Excercise/daily calorie goal

Ginakaten
Ginakaten Posts: 1 Member
edited December 2024 in Fitness and Exercise
I want to add my exercise to my diary but I don’t want it to increase my calories. Is there not a way to do this? Isn’t the whole point of losing weight to be at a deficit? Please help 💗

Replies

  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,011 Member
    Assuming you set up your profile with a goal of losing weight, your MFP calorie goal already includes your deficit. If you don't log your exercise, you will lose faster than you said you wanted to, and not fueling increased exercise can lead to fatigue and weakness.

    Some people find that exercise burns can be over estimated, so the suggestion is often to eat back half of your exercise and then after 4 weeks or so you can eat back more or less based on what rate you are losing weight at.
  • gothchiq
    gothchiq Posts: 4,590 Member
    How about you eat back just half your exercise calories. That way you don't end up all weak and shaky.
  • exermom
    exermom Posts: 6,873 Member
    I never add in my exercise calories. The theory behind it is that if I go over, then I have a "buffer ".
  • exermom
    exermom Posts: 6,873 Member
    What I do is make a note of which exercise I do
  • hmaddpear
    hmaddpear Posts: 610 Member
    You can add the exercise minutes and set the calorie burn to zero manually. But as MFP calculates your deficit without exercise, you may find you're losing too quickly, with negative side effects @kimny72 mentioned above.
  • BrianSharpe
    BrianSharpe Posts: 9,247 Member
    MFP is designed to have you eat back exercise calories but that make two assumptions......1) that the exercise calories are reasonably accurate & 2) that you're logging your food consumption accurately.

    Given that many fitness watches, heart rate monitors and cardio machines are wildly inaccurate and people have a habit to underestimate consumption (unless diligently weighing / measuring everything they eat) you're wise to approach this cautiously.

    You can lose weight without exercising; exercise is for health and fitness. You are an experiment of 1, my suggestion is to eat back at least a portion of your exercise calories and monitor your weight loss for a period of time. If you're not losing weight cut back a bit on the food and see what happens, if you're losing at a sustainable rate ( half to 1 lb per week) you know that you're on the right track.
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