MFP Exercise Calories

Payton

Myself and my partner both use My Fitness Pal, I'd run about 10km 3 times a week and could burn about 400-500 calories per run and my partner walks a lot and could burn 200 per walk. So when they are added to exercise in MFP the 'Remaining Calories' increases. Do people eat the remaining calories or just leave it as is. Is the purpose to get to or close to the calories as to your profile?

Macy0161

I'd say it depends on what the goals are. When I was trying to lose weight, I went with a 500 calorie deficit from food and tried to earn 500 from exercise.

Now, in maintenance, I'm more inclined to eat them! But try not to eat them all as they are only ball park really. As I've got fitter I've found mfp (and strava) do over estimate compared to what my garmin with HRM would give for a walk or run, or bike with power give. But that gap has widened over time. The two apps have always over estimated my swims compared to Garmin.

marialouise

Payton wrote: »

Myself and my partner both use My Fitness Pal, I'd run about 10km 3 times a week and could burn about 400-500 calories per run and my partner walks a lot and could burn 200 per walk. So when they are added to exercise in MFP the 'Remaining Calories' increases. Do people eat the remaining calories or just leave it as is. Is the purpose to get to or close to the calories as to your profile?

The purpose of MFP is to track calories specific to your goals. 
If you want to lose weight: eat back some of your exercise calories (maybe 50%)
If you want to maintain weight: eat back most of your exercise calories (maybe 80%?)
If you want to gain weight: eat back all of those exercise calories. 
Your MFP calorie goal should already have accounted for your activity and whether you want to lose/maintain/gain, so keep an eye on your weight and if it's moving the wrong direction for your goal after a few weeks, see whether you need to eat more or less after running.

Payton

marialouise wrote: »

The purpose of MFP is to track calories specific to your goals. 
If you want to lose weight: eat back some of your exercise calories (maybe 50%)
If you want to maintain weight: eat back most of your exercise calories (maybe 80%?)
If you want to gain weight: eat back all of those exercise calories. 
Your MFP calorie goal should already have accounted for your activity and whether you want to lose/maintain/gain, so keep an eye on your weight and if it's moving the wrong direction for your goal after a few weeks, see whether you need to eat more or less after running.

Good info there. I've eaten roughly 60% of my calories burnt but my weight hasn't moved..not a pound!!
Maybe I'm just useing the app wrong, I've been eating a very healthy diet with no sugars and nothing has changed weight wise. The app is great for tracking your food and checking calories with the scan option etc...so maybe it's workout more to burn more etc

Alf Veedersane

Payton wrote: »

Good info there. I've eaten roughly 60% of my calories burnt but my weight hasn't moved..not a pound!!
Maybe I'm just useing the app wrong, I've been eating a very healthy diet with no sugars and nothing has changed weight wise. The app is great for tracking your food and checking calories with the scan option etc...so maybe it's workout more to burn more etc

The main downfall with MFP is it overestimates the calories burned during exercise so you might be eating back more than you burned to keep you at maintenance.

Lowering calories is more effective than trying to burn more, for the most part.

dastardly00

Payton wrote: »

Good info there. I've eaten roughly 60% of my calories burnt but my weight hasn't moved..not a pound!!
Maybe I'm just useing the app wrong, I've been eating a very healthy diet with no sugars and nothing has changed weight wise. The app is great for tracking your food and checking calories with the scan option etc...so maybe it's workout more to burn more etc

Take into account what Alf has said above about tracking burned calories through activity/exercise.

And in terms of food...
Are you sure that all the nutrition data you are entering in MFP is correct though? The values are often incorrect when using the barcode scanner. And are you accurate with your serving/portions? This can all cause big variations.

Payton

I'm conscious of what the scan facility will bring up, but so far what has been on the tin (tuna) or bag (frozen veggies) etc have been correct. My portion size has been what it was before when I lost the weight and I'd be jogging roughly the same. According to MFP I had 1710 calories to use per day and being mindful of the inaccurate exercise calorie burn I'd be withing 89- 90% of the total calorie count.

marialouise

The exerise calories will never be completely accurate, that's why I said for maintenance just eat back 75% or so of the exercise ones. As much as we can weigh our food down to the gram and precisely measure calories in, it's another story for calories out so all you can do is estimate, keep an eye on the trends and adjust accordingly. Just get into some sort of routine for a fortnight and if you're losing more than you want/not losing enough, adjust your calorie intake accordingly. 
I think the scan facility is usually grand, I'd be really precise with nuts, nut butters, oats, avocados, oils, pasta, rice etc., and then if your veg (stuff which mightn't have a barcode) are a few cals off, I wouldn't worry too much.

Macy0161

marialouise wrote: »

I think the scan facility is usually grand, I'd be really precise with nuts, nut butters, oats, avocados, oils, pasta, rice etc., and then if your veg (stuff which mightn't have a barcode) are a few cals off, I wouldn't worry too much.

It's usually right with the scanner, or close enough. My main issue would be where it's a portion rather than 100 grams.

In fairness to MFP or any app calculator, they can only be estimates as everyone is different in terms of how they burn calories. Even with heart rate, it's still something of an estimate (just a better estimate). That's why I'd caution against eating the full amount you're told.

Michellenman

I don't eat the calories back except for one day a week and I've been steadily losing 1.5 per week so far.

For what it's worth I wear a Fitbit (charge 2) and have linked it to myfitnesspal account so it auto uploads any calories burned outside of my TDEE. The Fitbit cal's burned will be more accurate than just the mfp estimates.

Payton

Macy0161 wrote: »

It's usually right with the scanner, or close enough. My main issue would be where it's a portion rather than 100 grams.

What is a portion or appropriate size?

Alf Veedersane

Payton wrote: »

What is a portion or appropriate size?

There's no right answer because everything depends on how a particular food fits into your overall 'diet'.

See how much is in what you normally eat and see where that takes you in terms of calories. Tweak as needs be and a lot of that is down to personal preference. It might mean you need to cut a certain amount off from somewhere, which could be from one area or across the board.

New Goat

I have a garmin watch and for walking I have compared the same route when wearing the heart rate monitor versus not wearing it.

It records calories 50% extra calories when I am not wearing the heart rate monitor versus when I am wearing it.

Macy0161

Payton wrote: »

What is a portion or appropriate size?

Well that's kinda my point! I prefer the per 100g ones, so I can just weight, rather than trying to do a bit of mental arithmetic if it's, for example, 1/6 of a cake!

New Goat wrote:

It records calories 50% extra calories when I am not wearing the heart rate monitor versus when I am wearing it.

Well there's too possibles - if you don't have your heart rates set accurately, then with HRM it could be wrong and overestimating it based on wrong info, or it's overestimating when not wearing the HRM.

I have to say, I don't find the garmin estimates without hrm too far off myself. I don't know do the watches, or some models, do a smart estimation based on data when you do have a hrm?