Calories burned just to stay alive?

vickyalison61
vickyalison61 Posts: 20 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi, I've noticed MFP only adds the calories you eat in a day, they don't add calories you burn just to keep your body going. Surely this means the 5wk weight prediction must be wrong? Thanks Vicky

Replies

  • totem12
    totem12 Posts: 194 Member
    Your target calories are calculated including the energy you use staying alive (your BMR). The 5 week weight prediction is based on your deficit/surplus each day.

    So if your target is 1500 calories a day with a goal to lose a pound a week, and you eat 1500, it will tell you you should lose 5 pounds in 5 weeks.

    The target calories for say 1lb a week loss would be calculated as:

    (Calories burned to stay alive + NEAT (non-exercise activity) + TEF (energy burned in digestion) + energy expended while exercising) - 500
  • vickyalison61
    vickyalison61 Posts: 20 Member
    totem12 wrote: »
    Your target calories are calculated including the energy you use staying alive (your BMR). The 5 week weight prediction is based on your deficit/surplus each day.

    So if your target is 1500 calories a day with a goal to lose a pound a week, and you eat 1500, it will tell you you should lose 5 pounds in 5 weeks.

    The target calories for say 1lb a week loss would be calculated as:

    (Calories burned to stay alive + NEAT (non-exercise activity) + TEF (energy burned in digestion) + energy expended while exercising) - 500

    Hi thanks for your reply 😊 however it only calculates how many calories I've burned from exercise, some days it's calculated that I've only burned around 200 calories? So where are the calories I've used just to keep my body being added? I really don't understand this at all, sorry 😊
  • glassyo
    glassyo Posts: 7,739 Member
    Can you screenshot where you're seeing this number from?
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,941 Member
    Have you entered your weight, gender, age and size when you signed up?
    Not sure this is technically possible, but just a thought that this info might be missing.
  • Retroguy2000
    Retroguy2000 Posts: 1,847 Member
    edited October 2022
    I don't understand what you mean by, "some days I only burn 200 calories". Coma patients burn a lot more.

    Go back to your Goals page here, or any TDEE calculator. Tell it you want to maintain with no weight loss, and tell it your typical daily effort (sedentary, active, etc.), not including additional workouts. That's an estimate of your TDEE, the calories you burn all day sleeping, sitting, working, chores, etc.

    Let's say it says 2000. If you revise the Goals to say you want to lose one pound per week, it will probably change to about 1500, i.e. a deficit of 500 per day, 3500 per week.

    If you spend an hour on the treadmill and burn another 400, your budget for the day goes to 1500+400. Your body will have burned 2000+400, so you're still at a deficit of 500.

    Usually people don't eat back all of their workout calories if looking to lose weight, since some times the estimates for those can be wrong. They may eat back half of them, for example. When I add my workout estimates, I use conservative estimates.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,204 Member
    vickyalison61 wrote: »
    totem12 wrote: »
    Your target calories are calculated including the energy you use staying alive (your BMR). The 5 week weight prediction is based on your deficit/surplus each day.

    So if your target is 1500 calories a day with a goal to lose a pound a week, and you eat 1500, it will tell you you should lose 5 pounds in 5 weeks.

    The target calories for say 1lb a week loss would be calculated as:

    (Calories burned to stay alive + NEAT (non-exercise activity) + TEF (energy burned in digestion) + energy expended while exercising) - 500

    Hi thanks for your reply 😊 however it only calculates how many calories I've burned from exercise, some days it's calculated that I've only burned around 200 calories? So where are the calories I've used just to keep my body being added? I really don't understand this at all, sorry 😊

    If you set up your MFP profile according to instructions, MFP gave you a basic calorie goal to eat daily (before exercise is added).

    That basic calorie goal includes your staying-alive calories, plus some daily-life-movement calories (based onwhat you put in your MFP activity level setting).

    Before showing you that basic calorie goal, MFP subtracted some calories so that it thinks you'll lose weight (at the lbs/kg rate you asked it for).

    Since you're talking about exercise calories as if they just show up, I'm going to guess you have some fitness tracker device or app synced to MFP.

    The exercise calorie adjustment you get is just a reconciliation between what MFP estimated you'd burn on a normal day, and what the tracker or app thinks you've burned on that specific day.

    MFP calculated the calories to do the "keeping alive" stuff into your basic calorie goal before the exercise calories got added.
  • debrag12
    debrag12 Posts: 1,071 Member
    It only adds calories above what you said your activity level is, if you link a tracker or add exercise. Your starting number includes all your calories.
  • westrich20940
    westrich20940 Posts: 920 Member
    When you put in the calories you are burning through exercise --- MFP adds those because MFP uses the NEAT method to calculate how many calories you need per day to maintain your current weight. That's -- Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis. That's why when you use the MFP set up and they ask you about your 'activity level'....you are NOT supposed to include intentional exercise - just your regular everyday lifestyle.

    TDEE - Total Daily Energy Expenditure (which is another method to calculate an estimate of how many calories you need in a day to maintain your weight) DOES take into account your intentional exercise/activity.

    So, if you didn't do any intentional exercise --- what MFP gives you is the calories you need to stay alive (BMR) plus what your lifestyle denotes (i.e. 'teacher', 'warehouse worker', 'mailman', 'desk job', etc.). If you did an intentional workout (bike, run, walk, hike, etc.) MFP will give you those calories back to eat.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    vickyalison61 wrote: »
    Hi, I've noticed MFP only adds the calories you eat in a day, they don't add calories you burn just to keep your body going. Surely this means the 5wk weight prediction must be wrong? Thanks Vicky

    BMR is included in your calorie target

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