Do I eat back all these calories?

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ginnyblank
ginnyblank Posts: 2
in Health and Weight Loss
I will be starting marching band in a months time for two major reasons. One I love music and two I think it will be great excersise. Practice will be twice a week for four hours now if I add those minutes to my excersise. It gives me 1233 calories or something similar that would mean I would double my intake for the day. Should I really eat all those calories back?

Replies

  • nixirain
    nixirain Posts: 448 Member
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    I would probably change your profile settings accordingly. What are you set to right now: sedentary, lightly active etc?
  • AlwaysSarah87
    AlwaysSarah87 Posts: 62
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    I would probably change your profile settings accordingly. What are you set to right now: sedentary, lightly active etc?

    That is a good idea^

    Also I think just watch your NET and if you are at least at 1200 a day then you will be OK.

    Maybe also think about getting a HRM. MFP is pretty bad about giving away too many colories when putting in exercise.
  • Loko_Ino
    Loko_Ino Posts: 544 Member
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    Depends on your metabolism..try a few weeks not eating and then eating..see how your weight goes.
  • weepingnicole
    weepingnicole Posts: 3
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    I'm in colorguard and I'm not eating any calories on some days that we have practice. I just think of it as losing fat instead of calories.
  • yesthistime
    yesthistime Posts: 2,051 Member
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    I would not trust MFP's calorie count (they tend to overestimate cardio calories, in my and many other MFPers' experiences) Can you you get a heart rate monitor with a chest strap before you begin marching band? Or adjust MFP's calorie count down to maybe 50-75% of what it calculates for the exercise?
  • rileysowner
    rileysowner Posts: 8,238 Member
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    Personally I think this is where the MFP approach to number of calories is not always the best. Ideally you would want to spread those out a bit through the week rather than eat them all on one day. I know I switched over to eating a fixed amount of calories that include my expected exercise in them already. Then I don't have to eat more for the exercise. I have only been doing it for a short time, so I can't comment on how effective it is. I have more calories for the day than MFP gave me, and I should still lose about 1 pound a week.

    I used the tool here to calculate my maintenance calories for my goal weight, and took 500 off that. http://www.fat2fitradio.com/tools/bmr/

    If you are going to use MFP, I would increase your activity level up one and call this part of your normal activity. Then you only would need to add actual intentional exercise.
  • AngelikaLumiere
    AngelikaLumiere Posts: 862 Member
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    It really depends upon your metabolism and how much extra body fat you have. For the first 6 months that I was loosing I did not eat any exercise calories back, but my body had so much extra to draw on I never got hungry and I lost weight. But after I got closer to normal, I go hungry when I exercised so I switched to eating my exercise calories back. I think you have to figure out where you are. If you have more than half your weight to loose, or only 10-20 pounds, it makes a difference.
  • krazyforyou
    krazyforyou Posts: 1,428 Member
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    I always use my HRM to monitor calories burned. I agree with Seantaylor. Just try it for 2 weeks and see what your body tells you. You may have to increase calories just to keep up your energy.
  • Feathil
    Feathil Posts: 163 Member
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    On Wednesdays I have to play sax for 4hrs 45 mins, which apparently gives me 962 calories? I don't think so. And I play minimum 2 hours a day other days, minimum 220 calories. Nope, I logged them once and realised it was way out of reason.

    Marching's a different story though, that's a lot more active. Try get a HRM for that, but I don't understand how MFP calculates music.
  • MommaFuhrer
    MommaFuhrer Posts: 214 Member
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    ....or if you think MFP is over estimating your calories burned put that you are marching for 2 hours instead of 4 and then enjoy eating those extra! :)

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