Calories changed when i logged in Exercise

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in0centarxal
in0centarxal Posts: 1 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hello community. This is my first time asking a question here, never knew i could do that.
I am in a journey to loose weight but I just notice that I could log in the exercise. And i did. But it changed my calories, telling me i need more calories to consume then before. Im curious as to what to do here. Am i really loosing weight if i just eat back the calories i just burned?

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  • KNoceros
    KNoceros Posts: 324 Member
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    The short answer to your question is: yes. (Provided the number you are using for calories burned is correct - that is a whole other story).


    The long answer is:

    It raises your calorie allowance when you’ve exercised because that’s how this app is designed to work.
    Think of your pre-exercise numberas your standard ordinary day allowance. It reflects your normal non-exercise day to day calorie burn minus an amount to achieve weight loss at the rate you put in with the set-up.

    So, for me 43 F, 62kg, set at sedentary, with about 3kg I want to lose , this number is 1380.

    BUT I do a whole bunch of exercise most days which varies wildly in amount and intensity. So I add in (log - but mine is pushed from FitBit) those calories too. Because if I didn’t, I would be massively under-eating and lose faster / more than I need to, which is also bad.

    Take one of the days last week.
    Base calories 1380
    Exercise calories 1137

    So I got to eat up to 2517 calories.
    If I had stuck with the original 1380, and not “eaten back” my exercise I would not not have given my system 243 calories to run itself for 24hrs which is clearly far too little.

    Does that make sense?
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    Your base calorie goal is only for a day with no purposeful exercise so in reality your calorie goal is xxxx + exercise calories to keep to the calorie balance you picked.
    Most calculators estimate your exercise in advance and average it out into your daily goal, MyFitnessPal only credits you exercise when you actually do it to give a variable daily food intake goal.

    Think of yourself like a car....
    The calculator takes into account your routine journeys (commute, shops etc.) and allocates some fuel for that but then you do an extra journey (that's your exercise) you need to put more fuel in the tank to keep the fuel level the same.

    In numbers for me....
    I need 2500 calories to maintain weight / be in calorie balance on a day with no exercise but I've currently set a 250 deficit to lose half a pound a week. That's 2250 net calories.
    Yesterday I did a four hour cycle ride burning 2000cals so to be in the same 250 deficit I needed to eat 4250.

    Yes the method works if your exercise estimates are reasonable. For most people the accuracy of their food logging is far more significant due to the sizes of the numbers involved so reasonable is good enough for purpose.


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