Burned calories...🤔
bbasusena
Posts: 27 Member
Is it bad to not log in burned calories? Because they get added back to the calories you have to intake.
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Replies
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If you use MFP to calculate your calorie goals, you should be eating back your exercise calories. The goal they give you does not include exercise.
If you are worried that the estimates are inflated, you can start by eating half of them back and seeing how that works for you.9 -
I used to log them in but then I stopped. I would hit my calorie intake and if I had a snack or fruit I would go over 100... but mentally it works for me to feel good and not Over eat. I was just worried about not eating back the calories I was burning.. usually I’ll burn about 400-600 a day2
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Did you read Mike's comment?6
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In addition to what Mike said, you may get better feedback if you provide your stats - age, height, current weight, target weight and the weight loss rate that you entered to MFP.
I have no idea how many calories a day your target is, but less assume it's 1500. You're eating 1500. You're burning 500 (as an average). Your net calories per day are 1000. Even if you have a snack that's 100 calories, you're still only eating 1100. You're under-eating.
Over a period of time, eating less than 1200 calories a day (unless you are very old, very short and very sedentary), is likely to lead to flaky nails, hair loss, muscle loss (your heart is a muscle) and all sorts of other issues that you really don't want to be experiencing.
Not eating your exercise calories would be less of an issue, at least initially, if you're morbidly obese and therefore have a lot of fat reserves / weight to lose.8 -
Is it bad to use a screwdriver as a hammer?
You picked a tool to do a job so why not use it as designed?
Eating exercise calories isn't some kind of plot to keep you overweight it's trying to teach people a life lesson around eating appropriately for their activity and exercise. Not just while losing weight but for the rest of your life when (hopefully) you will be maintaining at a good weight.18 -
Honestly, I do not calculate my exercise calories. I know I will probably get some disagrees for that, but I just can’t be bothered to care about how much I might be burning.
HOWEVER, I have my base activity level set a little higher than reality, I log my food pretty loosely, and I give myself permission to eat over my calorie goal if I still feel hungry.
I have my MFP goal set to lose 1 pound per week. I weigh myself daily, and Happy Scale says my current rate of loss is .99 (overall is 1.49). I am good with that.
So, while I might not be using MFP as intended, I am using it in a way that works for me. You know, like using a screwdriver to chisel the ice out of the freezer (cause I do that, too 😉).5 -
Honestly, I do not calculate my exercise calories. I know I will probably get some disagrees for that, but I just can’t be bothered to care about how much I might be burning.
HOWEVER, I have my base activity level set a little higher than reality, I log my food pretty loosely, and I give myself permission to eat over my calorie goal if I still feel hungry.
I have my MFP goal set to lose 1 pound per week. I weigh myself daily, and Happy Scale says my current rate of loss is .99 (overall is 1.49). I am good with that.
So, while I might not be using MFP as intended, I am using it in a way that works for me. You know, like using a screwdriver to chisel the ice out of the freezer (cause I do that, too 😉).
In this situation, you are essentially doing a version of eating back your exercise calories. Just doing it in a way that may be a little atypical. I'm not sure I'd specifically recommend using MFP line that, but at least you are embracing the concept of eating more because you work out, and it seems to be producing the proper results for you. So that's certainly not disagree worthy in my opinion.
No one is saying that you have to follow the specific process of calculating exercise calories and eating them back, just that you need to eat more if you exercise. I don't directly "eat back my exercise calories", because I use a TDEE calculator to come up with my goal, which includes my exercise level. So I eat the same amount of calories everyday, whether I workout or not, but that calorie number is higher than MFP would give me. A TDEE calculator (there are a bunch out there) is a good option if you want to keep consistent calorie goals but still account for your exercise in your calorie intake.
What we are saying is that a person should eat more if they exercise more. How they do that is up to them. It could be through excerise calories, using a TDEE calculator, or some other personalized way of doing it to account for the higher intake. They just shouldn't be ignored.
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I used to log them in but then I stopped. I would hit my calorie intake and if I had a snack or fruit I would go over 100... but mentally it works for me to feel good and not Over eat. I was just worried about not eating back the calories I was burning.. usually I’ll burn about 400-600 a day
It might feel good mentally but physically it might catch up with you. We are designed to handle a wide range of eating habits and be able to perform normally for a long time even in less than ideal food situations. The body is very resilient until it isn't. The problem is when you are significantly malnourished you have compromised your body in a way that is not easy to come back from.
I am not saying any of this applies to you. It is hard to know without knowing how fast you are trying to lose, your stats, and how accurately you log.
You should review the last 6 weeks or so and make sure you are not losing faster than about 1 percent of your body weight per week. If you are you need to eat more.3 -
Honestly, I do not calculate my exercise calories. I know I will probably get some disagrees for that, but I just can’t be bothered to care about how much I might be burning.
HOWEVER, I have my base activity level set a little higher than reality, I log my food pretty loosely, and I give myself permission to eat over my calorie goal if I still feel hungry.
I have my MFP goal set to lose 1 pound per week. I weigh myself daily, and Happy Scale says my current rate of loss is .99 (overall is 1.49). I am good with that.
So, while I might not be using MFP as intended, I am using it in a way that works for me. You know, like using a screwdriver to chisel the ice out of the freezer (cause I do that, too 😉).
In this situation, you are essentially doing a version of eating back your exercise calories. Just doing it in a way that may be a little atypical. I'm not sure I'd specifically recommend using MFP line that, but at least you are embracing the concept of eating more because you work out, and it seems to be producing the proper results for you. So that's certainly not disagree worthy in my opinion.
No one is saying that you have to follow the specific process of calculating exercise calories and eating them back, just that you need to eat more if you exercise. I don't directly "eat back my exercise calories", because I use a TDEE calculator to come up with my goal, which includes my exercise level. So I eat the same amount of calories everyday, whether I workout or not, but that calorie number is higher than MFP would give me. A TDEE calculator (there are a bunch out there) is a good option if you want to keep consistent calorie goals but still account for your exercise in your calorie intake.
What we are saying is that a person should eat more if they exercise more. How they do that is up to them. It could be through excerise calories, using a TDEE calculator, or some other personalized way of doing it to account for the higher intake. They just shouldn't be ignored.
Right. I don’t disagree with what you are saying. I was just trying to offer an option that might allow the OP to feel like she is still ignoring exercise calories without actually doing so.
Simplest method is to just raise daily calorie target by a few hundred calories. My approach probably sounds more complicated, but it is the best way for me to feel comfortable (mentally) with the whole process.
Sometimes when I see posts like this, people jump on and just respond with a hundred ways to say the same thing. (In this case, eat your exercise calories). But there is not typically any kind of compassion for different approaches. So, while technically I may be advocating eating exercise calories, it sounds different in my head because I am not directly acknowledging the existence of those burnt calories. To me, they are irrelevant.
I think that was the OP’s point when she said she stopped logging exercise calories because it works for her mentally to feel good and not overeat. I can relate to that 100%.0 -
I would like to encourage everyone to lose the word "bad" and replace it with "off-plan choice".
the opposite of bad is good. both terms are subjective and neither has any meat or handles.
"off-plan" can be contrasted to "on-plan" and choice puts us in the driver's seat.
sure, it's just words, but, the power of words is demonstrated every single day.
good luck to us all.1 -
@amy19355 I think it's fair to call being healthy and achieving your goals "good."6
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NorthCascades wrote: »@amy19355 I think it's fair to call being healthy and achieving your goals "good."
i agree,
my post was more about labeling food as good or bad, and i can see that wasn't really clear.2 -
Honestly, I do not calculate my exercise calories. I know I will probably get some disagrees for that, but I just can’t be bothered to care about how much I might be burning.
HOWEVER, I have my base activity level set a little higher than reality, I log my food pretty loosely, and I give myself permission to eat over my calorie goal if I still feel hungry.
I have my MFP goal set to lose 1 pound per week. I weigh myself daily, and Happy Scale says my current rate of loss is .99 (overall is 1.49). I am good with that.
So, while I might not be using MFP as intended, I am using it in a way that works for me. You know, like using a screwdriver to chisel the ice out of the freezer (cause I do that, too 😉).
In this situation, you are essentially doing a version of eating back your exercise calories. Just doing it in a way that may be a little atypical. I'm not sure I'd specifically recommend using MFP line that, but at least you are embracing the concept of eating more because you work out, and it seems to be producing the proper results for you. So that's certainly not disagree worthy in my opinion.
No one is saying that you have to follow the specific process of calculating exercise calories and eating them back, just that you need to eat more if you exercise. I don't directly "eat back my exercise calories", because I use a TDEE calculator to come up with my goal, which includes my exercise level. So I eat the same amount of calories everyday, whether I workout or not, but that calorie number is higher than MFP would give me. A TDEE calculator (there are a bunch out there) is a good option if you want to keep consistent calorie goals but still account for your exercise in your calorie intake.
What we are saying is that a person should eat more if they exercise more. How they do that is up to them. It could be through excerise calories, using a TDEE calculator, or some other personalized way of doing it to account for the higher intake. They just shouldn't be ignored.
Right. I don’t disagree with what you are saying. I was just trying to offer an option that might allow the OP to feel like she is still ignoring exercise calories without actually doing so.
Simplest method is to just raise daily calorie target by a few hundred calories. My approach probably sounds more complicated, but it is the best way for me to feel comfortable (mentally) with the whole process.
Sometimes when I see posts like this, people jump on and just respond with a hundred ways to say the same thing. (In this case, eat your exercise calories). But there is not typically any kind of compassion for different approaches. So, while technically I may be advocating eating exercise calories, it sounds different in my head because I am not directly acknowledging the existence of those burnt calories. To me, they are irrelevant.
I think that was the OP’s point when she said she stopped logging exercise calories because it works for her mentally to feel good and not overeat. I can relate to that 100%.
A lot of us use the TDEE method rather than the MFP method...in doing so, we appropriately account for activity. But that's kind of the point...if I was a betting man, I'd wager that the OP isn't otherwise accounting for her exercise. I've been here for years and most often what I see when this comes up is someone set to sedentary with a 2 Lb per week targeted rate of loss crashing their diets and then doing a bunch of exercise on top of that. In this case, it is quite possible that the OP is eating 1200 calories and exercising 500-600 off and netting 600-700 calories per day, which isn't a particularly good thing. I mean the forum is littered with threads with people losing their menstrual cycles, losing hair, etc because they aren't providing their bodies with enough energy (calories) for basic functions.7 -
Well, thanks everyone for your inputs. Very helpful!0
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I didn't let MFP pick my calorie goal- I picked it based on an estimate +predicted exercise calories. My exercise schedule is consistent so I'd rather have it worked into my daily calorie goal. I weigh in every day and enter the data into happy scale app to make sure I'm losing at the pace I want (1 lb/week) So my predictions (seen at bottom of mfp food diary after completing the day) are off but besides that I just find it less of a hassle. I guess this method wouldn't work if you have a lot of variation in your exercise week to week.1
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I prefer to let my Fitbit and MFP talk to each other and track my calories burned. Then if I’m feeling fatigued and notice I’m under-eating for my activity level I have actual data to look at. I often find I’m hungrier the day after a heavier exercise day. Taking the weekly look at calories helps me stay on track.2
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