For those of you using MyFitness Pal...

[runningnewbie]

Do you log your exercises....I haven't up till now, and I find it impossible to restrict eating to 1200 calories a day. If you do log exercises - how do you add C25K?

[Rollertoaster Graduate]

I do! I find it is critical in keeping me within the 1200 daily limit.

Search in cardiovascular for running. It will give you a number of speed options to choose from. Enter the minutes and it will estimate your calories, then add!

[Rollertoaster Graduate in reply to Rollertoaster]

I also meant to say, I don't know where you are in the programme, but I entered it as walking until I was running more than I was walking so I wasn't overestimating how many calories I was burning.

Also you really should be eating more than 1200 calories on running day, you need the energy, so suggest you increase calorie intake by 250 (or however many you burn per run) on those days.

[wilmacgh Graduate]

Used it fairly steadily for six months until I got my weight down but have given up now. If you use an App like Endomondo on your phone it gives you calories burned. Otherwise use the various exercise options from that tab. Depending on how active your lifestyle is, you may want to record walks as well as runs.

[morandanny Graduate]

I enter all of my exercise. It is definitely useful. Just be careful, because I have found that MyFitnessPal overestimates calories burned, so I usually just discount about 1/4 to 1/3 of the exercise calories.

For C25K, I usually break it up into walking and running, so week 1 is 20.5 minutes of walking and 8 minutes of running.

[runningnewbie]

Thanks to all! But what speed do you enter- I am on w2 and no idea what speed I run

[arablue]

Hi runningnewbie. I'm on MFP and love it! It helps me so much when I keep track of how many calories I can have, and I log them honestly in my diary. I use map my walk to calculate my distance and average speed, then work it out from there.

When my average was slow I used to put my total time sometimes as walking because I wasn't doing their running speeds. I just put that I had done 25 minutes of brisk walking at 3mph for example, which showed my calories burned.

You just need to remember to make sure you allow for the about of calories you burn in an average day. They say don't put sedentary unless you are in bed all day. Also record in your diary any exercise you do, and eat those calories too! You can go on the c25k or the nutrition areas of mfp, or post a question. Hope this helps.

[Beads Graduate]

If you're struggling on 1200 calories and feel that you do burn more or want a slower weight loss then you can reset your net calorie intake. Mine is set at 1500 as that's what I aim to eat and I'm not yet eating back my exercise.

It took me ages to figure out how to do it, but go to your home tab, click on goals, click the green button change goals, put it on 'custom' and click the green continue. You can change the net calories consumed, proportions of fat, carbs and protein, set yourself targets for fibre, vitamins, cholesterol etc. You can expect yourself to do more or less exercise, lots of things.

[boudicca Graduate]

Every now and then I have a splurge on things I shouldn't eat and it's amazing how quickly the calories mountup but if you eat sensibly - lots of fruit, veg, chicken and fish - and avoid red meat and pork, then 1200 calories is reasonably easy. If you feed in your exercise then you get some leeway on calories anyway.

[poeciliareticulata Graduate]

I mostly use a treadmill and enter the calories that the machine tells me I have burned. I created my own exercise (I called it something like "Treadmill (C25K)") so that if I looked back I would know what I had actually been doing. Now if I run outside I use runkeeper which gives me a calorie estimate and a speed estimate. I usually add it as 5mph although I am running faster than that now, but not quite up to 6mph yet.

If you don't track with an app, you could plot out your route using the web version of runkeeper or mapmyrun (or similar) and estimate an average speed for the whole session then use the walking/running speed that's equivalent.

I have mfp set to maintenance now and use exercise to create a deficit, so I try not to eat back my exercise calories. Doesn't always work but gives me lee way for any overshoot at the weekend. When I still wanted to lose, I had it set to 1/2lb a week and would eat back most of my exercise cals if I felt I needed them.

[Jadis Graduate]

I love this app and absolutely record all my exercise. I have myself as sedentary (I have a desk job) put then add any walking etc I do above 15 mins – keeping me roughly on track. Although I would agree with those who say that it overestimates your calories gained for the exercise done, so I don’t let myself cash all those calories back. But its still a great way to keep track of what you have eaten and done.

I yuse another GPS type app to measure my average speed and distance for a walk or jog in order to enter it – at least until I know a route and can add the usual.