Exercise and calories
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clairesimpson4
Posts: 15 Member
MFP always adds the calories burned due to exercise to the calorie "goal" but I always ignore it and stick to the same 1800 per day. One of the reasons I do this is because I have no idea if those calorie burned are accurate for me - one person's vigorous is another person's moderate I figure.
Does anyone else do this?
Does anyone else do this?
5
Replies
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Agreed!! This notion of eating all the calories you burn is ridiculous. I’ve been using the app for several months. I was losing weight until everyone on here started saying you’re doing it all wrong and you need to be eating those calories. So for the last two weeks I tried it. My results after two weeks is a gain of 4lbs. First week I thought maybe a fluke so I tried another week. Sorry but those people are dead wrong. The goal of all exercise is to burn more calories than you consume in order to lose weight. How can you lose weight putting those calories right back in your body? Back to my original plan.5
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I’m at 12 years since weight loss, 10+ Maintaining with MFP,and to be honest I wouldn’t be as successful if I hadn’t accounted for my calorie burn due to exercise.
If I can’t exercise, I need to know my calorie burn.
If I increase my exercise, I need to know my calorie burn.
If I change my exercise routine, I need to know my calorie burn.
It is fine incorporating your exercise if you are using a TDEE calculator but, if you are using MFP which only accounts for non exercise activity, long term maintenance is better achieved by knowing, and acounting for exercise.
Exercise needs fuel, fuel your exercise.
You are here for health, fitness, and weight loss. Make sure your weight loss is done in a healthy, nutritious way. It is the way to long term success.
Cheers, h.
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The number of calories almost anything says you burned is going to be wrong. That's a given. If you're careful and wise, you can get an estimate that's in the right ballpark. (Zero probably isn't in the same league.)
The calories you're eating are an estimate too, if you're not weighing things a rough estimate. Labels on bags and boxes are allowed to be off by up to something like 10% by law.
Sounds hopeless. Luckily, you don't have to get it down to the Nth decimal place. If you want to lose weight, you just need to eat fewer calories than you burn. A pound a week is 500 kCal per day, that's plenty of wiggle room.
How big a deal this really is - eating calories burned through exercise - depends how much you're exercising and how aggressively you're trying to lose weight. If you aren't doing much and you aren't starving yourself, no harm no foul. You'll have to figure it out eventually when you reach your weight goal and want to maintain it.12 -
I eat back 100% of my exercise calories. It worked when I was losing weight and it has allowed me to maintain that loss for several years. As stated above, you need to fuel your workouts. You may lose weight faster by not eating them back, but is it sustainable long term? Is it enjoyable? Being miserable and hungry is not a recipe for success.8
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You can be pretty certain that zero is not an accurate estimate of your calories burned during exercise.14
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Agreed!! This notion of eating all the calories you burn is ridiculous. I’ve been using the app for several months. I was losing weight until everyone on here started saying you’re doing it all wrong and you need to be eating those calories. So for the last two weeks I tried it. My results after two weeks is a gain of 4lbs. First week I thought maybe a fluke so I tried another week. Sorry but those people are dead wrong. The goal of all exercise is to burn more calories than you consume in order to lose weight. How can you lose weight putting those calories right back in your body? Back to my original plan.
Dude, no. People exercise for all kinds of reasons. To burn calories to lose weight is perfectly legit, but, hopefully, you're going to exercise when you get to your goal weight and don't have any more to lose, too.17 -
Of course I eat back my exercise calories as this calculator is designed to be used, but mostly my estimates aren't from the database here.
By the way both TDEE calculators and wearable trackers also take your exercise into account, just in different ways.
It's pretty daft if you are calorie counting not to try to count/estimate the calories you expend.
The people who struggle with implementing what is a very sensible method more than likely are making a mess of one or all of the other estimates that make up the overall picture.
Not being sure about exercise calories can also be applied to your estimated BMR, your estimated activity setting, your estimated food intake but people still make those estimates work and don't resort to ignoring them completely, exercise really isn't any different.
If you said what your exercise routine is you might find there's a perfectly reasonable estimate available.
How could I or you maintain at goal weight unless exercise is taken into account?6 -
Eating back exercise calories. Some days you just have to. MFP is a great tool especialy for a free tool but accuracy is not great. Better than nothing. For example, I just put in a search for bagel. The top 4 results range from 180 to 380 calories. Which do you pick when you track? You guess which yours might be. Exercise? I run and my pace is around 13 minute miles. MFP doesn't go over 12. I AM running, I am not walking fast. I use 12mm and assume the calorie burn it gives me is over estimated. I am finding that if I am eating a healthy diet (bagels are not part of a healthy breakfast for me) then I have to listen to my body's hunger signals and know the difference between real hunger and just wanting to eat because I am bored. If you are hungry, truly hungry, not craving, then EAT!! If you have calories left at the end of the day but you aren't hungry, you don't have to eat! Our bodies will tell us what we need if we just listen to it. Humans aren't supposed to live life white knuckling through hunger pangs because we are trying to lose weight. That might work, but it isn't sustainable.
Also there will be days when you are extra hungry and go over your "calorie alottment" and other days when you aren't so hungry and are below your "calorie alottment". That's okay.3 -
Ummm, no. I run because I like to.
I want to go further, faster, and get higher up those hills.
If I am going to do that I need to fuel it properly, which means I have to eat. Not fuelling it will impact on recovery time, how I feel, and eventually general health. Quite apart from the ravenous hunger in the short term.7 -
Agreed!! This notion of eating all the calories you burn is ridiculous. I’ve been using the app for several months. I was losing weight until everyone on here started saying you’re doing it all wrong and you need to be eating those calories. So for the last two weeks I tried it. My results after two weeks is a gain of 4lbs. First week I thought maybe a fluke so I tried another week. Sorry but those people are dead wrong. The goal of all exercise is to burn more calories than you consume in order to lose weight. How can you lose weight putting those calories right back in your body? Back to my original plan.
This isn't the goal of all exercise. People exercise for fitness, the emotional benefits, or just the joy of it.
It's usually a mistake to assume that everyone shares your particular set of motivations.15 -
My calories are 1200 per day. I usually go over and have to burn a balance of 300-400 some weeks at the gym.
And over the holidays I remember I spent hours in the gym bc I had to burn off 700cals by the end of the week.
I don't like dislike the gym, it's my me time, but if you're prone to obsessive behavior- becareful. It can definitely be a little overwhelming. Everyone in the thread has given really good feedback!
I'll only emphasize DO WHAT IS SUSTAINABLE AND MOTIVATING FOR YOU TO STAY COSISTANTLY HEALTHY. It's a lifestyle
Xoxo3 -
clairesimpson4 wrote: »MFP always adds the calories burned due to exercise to the calorie "goal" but I always ignore it and stick to the same 1800 per day. One of the reasons I do this is because I have no idea if those calorie burned are accurate for me - one person's vigorous is another person's moderate I figure.
Does anyone else do this?
Really depends on what you're doing for exercise. Ignoring those calories for something like going for a walk or other light activity probably isn't that big of a deal given the expenditure isn't going to be all that large and lite activity doesn't really require a whole lot in terms of recovery.
Ignoring those calories from more vigorous and/or longer duration training can be detrimental in that it can create a deficit that is overly large which can lead to all kinds of unpleasant things down the road. It can also be detrimental to fitness gains as well as recovery. 100% of exercise calories may or may not be accurate...but 0% is definitely not accurate. I'll burn in the neighborhood of 1,000 calories on a 30 mile bike ride...ignoring those would be foolish.
I never personally used the database entries for exercise. I always used my HRM for the calories I was burning running or cycling or other aerobic activity and then knocked off my estimated BMR calories from that to get me something close to a net calorie burn. It wasn't exact, but it was close enough and I lost weight on an average of 1 Lb per week as I had planned eating back most of my exercise calories. I use the TDEE method now, but also have a power meter for my bike which is very accurate in determining calories burned cycling.4 -
I. I'm maintaining my weight at this stage.
I still do active things.
If I didn't eat back my exercise calories, but kept burning them, where exactly would I be?
Also, even losing I was controlling my rate of loss on purpose. The goal was not 'lose as much as I can, as fast as I can', it was 'don't kill my gallbladder and maintain as much muscle as possible'. So. Yeah. I eat them.
In my case the estimate's not quite right - i burn more than the trackers usually estimate - but it's close enough to be largely immaterial overall.6 -
Agreed!! This notion of eating all the calories you burn is ridiculous. I’ve been using the app for several months. I was losing weight until everyone on here started saying you’re doing it all wrong and you need to be eating those calories. So for the last two weeks I tried it. My results after two weeks is a gain of 4lbs. First week I thought maybe a fluke so I tried another week. Sorry but those people are dead wrong. The goal of all exercise is to burn more calories than you consume in order to lose weight. How can you lose weight putting those calories right back in your body? Back to my original plan.
That is actually not the purpose of exercise...burning additional calories is a nice byproduct of exercise, but exercise isn't even necessary to lose weight. You burn calories 24/7. For most people, the calories they burn merely existing far exceed anything they would burn with exercise.
If exercise was just for burning calories to lose weight, then people who exercise regularly for their health and fitness would ultimately just wither away and die.
Also, the way MFP works is that your deficit is built into your calorie target to lose weight without exercise. Exercise is additional unaccounted for activity in your activity level. It's really just 2nd grade math. MFP gives me a calorie target of 1900 calories to lose 1 Lb per week without exercise...so MFP is estimating my non exercise maintenance to be around 2400 calories.
If I go for a 30 mile bike ride and burn 900 calories and didn't account for that, my net calorie intake would be a mere 1,000 calories...basically the same as just eating 1,000 calories which is obviously not healthy for an adult male. In accounting for those 900 calories I can eat 2,800 calories and still lose 1 Lb per week because my maintenance level would have jumped from 2400 to 3300 calories and 3300-2800 = 500 calorie deficit still.
I did this all the while losing 40 Lbs years ago and have maintained for over 8 years...so yes...it does work when you're doing it right and being as accurate as you can be with your CO estimates as well as you CI estimates...but most people are for *kitten* about actually logging things accurately.6 -
The goal of all exercise is to burn more calories than you consume in order to lose weight..
So do you claim to know everyone's motivation for everything they do, or just this one particular thing?
In case my sarcasm hasn't been laid on quite thickly enough, I'll be blunt - you're wrong.
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Agreed!! This notion of eating all the calories you burn is ridiculous. I’ve been using the app for several months. I was losing weight until everyone on here started saying you’re doing it all wrong and you need to be eating those calories. So for the last two weeks I tried it. My results after two weeks is a gain of 4lbs. First week I thought maybe a fluke so I tried another week. Sorry but those people are dead wrong. The goal of all exercise is to burn more calories than you consume in order to lose weight. How can you lose weight putting those calories right back in your body? Back to my original plan.
Uhhh….
You’ve already gotten a proper earful from other experienced members about your kitten take here, so I’ll just add my 2¢ and be done.
My reason for exercise is to retain as much muscle and mobility as possible, for as long as possible which is a super common reason for disabled and elderly people to choose to exercise.
I hope my comment has been informative.7 -
I did not do that when I was actively losing weight. MFP's recommendation for your calorie goal is already based on a deficit (if you used MFP to set it up, and if you chose that you wanted to lose weight --- if you used some other method and manually put in your calorie goal - then it will depend on how you decided your goal).
So if you then burn additional calories through intentional exercise --- you are then increasing your deficit, possibly by a LOT depending on how many calories you are actually burning. So you could be creating a situation where you are undereating by a lot.
I do agree that the calorie burn estimates in MFP can be wildly inaccurate ---so it's better to find a way that is as accurate as possible to estimate the calories burned (but remember it's still just an estimate) -- and manually put in cals burned to your workout and then eat back at least some of those cals. I personally ate back 50-100% of those calories depending on how hungry I was. I personally used a combination of an online calculator, my RunKeeper app, and my Polar HRM to estimate how many cals I burned while working out --- they all were different, sometimes by like 100 cals but I just did the best I could.
If your calorie goal has been calculated NOT based on a deficit --- then this may not be what you should do. I'm no expert, lol.
Also...the comment about the reason for all exercise....lol - wow. Exercise is good for weight loss if that's what you want but it's also great for
staying healthy and mental well-being.2 -
Agreed!! This notion of eating all the calories you burn is ridiculous. I’ve been using the app for several months. I was losing weight until everyone on here started saying you’re doing it all wrong and you need to be eating those calories. So for the last two weeks I tried it. My results after two weeks is a gain of 4lbs. First week I thought maybe a fluke so I tried another week. Sorry but those people are dead wrong. The goal of all exercise is to burn more calories than you consume in order to lose weight. How can you lose weight putting those calories right back in your body? Back to my original plan.
My mom is active because she LIKES to be. In fact, she is so active that she struggles to stay above Under Weight. She does what her personal trainer calls "extreme gardening," swims, walks, yoga, maintains a 250+ year old house, and worked with a PT before the pandemic.
Once I move in with her I might start logging her food and exercise to show her just how many more calories she needs. For now, I just tell her to eat more calorie dense foods like nuts, cheese, etc.6 -
Words do have specific meaning.
"Vigorous" in the context of physical exercise is, according to the Mayo Clinic 70% to about 85% of your max heart rate (estimate by subtracting your age from 220). See https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/fitness/in-depth/exercise-intensity/art-20046887 I have seen guidance that says "up to 93%" of your max heart rate. I was supposedly AT or OVER mine for an hour, today, yet I could still have carried on a conversation. I don't know if this is good or bad - I feel fine, supposedly burned 600 calories and covered 3.5 miles.
If you have any sort of heart disease, or take medication that may raise or lower your heart rate, check with your doctor before using any of these numbers as a guideline, because that is ALL they are - a guideline.
What I have found is that Fitbit and Garmin, combined with strict and honest logging of food intake tend to be quite accurate over time. (Remember what the song says, when you're tempted to sweep that "one little bite" under the rug and not count it: "hips don't lie".) I also know my RMR - the calories I burn while conscious and breathing, as opposed to BMR which is what's needed just to sustain life - and it is appallingly low at 1384. I had it tested at a health clinic, so it's not a guesstimate. That is lower than any online calculator is going to "estimate." But Garmin seems to know - it's definitely not using 2K/day as a baseline!) I have a spreadsheet, and if you ignore the day to day fluctuations, it's a spot-on match between my goal weight loss, my exercise/daily activity, and my food intake.
I try hard not to use the additional calories burned as permission to "cheat" - unless I am very hungry. Meaning I drank a glass of water, first, to check - and nope, I still really need to eat something. And then I still try to keep it to only half of the extra burned, or I'll just maintain my current weight. I look for nutrient-dense foods that are low in calories. (That's okay, too, sometimes - just holding steady at the current weight! It's not healthy, nutritionally, to lose more than 2 lbs. a week, unless under a doctor's close supervision.) Patience is a virtue.
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clairesimpson4 wrote: »MFP always adds the calories burned due to exercise to the calorie "goal" but I always ignore it and stick to the same 1800 per day. One of the reasons I do this is because I have no idea if those calorie burned are accurate for me - one person's vigorous is another person's moderate I figure.
Does anyone else do this?
Did you your know your MFP calculated daily burn is an estimate based on mass population and your gender, age, height, and weight?
You really have no idea if that calorie burn is accurate for you - I don't think those calories count.
Could be around 5% off.
Food labels are allowed to be upwards of 20% off - you really have no idea if the calories supplied is actually accurate to what you are really eating - I don't think those calories count.
Well that was easy - you are burning nothing, and eating nothing, when correctly ignoring what may not be accurate for you.5
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