Can I really eat my exercise points???

Or is it just a cruel ploy. I've done at least three hours of fairly heavy gardening today and it says I've burned over 700 cals which its added to my available calories. Is this right? Could all of the digging up roots have paid off?

To be frankly honest I would not add that to my "exercise" portion of the MFP. But thats up to you. Yes I would eat my exercise calories. Good Luck and keep it up

I try not to eat my exercise calories...as I don't want to just break even, I want to end the day within my calories given only. For instance, today, my caloric intake is 1200, but according to my calories I have, (1600 some) I don't want to eat all of those. I'll stick to the 1200 to see the greatest change in my body.

I wouldn't. I used to do that and weight loss was slow. I started eating back only about 1/3 to 1/2 of them and weight dropped off quickly. Don't believe you are going into "Starvation mode" if you are under eating about 500 calories per day 3-5 days a week, you might have a problem after a couple of months (according to Dr. Oz).

Don't go out of your way to eat back ALL your exercise calories, just some of them to make you feel comfortable.

Never trust the gardening calories burned... It lies! I think it is calculating if you are shoveling for hours! LOL! As for eating back your actual exercise calories, YES!!! Eat at least 1/2 of them back. I try to. My diary is open to friends if you want to see. It's been working great for me!

i eat back only the calories burned from regular exercise. there is too much room for error in everything else. it is a slower weight loss, but more satisfying to me and hopefully lasting.

I eat every last one of them little critters!!! lol Got to fuel my body for these workout's... MFP still has a deficit built in (1/2 lb. a week for me) of 250 calories less a day off my BMR... So my exercise calories are just that to fuel my body...... Best of Luck....

My rule of thumb is to eat only half of your exercise points. It's a little bonus, but you're not over-doing it, either!!

LIKE!

You can really simplify weight loss by looking at it this way.
If you burn MORE than you consume, you will lose. BUT you have to know what your Resting Metobolic Rate [RMR] is. My RMR is 1950 calories. I have my diet set at 1650 calories, so I am burning more calories than I am consuming. I like to walk a couple days a week [3-4 miles]. I only eat a portion of my activity calories if I really "hit" it hard. Like a 15-20 mile bike ride or something that gets my heart rate going for a long time and I really sweat alot.
Just my .02. It is working for me. I am down 46 lbs in 3 months. That's a 3.8 lb average per week.

Thanks for the post and good luck.

I try not to eat my exercise calories...as I don't want to just break even, I want to end the day within my calories given only. For instance, today, my caloric intake is 1200, but according to my calories I have, (1600 some) I don't want to eat all of those. I'll stick to the 1200 to see the greatest change in my body.

But ask yourself: do I want to do this most healthy way, or the unhealthy way? 1200 calories is already eating at a deficit. Eating 800 net (as in your proposed example) is neither healthy, nor sustainable. You WILL reach a breaking point, and it won't be pretty. Aside from that, instead of losing fat, you are losing more muscle than if you were properly fueling your body.

Take it or leave it. I'm just giving a solid POV.

OP-yes; you really can eat your exercise calories. Whether you include the gardening should be based on what you set your lifestyle to. If you put it to sedentary, I'd count it and eat back about 75% (to give room for error). If you set your lifestyle to active, I wouldn't count it. That's part of an active lifestyle. I eat my exercise calories, and I still consistently lose weight. I have an HRM for a little more accuracy than the calculations here...

I use them as cushion but never eat more than half. I think MFP overestimates. Runkeeper consistiently gives me credit for fewer calories than MFP does. If you're not using a heart rate monitor, no measure will be perfectly accurate.

Or is it just a cruel ploy. I've done at least three hours of fairly heavy gardening today and it says I've burned over 700 cals which its added to my available calories. Is this right? Could all of the digging up roots have paid off?

To be frankly honest I would not add that to my "exercise" portion of the MFP. But thats up to you. Yes I would eat my exercise calories. Good Luck and keep it up

I don't add anything like this either. I don't garden, but I work on a University campus, so I do a ton of walking (sometimes light jogging when I'm running late haha) and I don't log it. I only log actual exercise- and I eat back the calories, but I've got wiggle room because there's a lot of stuff I don't log.

Or is it just a cruel ploy. I've done at least three hours of fairly heavy gardening today and it says I've burned over 700 cals which its added to my available calories. Is this right? Could all of the digging up roots have paid off?

MFP is designed for you to eat them, but the cals burned the site gives tend to be too high.
You may have burned 700 during that time, but some of it you would have burned had you not gardened anyway. In 180 minutes you probably burn 180 to 270 cals if you did nothing, and those would already be accounted for in your daily intake in MFP. If you are going to eat the exercise calories I would urge you to back out what you would have burned had you not exercised, so in this case you would override the number MFP gives you with 430-520 (700-180 to 270)

Or is it just a cruel ploy. I've done at least three hours of fairly heavy gardening today and it says I've burned over 700 cals which its added to my available calories. Is this right? Could all of the digging up roots have paid off?

YES! That's the way the site is designed to work... and gardening burns a ton of calories if you're doing it right. (Per BodyBugg, my highest calorie burn days, over the last year, were heavy cleaning or gardening days).

MFP is a great app to manage what you eat so that you do not over eat. But I have realized that what you log in for your daily exercise and the calories it says you burn is not accurate. Actually it is waaaayyy over what you are truly burning. I would suggest if you want to keep using MFP to log your exercise maybe trying finding a great calorie calculator and figure out what you are really burning that way you know what you are really doing.

Another reason I don't log things like walking all over campus multiple times a day and cleaning and cooking and all that good stuff. I log my exercise, which I figure is more than I actually burned, but I don't log anything else that burns calories (like walking all over campus and climbing 3 flights of stairs several times a day). That way, it probably all evens out in the end.