Exercise motivator

OK so yesterday I was loading my info into MFP and before I even ate dinner I had 37 calories remaining, Yikes. I did not have a cheat day or anything just an extra latte and bigger protien shake and Viola.

So I realized the only way I can eat dinner and feel OK about it is to exercise and earn some calories. I started browsing the cardio categories in MFP and realized riding my bike for 40 minutes @ 10MPH is 450 calories burned!! Wow.

I went home loaded my 11 YO and my bikes onto the bike rack and headed to the trail. 40 minutes later I had enough cals for my BBQ chicken sandwich, with some to spare.

This really motivated me to exercise, and riding your bike is fun. Do it!!

Do NOT use the calorie counts in MFP.  They're way too high.  Get a heart rate monitor and use that to get a better idea of calories burned.  The rates on MFP and on the various machines at the gym are as much as 50% off based on my monitor.

Thanks for the info....I checked a couple of other sites and my Endomondo tracker and they were all about the same based on my weight. I will keep that in mind though.
Yes I definitely need a heart rate tracker, I've only recently seen the value in one.

The monitor was a real eye-opener for me.  I always figured the calories-burned-with-exercise calculators were a little off.  I didn't realize how far off they were until I started wearing the monitor.

Keep in mind that as you go down in weight, you have to work harder to burn the same number of calories.  At some point, you need to start some weight training.  Muscle takes more calories to maintain, so you burn more calories even when you're at rest.

Lame......Exercise is my biggest challenge.