Completely Confused

I try not count my calories that I get from exercise.

I generally don't eat the extra calories I earn working out unless it's a ton, then I will eat some of them. I wouldn't worry too much about taking in that much food. If you feel good about your intake for the day then don't worry

what are you counting as exercise?

I eat 1/2 to 2/3 of my exercise calories most of the time. I have gotten over 3000 calories before. Ate about 2500, still lost weight. MFP truly works! Just make sure you over-estimate how much you've eaten and under-estimate how much you burn.

Can't comment much, diary is not open. However, don't blindly eat back all of the calories, we and MFP tend to overestimate cal burned, and underestimate cal consumed. I just eat my daily cal allowance, and use the exercise calories as justification if I feel like eating a bit more

Tomorrow I am going to be negative cal for the day for sure, given that I play two hockey games, and coach two soccer games.

What the heck did you do to burn 1,411 calories??!!

Well, I just started this and I am really confused about one thing. I earned 1,411 calories by exercising and it was added to the total calories that I am supposed to consume for the day which brings me over 3,000. How am I supposed to eat that much and still lose weight?

How did you earn 1,411 calories? Unless you were riding a bike for about 5 hours this seems rather high. I would try recalculating you calories burned.

If this is what you really did burn you have to give out your secret because I know I would love to burn that much in a day...:happy:

And welcome to MFP BTW.

Edit: Ah you posted before I did...lol

To find the answer, here is a recent thread on the same subject:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/561583-why-replace-excercised-calories

The thread also has a bunch of links to previous discussions.

Unless you are using a heart rate monitor when you exercise you really cant know that you burned that many calories. I found that when I put my exercises in before purchasing an HRM that My fitness pal WAY over estimated my calories burned. Just FYI in case you were not using one. Hope that helps

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I just started today, and was happy to get the 150 calories from a walk.
Good for you, I have to take up swimming!!!

I dont eat back my calories

that might be a really high estimation of cals burned...unless you are using a HRM that is really accurate. i just checked out a couple of other websites and unless you weigh 300-400lbs and are swimming nonstop at a moderate to fast pace i doubt you burned that much...i would go with 50% to be on the safe side, and then maybe eat back 35% of that to allow for over estimation of food cals (we all overestimate w/out menaing to).

Unless you are using a heart rate monitor when you exercise you really cant know that you burned that many calories. I found that when I put my exercises in before purchasing an HRM that My fitness pal WAY over estimated my calories burned. Just FYI in case you were not using one. Hope that helps

Exactly.

I realized I was highly undereating because my basic calorie burn for a normal day was around 2300 BEFORE exercise. I had been eating 1200. That's an 1100 deficit plus any more deficit gained from exercise, and I wasn't losing anymore. My body had entered a pseudo starvation mode, and I was holding onto fat.

I upped my calories slowly after using my HRM to find out my REAL average daily calorie expenditure. On a normal day, app. 2300. On days that I sit on my couch for 9 hours then go right back to sleep, 1300 (I do this on Saturday and Sunday). So, I set my calories to 1450 per day for maintenance. And if I exercise for the day, which I do Monday through Friday, and depending on the exercise, I burn between 400-1000 calories a work out. So, on a normal day I'm BMR burning 2300ish plus an additional 400-1000, which is 2700-3300 calories a day I'm burning.

Because of this, I eat from 1800-2200 calories a day. And guess what? I haven't gained any weight almost doubling my calories, and I've lost body fat percentage. If you take my lowest NORMAL burn of 2700 minus what I'm eating at my highest 2200, I still have a deficit of 500 calories AT LEAST a day. I'm 5'2" and 122 lbs. with 20% BF.

None of this possible without a HRM.

Buy one.



edit: To more plainly answer your question. I have my calories set to 1450, and I'm eating 1800-2200 a day. So, yes, I am eating back my exercise calories. Almost all of them. Just never more than them. MFP doesn't give the right calorie burns for exercise. Calorie burn is specific to weight, height, age and HR.

I lap swim. 2000yards in an hour. I used their calculator and just plugged in what type of exercise I chose freestyle swim light/moderate and 60 minutes and that is what it gave me.
Like I said I am really confused.

Yayy swimming! ignore all the neighsayers. They don't swim. And it burns calories like crazy!! I swim too if you can't tell ;-) We have a Swimmers! group. You should join us if you haven't already. For swimming it's a whole day thing for me. I eat more calories at breakfast, add a glass of milk or a piece of toast. Not much but it helps I can't swim if I've not eaten enough. Then before swimming a little snack, nuts, dried fruit, cheese stick, something. After swimming lunch, heavy on protein. Usually large because I'm starving. Then an afternoon snack with a smoothie of some kind or milk if I didn't have some earlier in the day. Dinner is usually my splurge for the week, we'll do pizza or spaghetti something higher calorie that normally I couldn't enjoy. And after all that I usually have 600-800 calories left. I might have a treat of some kind but I never eat all the calories back.

Swimming is awesome. But remember as you lose weight you will burn less so if you swim now you get to splurge but later it will be less. But always something to be proud of!