Help - My Fitness Pal & Exercise

timshel. · 10-04-2014 2:05pm #1

Hi All, have just signed up to myfitness pal & it has given me a calorie allowance of 1200cal / day. Lgged my breakfast & lunch & it left me with 394 cals for the rest of the day.
I then logged the bootcamp class that i will be going to after work (which - going by google, i will be burning roughly 600cals) so now it has UPPED my calorie intake to 994 cals for the rest of the day.

Surely this cant be right? Im not sure about the calories burned during the class but then also cant imagine that ive another 994 to consume today.

Alf Veedersane · 10-04-2014 2:10pm

timshel. wrote: »

Hi All, have just signed up to myfitness pal & it has given me a calorie allowance of 1200cal / day. Lgged my breakfast & lunch & it left me with 394 cals for the rest of the day.
I then logged the bootcamp class that i will be going to after work (which - going by google, i will be burning roughly 600cals) so now it has UPPED my calorie intake to 994 cals for the rest of the day.

Surely this cant be right? Im not sure about the calories burned during the class but then also cant imagine that ive another 994 to consume today.

If you burn 600 calories through exercise, it's telling you that you can have 1800 calories from food to achieve the goal you inputted.

But I wouldn't be inclined to assume the bootcamp will burn 600 calories. It's an approximation.

thegreatiam · 10-04-2014 2:25pm

You need to create a defecit of a certain amount per day. Let's say 500.

So if you burn 1700 calories a day by being alive (called a bmr) and you only eat 1200 calories then you have a defecit of 500.

If you then do 500 calories of exercise you now have a defecit of 1000.

Your daily exercise plus your bmr is the total calories you burn a day. (Total daily energy expenditure, TDEE)
You need to eat less than your TDEE to lose weight.

Myfitnesspall.com is working this out on the fly. As you work out it increases your calories to keep the same level of defecit you need to reach your goal.

But be careful, calories lost during exercise are extremely difficult to estimate and are often way over. Especially for things like boot camp classes. The only way to know would be to wear a heart monitor, and even then it still won't be accurate.

10-04-2014 2:28pm

MFP gives everyone female in the universe 1200 cals per day. Everyone. You could be 6 foot and weigh 100 kg and it'd give you 1200 cals a day
Use one of the calculators on the forum here

I would also suggest ignoring the MFP exercise cals

thegreatiam · 10-04-2014 2:47pm

I use mfp purely as a food log. And even then not very often.
It's only really good feature is getting the calories for homemade recipes.

Blacktie. · 10-04-2014 2:56pm

thegreatiam wrote: »

I use mfp purely as a food log. And even then not very often.
It's only really good feature is getting the calories for homemade recipes.

Why not very often? I'm using it on a cut and it seems decent. Especially for scanning bar codes. Do you track with something else?

thegreatiam · 10-04-2014 3:06pm

Blacktie. wrote: »

Why not very often? I'm using it on a cut and it seems decent. Especially for scanning bar codes. Do you track with something else?

My brain. I'm just in enough of a routine that I don't really need an app to track it I just add it up in my head.

I only really use mfp when I eat something unusual or am making a recipe.

Plus I'm not cutting or bulking so I really just track protein. Everything else doesn't make a difference.

Blacktie. · 10-04-2014 3:49pm

thegreatiam wrote: »

My brain. I'm just in enough of a routine that I don't really need an app to track it I just add it up in my head.

I only really use mfp when I eat something unusual or am making a recipe.

Plus I'm not cutting or bulking so I really just track protein. Everything else doesn't make a difference.

Ah yeah I do the same if I'm not in any particular mode! Keep track of protein in my head and let the rest do it's thing.

OP I wouldn't trust MFP for tracking exercise. I also wouldn't cut on such a low calorie amount! As advised above I'd use one of the calculators around the web like the one on this site and minus say 500 from it. Adjust after a little while of doing this based on if it's working or not.

runawaybishop · 10-04-2014 4:02pm

bluewolf wrote: »

MFP gives everyone female in the universe 1200 cals per day. Everyone. You could be 6 foot and weigh 100 kg and it'd give you 1200 cals a day
Use one of the calculators on the forum here

I would also suggest ignoring the MFP exercise cals

Agreed, it just cuts 500 calories out of the daily requirements.

A better amount would be to cut out 10-20% from your daily requirements (use a calc as suggested)and work from there. You can edit MFP to add your custom goal calories etc.

600 calories for bootcamp sounds mad high by the way OP.

juke · 10-04-2014 10:39pm

Blacktie. wrote: »

Especially for scanning bar codes.

I still find you have to check that the nutritional content is entered correctly.

So many inaccuracies wreck my head, especially the ones that don't have the protein content listed at all

Mellor · 11-04-2014 2:19am

bluewolf wrote: »

MFP gives everyone female in the universe 1200 cals per day. Everyone. You could be 6 foot and weigh 100 kg and it'd give you 1200 cals a day

No it doesn't.
1200 is the minimum it will display.
The max weight loss (2 lbs per week) is a deduction 1000 from BMR. So anybody whose BMR is 2200 or less will get 1200 unless they put in a more reasonable deficit.

Female 100kg, 2lb loss = 1440
Female 75kg, 1 kb loss = 1750

Those re two values I plugged it at random.

Stench Blossoms · 11-04-2014 2:34am

Mellor wrote: »

No it doesn't.
1200 is the minimum it will display.
The max weight loss (2 lbs per week) is a deduction 1000 from BMR. So anybody whose BMR is 2200 or less will get 1200 unless they put in a more reasonable deficit.

Female 100kg, 2lb loss = 1440
Female 75kg, 1 kb loss = 1750

Those re two values I plugged it at random.

What heights did you put in?

Mellor · 11-04-2014 2:52am

Stench Blossoms wrote: »

What heights did you put in?

I left it at 177 cm for each.
Activity was light for the first, and active for the second.

If you add back on 1000 and 500 respectively, the daily energy amounts are pretty much spot on.

11-04-2014 7:48am

Mellor wrote: »

No it doesn't.
.

:eek:

Everyone I've heard of or spoken to using it got 1200 and they're all pretty varied in height and weight. That's mad

Mellor · 11-04-2014 9:05am

bluewolf wrote: »

:eek:

Everyone I've heard of or spoken to using it got 1200 and they're all pretty varied in height and weight. That's mad

I bet most, if not all, selected the max deficit. 1000 is simply a massive chunk off a females daily calories.

96kg and sedantry is 2210cals
83kg and lightly active is 2210 cals

Below that is a pretty big range, and will get 1200 from MFP (on a 1000 deficit),

quaalude · 11-04-2014 10:20am

bluewolf wrote: »

MFP gives everyone female in the universe 1200 cals per day. Everyone. You could be 6 foot and weigh 100 kg and it'd give you 1200 cals a day
Use one of the calculators on the forum here

I would also suggest ignoring the MFP exercise cals

Just chipping in to say:
Not every female - it gave me 1440 calories a day.
I also enter all my exercise into it (not calculated with a HRM, just like "Walking, brisk pace, 60 minutes" etc), and eat back almost every exercise calorie.
I've gone from *very* plus size (I'm not keen on saying my old size out in the open) to a size 12 since Jan 13, so following MFP suggestions can work for some!

I just checked it there - you can select from:

lose 0.5 lb per week
lose 1 lb per week
lose 1.5 lb per week
lose 2 lb per week

I selected "lose 1 lb per week" so it gave me 1440, I suppose?

11-04-2014 10:22am

Good for you!

Good work

Yes I think I have been thoroughly proven wrong now!

Chancer3001 · 08-05-2014 1:58pm

Just bumping this because.I've started using it recently.

It gives me 0 extra calories for lifting weights. Lame.

Anybody have any idea how many calories you burn during a medium intensity heavy lifting session?

I'm currently taking about 160 calories for it

runawaybishop · 08-05-2014 2:02pm

Use the cardio section, there is an entry for weight training. The weight training section is just really to track your lifts.

The estimates will be fairly inaccurate though as your metabolism stays elevated for some time after and the calories burned are reliant on muscle mass.

Stench Blossoms · 08-05-2014 2:21pm

Chancer3001 wrote: »

Just bumping this because.I've started using it recently.

It gives me 0 extra calories for lifting weights. Lame.

Anybody have any idea how many calories you burn during a medium intensity heavy lifting session?

I'm currently taking about 160 calories for it

Everyone is different.

My HRM says I burn about 500 on squat days and 350 on bench. But those are just estimates.

runawaybishop · 08-05-2014 2:24pm

Stench Blossoms wrote: »

Everyone is different.

My HRM says I burn about 500 on squat days and 350 on bench. But those are just estimates.

Ya, they'd be fairly inaccurate because HRM don't work well with strength work, but they at least give you something to go on.

Chancer3001 · 08-05-2014 5:56pm

Hmmmmm.

I'm just gonna keep counting it as around 150-200 calories and hope it's actually more than that.

I'm cutting now. 1850 calories a day.

Help - My Fitness Pal & Exercise

Comments