Goal/Activity Level. Duplication or What?

pwponton44

I understand that I should indicate my activity level as 'very active' if I work out 5 times a week or more. Does this not result in some duplication of calories when I also take credit and consume the calories burned during exercise? My difference in calories between sedentary status and very active is approximately 600.

macgurlnet

On MFP, you don't include intentional exercise in your activity level - you log it and earn back calories, eating back 50% or so of the burns for 4-6 weeks to see how your weight loss goes.

Other websites use the TDEE method for calculations, which means you choose how many workouts you do, get a calorie count, and eat that same number daily. There's less variation involved and some people feel better with a consistent daily intake vs. a varying one.

Does that help?

~Lyssa

pwponton44

@macgurlnet So if I have a 10 hour desk job then I should indicate my activity level as Sedentary regardless of working out 6 times per week. This makes more sense to me.

macgurlnet

pwponton44 wrote: »

@macgurlnet So if I have a 10 hour desk job then I should indicate my activity level as Sedentary regardless of working out 6 times per week. This makes more sense to me.

If you're using MFP's calorie goal "wizard" to determine your calories per day, then yep!

Log your exercise here, but only eat back 50% of the calories to start with - for some people, the burns given are much too high and eating back all of them could wipe out your deficit.

Start with eating back 50% of those earned calories and stick with it for a minimum of 4 weeks. After 4 weeks, evaluate your total weight loss in comparison with what you expected. (ie: you set MFP for 1lb/week, after 4 weeks, you lost 5, this means you could eat back more calories if you'd like)

Good luck to you!

~Lyssa

pwponton44

Thank you @macgurinet