at.
Yes but that's not exactly what you are saying.
BTW, if you use TDEE - Deficit (assuming you are accounting for activity generally closely, guess what? You are eating back your exercise calories.
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tcunbeliever wrote: »Given that MFP does allow you to set your own calorie goals, which you can set based on TDEE if you like, then you can't just assume that everyone using MFP should always eat back their calories and that if they don't they are creating too large of a deficit.
I like to key in 1 for my calorie burn, no matter what MFP says because like any other user entered data, some of the calculated calorie burns are way higher than realistic for someone my size.
Exactly what I'm getting at.
you are applying a specific scenario (eating based on TDEE) to recommendations writ large (don't eat back exercise calories)8 -
I guess I'd be jealous too if I was starving myself and other people were having good results without suffering.16 -
Besides other comments to the lack of understanding by the writer - they also sadly linked to studies that didn't understand the trackers and how they work and improve things through usage.
To slap a tracker on someone and test a run/cycle workout, or 1 day usage - is flawed thinking for what actually happens in normal usage and the adjustments that happen over a week, and keep adjusting as fitness changes.
Not saying they are dead on - but a whole lot more accurate than 0.
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tcunbeliever wrote: »Given that MFP does allow you to set your own calorie goals, which you can set based on TDEE if you like, then you can't just assume that everyone using MFP should always eat back their calories and that if they don't they are creating too large of a deficit.
I like to key in 1 for my calorie burn, no matter what MFP says because like any other user entered data, some of the calculated calorie burns are way higher than realistic for someone my size.
Exactly what I'm getting at.
It's not what you're getting at... at all. If you use a TDEE calculator, you are getting a different goal than the one MFP gives you. It will be higher because of your exercise level. That is another way to eat back your exercise calories. It may be more or less accurate depending on the person , but it is operating under the same principal, which is that if you exercise more, you need to eat more.
What you are saying is for people to use MFP's calorie goals, which do not include exercise, and then not factor in exercise. You are telling them to eat the same no matter how much exercise they do. That is wrong.16 -
tcunbeliever wrote: »Given that MFP does allow you to set your own calorie goals, which you can set based on TDEE if you like, then you can't just assume that everyone using MFP should always eat back their calories and that if they don't they are creating too large of a deficit.
I like to key in 1 for my calorie burn, no matter what MFP says because like any other user entered data, some of the calculated calorie burns are way higher than realistic for someone my size.
Exactly what I'm getting at.
Except that's not what you said.
Just like it's incorrect to say "No matter where you get your calorie goal from, you MUST eat your exercise calories back", it's incorrect to say "No matter where you get your calorie goal from, you should NOT eat your exercise calories back.
I think most of the responses here have been ridiculously clear on the differences between a TDEE goal and an MFP goal, and how to handle them.11 -
@slimdownt
Please stop posting this.
It's not just inaccurate and irresponsible - it's verging on the stupid.
1) A lot of tools or calculations give perfectly reasonable estimates. Not all estimates are high.
2) Highly unlikely any estimate is so inaccurate it could switch someone from a deficit to a surplus. For someone set to lose 1lb/week the estimate would have to be out by 500+ calories!
There's a whole lot of new users who understate their activity setting, select an inappropriately fast rate of loss and you are compounding that by suggesting people don't account for a perfectly valid energy need of their body.
If you don't like accounting for exercise expenditure this way at least promote a sensible alternative such as using a TDEE calculator.
I'll continue to lose weight while others gain not a problem. Have a good day.
I will continue to recomp just like I have been over the course of the last year tracking calories in MFP. I eat back my exercise calories and I did so the whole time that I lost the 70 pounds before I hit maintenance two years ago. I did it by having an actual understanding of what MFP is expecting people to do, which you clearly do not.20
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