Exercise calories - do I eat these? A video explanation.

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Replies

  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,292 Member
    edited May 2019
    msindie20 wrote: »
    Great video thank you! I have a fairly active job. Usually burn average 1500 daily. Set my goal to 1450 cals per day. How many of my active cals should I be eating back do you think? I'm usually stuffed on 1450 lol so no idea how I am going to fit more in. Also, any goods in particular I need to use the exercise cals on or not? Thanks very much 😀.

    to meet your goal and assuming the burn is correct, and that is above and beyond your RMR cals, you would eat all of them! cals burned are just estimates so most people suggest eating 50-75% of them
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,292 Member
    edited May 2019
    As an example say MFP gives you 1450 calories to lose 1 lb/week, and you plan on exercising 5x/week for an average of 400 cals per workout. well MFP will tell you to eat 1450 on the days you don't work out and 1850 on the days you do whereas a "professional" or TDEE calculator may tell you to eat 1700 every day regardless if you workout.

    So for the week, MFP will have you eat 12,150 (1450*2+1850*5) whereas doing it the other way will have you eat 11,900 (1700*7) almost the same number of cals for the week (250 dif). The issue in not following MFP is if you don't work out the full 5 days or burn more or less than planned. If that is the case you may lose more or less than your goal, whereas MFP will have you lose your goal amount regardless of how much you actually workout.

    What many MFPers do is take the low 1450 and not eat back exercise calories which is wrong, if you are not eating them back then your daily activity level should reflect the higher burn with would be covered in the 1700/day above.
  • msindie20
    msindie20 Posts: 13 Member
    Thanks @erickirb! I'll start eating some back then 😀.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    edited May 2019
    msindie20 wrote: »
    Great video thank you! I have a fairly active job. Usually burn average 1500 daily. Set my goal to 1450 cals per day. How many of my active cals should I be eating back do you think? I'm usually stuffed on 1450 lol so no idea how I am going to fit more in. Also, any goods in particular I need to use the exercise cals on or not? Thanks very much 😀.

    It sounds like you don't mean 1500 in TDEE then, but 1500 extra.
    How was that number obtained - it needs to be a good estimate?

    As explained - deficit should be off the total burned - whether you average that from weekly total aka TDEE method, or you do it daily with MFP method.

    Obviously if you are way more active than the MFP activity level you selected, or you are working out and not accounting for it - there is 1 huge massively wrong answer - and that is not counting any of the extra and not eating anything back.
    You'll regret that sooner and later.
  • smilingmomma
    smilingmomma Posts: 2 Member
    how does this work when you are tracking step cals from a Fitbit and then also exercise? so u eat all those calories or no?
  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,023 Member
    edited June 2019
    how does this work when you are tracking step cals from a Fitbit and then also exercise? so u eat all those calories or no?

    I let my Fitbit handle all my step and exercise info (so if it doesn't pick up my weight training, I log the workout on the Fitbit app) and then I have the Fitbit and MFP synced with the negative calorie adjustment enabled. It does take a couple of weeks for all the programs to understand each other for some reason, but yes I let Fitbit change my MFP calories and I eat whatever calories it tells me I have.

    Your Fitbit will not double credit you, if that's what you're worried about. If you take 2000 steps while doing a cardio workout, Fitbit will take into consideration the calories you got from the steps, and will only credit you the extra calories you get from the cardio, above and beyond what it already gave you for the steps. I hope that makes sense!
  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,023 Member
    Bump! :smiley:
  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,023 Member
    Bump redux :kissing_heart:
  • PiscesIntuition
    PiscesIntuition Posts: 1,365 Member
    Bumping again!
  • dietnowcuddles
    dietnowcuddles Posts: 4 Member
    Hi the video was great just one question can I bank excersise calories for the wkend when I might not excersise and if I can how do I do that
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    Hi the video was great just one question can I bank excersise calories for the wkend when I might not excersise and if I can how do I do that

    Sure.

    Look at your weekly total rather than daily.

    You usually just don't want to do some big unreasonable deficit 5-6 days mere to have a massive binge or pigout on 1-2 days.

    But if you have a reasonable deficit in the first place, adding 50 more daily to have an extra 250-300 on a weekend day isn't bad.

    Shoot, skip breakfast and have smaller lunch on that same day and have even an extra 300-500 for dinner fun!
  • PiscesIntuition
    PiscesIntuition Posts: 1,365 Member
    @Bosatch87 This is the BEST explanation for if you should eat back exercise calories or not.
  • Bosatch87
    Bosatch87 Posts: 11 Member
    Thank you very much
  • PiscesIntuition
    PiscesIntuition Posts: 1,365 Member
    You’re welcome!
  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,023 Member
    Bump!
  • TheresaM787
    TheresaM787 Posts: 751 Member
    Thank you!
  • zumbagirl72
    zumbagirl72 Posts: 1 Member
    I watched video- I have my FitBit sync to myfitnesspal. I am trying to lose 10lbs workouts daily. I decided to turn off the added exercise calories, but now maybe it seems I should be using this feature..and then if I feel hungry use those "added" calories. Im at 144, trying to get to 135.
    I turned off thinking i need to keep myself ij calorie deficit, but I also know my body needs to replenish. I wish i had a personal chef and coach lool
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    I watched video- I have my FitBit sync to myfitnesspal. I am trying to lose 10lbs workouts daily. I decided to turn off the added exercise calories, but now maybe it seems I should be using this feature..and then if I feel hungry use those "added" calories. Im at 144, trying to get to 135.
    I turned off thinking i need to keep myself ij calorie deficit, but I also know my body needs to replenish. I wish i had a personal chef and coach lool

    Yep, things in context.

    Comments about the database possibly being inflated calorie burn, or the way the math works causing that to occur, doesn't apply to those Adjustments which are not from an exercise database, but are merely the difference between Fitbit seeing daily activity and total calorie burn, and MFP's estimate of daily burn no exercise and activity level you selected.

    You could do no workouts, be very active in reality getting many steps and lots of distance and calories burned, but then Select Sedentary on MFP - and as expected you'd get a big adjustment.

    Of course if you had selected the correct MFP level - you'd get none.

    I'd warrant most people if they did that, higher eating level because of guessed correct level at the start - would never see an adjustment and the question and confusion would never come up.

    I'll comment - only 10 lbs to lose, hope you selected the 250 cal deficit, or else body will rebel pretty quick with an extreme diet being attempted with big deficit.
    And not counting increased daily activity and workouts over your MFP selected activity level is adding to your deficit - when you disable as you did.
  • Sactowriter
    Sactowriter Posts: 3 Member
    If I don't eat back the extra exercise calories allotted, is that bad for any reason? Now that my body is used to a set # of calories, I just don't feel like eating more just because I exercised. I play 2-3 hours of tennis a day.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 31,717 Member
    If I don't eat back the extra exercise calories allotted, is that bad for any reason? Now that my body is used to a set # of calories, I just don't feel like eating more just because I exercised. I play 2-3 hours of tennis a day.

    Losing weight too fast (more than briefly) is bad, not healthful.

    If you're eating enough calories that you're not losing too fast, it's fine not to account for the exercise calories separately. (IMO, "too fast" is more than 0.5-1% of current body weight per week, with bias toward the lower end of that range unless severely obese and under close medical supervision for deficiencies or complications.)

    The MFP basic method is to account for exercise calories when we do the exercise. The other method is to eat a fixed number of calories daily, which essentially averages in exercise calories with other calories. Either method can work. The main point of the OP is to explain the MFP approach, I believe.