Choosing the correct activity level

heybales

When I do calculations outside of MFP I get calorie maintenance of 1644 calories per day when I put sedentary and 1601 inside MFP.

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I'm just curious what site actually gave bigger estimate that MFP?
That is infrequent.

heybales

LadyDaenerys wrote: »

I'm a 36 year old female looking to recomp and up my calories from my 1350 calls per day to something that will help me gain muscle and lose fat.

When I do calculations outside of MFP I get calorie maintenance of 1644 calories per day when I put sedentary and 1601 inside MFP.

I work a desk job but I exercise 30 to 60 mins a day and try to get in 10,000 steps a day. I've been eating 1350 calories a day and I was maintaining there. i lost 85 lbs eating like this and now I'm stuck here and cant see any of the muscle I built.

Long story short, I wanted to know how to set this up in MFP. If I include my exercise in calculations outside of MFP which INCLUDES exercise it says I'm light active to active and I should be eating 1884 or 2024 calories respectively, but when I put lightly active or active in MFP its 1793 and 2049 calories which DOESN'T include exercise.

Should I put in the 1884 or the 1793? or the 2024 or the 2049???

If MFP only counts lifestyle how should I track what I'm eating? this is kind of confusing tbh lol

my fit bit adds exercise to MFP and I add my workouts as well but I have it set up so they counter each other so I don't double dip

Curious if you are adding workouts to MFP that have the exact same calorie burn?
Sounds like you are confirming the start time/duration at least.

For the syncing issues with Fitbit - I'd suggest you are increasing your potential for issues, because when you log a workout on MFP, it forces a sync and logging on Fitbit (which could be exact same calorie burn), which then causes another sync back to MFP.

Is the MFP Exercise Diary really that nice compared to Fitbit to want to use it here?
Or is this mainly about getting wall posts for friends list?

LadyDaenerys

heybales wrote: »

LadyDaenerys wrote: »

I'm a 36 year old female looking to recomp and up my calories from my 1350 calls per day to something that will help me gain muscle and lose fat.

When I do calculations outside of MFP I get calorie maintenance of 1644 calories per day when I put sedentary and 1601 inside MFP.

I work a desk job but I exercise 30 to 60 mins a day and try to get in 10,000 steps a day. I've been eating 1350 calories a day and I was maintaining there. i lost 85 lbs eating like this and now I'm stuck here and cant see any of the muscle I built.

Long story short, I wanted to know how to set this up in MFP. If I include my exercise in calculations outside of MFP which INCLUDES exercise it says I'm light active to active and I should be eating 1884 or 2024 calories respectively, but when I put lightly active or active in MFP its 1793 and 2049 calories which DOESN'T include exercise.

Should I put in the 1884 or the 1793? or the 2024 or the 2049???

If MFP only counts lifestyle how should I track what I'm eating? this is kind of confusing tbh lol

my fit bit adds exercise to MFP and I add my workouts as well but I have it set up so they counter each other so I don't double dip

Curious if you are adding workouts to MFP that have the exact same calorie burn?
Sounds like you are confirming the start time/duration at least.

For the syncing issues with Fitbit - I'd suggest you are increasing your potential for issues, because when you log a workout on MFP, it forces a sync and logging on Fitbit (which could be exact same calorie burn), which then causes another sync back to MFP.

Is the MFP Exercise Diary really that nice compared to Fitbit to want to use it here?
Or is this mainly about getting wall posts for friends list?

I've just been using mfp for over 10 years through my 85 lbs weight loss and I'm used to it. I actually rarely use the social aspect. I use it for my tracking purposes to make sure that I'm staying within my calorie range. I grew up with a career in sales and metrics and knowing numbers and where you're at and goal setting and things like that so seeing the numbers seeing the green and the red and understanding deficits and surpluses seeing it in real time makes it easier for me to attain my goals. I'm hearing some people say I should put the 1600 calories in and try and eat up to 18 and log my workouts I hear other people say just put the 1800 calories and don't log my workouts at all just log my food I just don't know which one is best

heybales

Well, if you have Fitbit syncing, it's sending a Total Daily burn over (TDEE) with timestamp.

TDEE of course contains the workout calories too.

So the math MFP does to create the Fitbit adjustment is accounting for the exercise calories, whether you logged a workout in MFP or not.
That adjustment is rarely going to equal the exercise calories as Fitbit says there were, because within that adjustment is also being more or less active than the MFP activity level you selected.
But it's all there.

The fact you should eat more when you do more, and of course eat less when you do less - is taken care of with that adjustment because you sync accounts.

You don't have to add exercise on MFP because it's already in the math, when the Fitbit accounts are synced.

Take a reasonable deficit for the amount to lose. Sounds like at maintenance though - so if Fitbit is doing reasonable calc's on calories burned (depends on steps and exercise done and amount of each) - you could eat the same.

You can also get an average of your daily burn if your exercise is pretty consistent - and just eat that much daily.
Some days will literally be eating more than maintenance, some under.
Called weekly avg TDEE method - you just have to memorize your number and eat to it. Or hard set MFP to it and unsync Fitbit.

Or allow for daily changes as Fitbit reports it.

nooshi713

I just want to say that if someone has a “desk job”, it implies sitting at one’s desk most of the day, not getting 10,000 steps a day at the job. If you’re getting that many steps a day at work, then you’re not really at your desk much.

ravi_tiwari_786

honkytonks85 wrote: »

Found this and thought it was actually useful:

When you have to find out how many calories you burn in a day, you put your info in a calculator and it undoubtedly asks for your activity level. So what do you choose? Here are the meaning of the activity levels:

Sedentary

If you’re sedentary, your daily activities include:
Activities of daily living only, such as shopping, cleaning, watering plants, taking out the trash, walking the dog, mowing the lawn and gardening.
No moderate of vigorous activities.
Unless you do at least 30 minutes per day of intentional exercise, you are considered sedentary.
Spending most of the day sitting (e.g. bank teller, desk job)
The majority of people will be considered sedentary.


Lightly Active

If you’re lightly active, your daily activities include:
Activities of daily living only, such as shopping, cleaning, watering plants, taking out the trash, walking the dog, mowing the lawn and gardening.
Daily exercise that is equal to walking for 30 minutes at 4mph. For an adult of average weight, this amount of exercise will burn about 130-160 additional calories.
More intense exercise can be performed for less time to achieve the same goal. For example, 15-20 minutes of vigorous activity, such as aerobics, skiing or jogging on a daily basis would put you in this category.
Spending a good part of the day on your feet (e.g. teacher, salesman)


Active

If you’re active, your daily activities include:
Activities of daily living only, such as shopping, cleaning, watering plants, taking out the trash, walking the dog, mowing the lawn and gardening.
Daily exercise that is equal to walking for 1 hour and 45 minutes at 4mph. For an adult of average weight, this amount of exercise will burn about 470-580 additional calories.
More intense exercise can be performed for less time. For example, jogging for 50 minutes per day.
Spending a good part of the day doing some physical activity (e.g. waitress, mailman)


Very Active

If you’re very active, your daily activities include:
Activities of daily living only, such as shopping, cleaning, watering plants, taking out the trash, walking the dog, mowing the lawn and gardening.
Daily exercise that is equal to walking for 4 hours and 15 minutes at 4mph. For an adult of average weight, this amount of exercise will burn about 1,150-1400 additional calories.
More intense exercise can be performed for less time. For example, jogging for 2 hours minutes per day.
Spending most of the day doing heavy physical activity (e.g. bike messenger, carpenter)


SOURCE: http://antranik.org/proper-activity-level-for-calorie-intake/

Great article!!!

heybales

ravi_tiwari_786 wrote: »

honkytonks85 wrote: »

Found this and thought it was actually useful:

When you have to find out how many calories you burn in a day, you put your info in a calculator and it undoubtedly asks for your activity level. So what do you choose? Here are the meaning of the activity levels:

Sedentary

If you’re sedentary, your daily activities include:
Activities of daily living only, such as shopping, cleaning, watering plants, taking out the trash, walking the dog, mowing the lawn and gardening.
No moderate of vigorous activities.
Unless you do at least 30 minutes per day of intentional exercise, you are considered sedentary.
Spending most of the day sitting (e.g. bank teller, desk job)
The majority of people will be considered sedentary.


Lightly Active

If you’re lightly active, your daily activities include:
Activities of daily living only, such as shopping, cleaning, watering plants, taking out the trash, walking the dog, mowing the lawn and gardening.
Daily exercise that is equal to walking for 30 minutes at 4mph. For an adult of average weight, this amount of exercise will burn about 130-160 additional calories.
More intense exercise can be performed for less time to achieve the same goal. For example, 15-20 minutes of vigorous activity, such as aerobics, skiing or jogging on a daily basis would put you in this category.
Spending a good part of the day on your feet (e.g. teacher, salesman)


Active

If you’re active, your daily activities include:
Activities of daily living only, such as shopping, cleaning, watering plants, taking out the trash, walking the dog, mowing the lawn and gardening.
Daily exercise that is equal to walking for 1 hour and 45 minutes at 4mph. For an adult of average weight, this amount of exercise will burn about 470-580 additional calories.
More intense exercise can be performed for less time. For example, jogging for 50 minutes per day.
Spending a good part of the day doing some physical activity (e.g. waitress, mailman)


Very Active

If you’re very active, your daily activities include:
Activities of daily living only, such as shopping, cleaning, watering plants, taking out the trash, walking the dog, mowing the lawn and gardening.
Daily exercise that is equal to walking for 4 hours and 15 minutes at 4mph. For an adult of average weight, this amount of exercise will burn about 1,150-1400 additional calories.
More intense exercise can be performed for less time. For example, jogging for 2 hours minutes per day.
Spending most of the day doing heavy physical activity (e.g. bike messenger, carpenter)


SOURCE: http://antranik.org/proper-activity-level-for-calorie-intake/

Great article!!!

Nice better descriptions than many sites will use.
Sadly it has no application at all for the activities levels used by MFP. Which have no exercise accounted for in them at all.

And outside of MFP for the sites that still use that 5 level TDEE formula - it's from the Harris study in 1919 that also produced a BMR formula.
Both had been found could be improved and have been multiple times.

For instance, Sedentary on MFP is a BMR multiplier of 1.25, and people with activity trackers usually discover doing about half the things listed in that description start pushing them into Lightly-Active.

The Sedentary in that Harris formula is actually 1.2 x BMR, even lower, and should rightfully exclude a bunch of those daily items.

So if you aren't going to use MFP as designed and some other site those can be some good items to ponder for what level are you.
If using MFP they don't apply.