very active vs counting exercise??
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shamani5
Posts: 59 Member
If I choose very active in my profile, should I log my exercise (so I can eat more) or not? Or should I choose lightly active and log my exercise? To make matters more confusing, I bike for exercise and the calories burned in the mfp calculator is not very accurate. I was thinking about logging the exercise then only eating up to hlf back but i dont want to enter "starvation mode". Any ideas on what would be the most accurate option?
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Replies
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If you choose anything beyond sedentary you don't eat back your calories. Don't use the MFP calorie counter for exercise. Calibrate machines to your age/sex/weight and then halve the calories burned total to get a reasonable "eat back" amount.0
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No if you're set to active then your exercise is included in that number.1
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Your activity level is a guide to help figure out how many calories you burn during a regular day out and about. It does not include your exercise calories, MFP does not do that. So if you choose Active, you will automatically be given more calories than if you select Sedentary.
When you add in your exercise, MFP will give you a generic calorie output for said exercise. I say generic - MFP has no way of determining some factors such as your efforts in an exercise class/DVD so it can give you more calories 'burned' than you actually did. I usually eat back about 50% of my exercise calories.
Also, there is no starvation mode, that's a myth.
Here's a link to one of the Starvation Mode and one on MFP Starvation mode is a mytharticles. I wish I could find my favorite. 7 -
I prefer to choose sedentary ( I work an office job) and add my exercise in and eat about 60% of MFP exercise count (the count I get from my exercise bike). I like to do it this way so that I don't eat too many calories on my more sedentary days. U can also figure your cals on a tdee calculator and manually choose those cals for your MFP calorie goal.1
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RunRutheeRun wrote: »No if you're set to active then your exercise is included in that number.
That's not how it works.
Your activity level is based on what you do with most of your day, most of the time. For instance, I work 40 hours a week at a desk job, therefore I am sedentary. Any purposeful exercise I do, I add in and eat back some or all of those calories gained.
My boyfriend is an auto mechanic, so he spends most of his day on his feet, lifting heavy things, moving about. Therefore his activity level is active. Any purposeful exercise he does outside of work could and should be added in as exercise calories that he can eat.5 -
Use a TDEE calculator instead.0
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I treat activity level as the activity that isn't really easily quantifiable, like the time spent at work, walking to a from gym/work/grocery, housework, stuff like that. Exercise (60 min on treadmill, for example) is accounted for separate.1
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There's no such thing as "starvation mode." People who have been feed to little in wars and prisons in other parts of the world didn't get fat, they lost weight and sometimes died. If you eat too little, you'll be hungry and lethargic, but it won't prevent you from losing weight.4
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Ashtoretet wrote: »If you choose anything beyond sedentary you don't eat back your calories. Don't use the MFP calorie counter for exercise. Calibrate machines to your age/sex/weight and then halve the calories burned total to get a reasonable "eat back" amount.
I hope this isn't right. I am set to Lightly Active and am given calories to eat back every day. It just takes more activity before I get them.0 -
It is up to the person since nobody is really sedentary unless they are laying in a hospital bed or in a wheel chair. My activity in MFP is set to active because although I don't work, I am moving around all the time doing things in the house, garden, shopping etc.
I log my exercise calories just for the heck of but mostly because I care about the time/minutes that I spend exercising, not for the actual calorie count or to justifying eating more. MFP and machines give inflated numbers and I don't use a fitness tracker because it doesn't doesn't apply to my fitness/exercise routine.
If I were to eat all or even part of my exercises calories all the time, I would gain weight (small and old female), so my method works for me since I am in maintenance. And by the way, I used similar approach when I was trying to lose a few lbs.
Bottom line is that people should experiment and try to use the method that works for them, either for losing or for maintaining.0 -
It is up to the person since nobody is really sedentary unless they are laying in a hospital bed or in a wheel chair. My activity in MFP is set to active because although I don't work, I am moving around all the time doing things in the house, garden, shopping etc.
I log my exercise calories just for the heck of but mostly because I care about the time/minutes that I spend exercising, not for the actual calorie count or to justifying eating more. MFP and machines give inflated numbers and I don't use a fitness tracker because it doesn't doesn't apply to my fitness/exercise routine.
If I were to eat all or even part of my exercises calories all the time, I would gain weight (small and old female), so my method works for me since I am in maintenance. And by the way, I used similar approach when I was trying to lose a few lbs.
Bottom line is that people should experiment and try to use the method that works for them, either for losing or for maintaining.
Sedentary: Spend most of the day sitting (e.g. bank teller, desk job)
Lightly Active: Spend a good part of the day on your feet (e.g. teacher, salesman)
Active: Spend a good part of the day doing some physical activity (e.g. waitress, mailman)
Very Active: Spend most of the day doing heavy physical activity (e.g. bike messenger, carpenter)
So by MFP calculations as I have a desk job, I am sedentary. Their calculations aren't based on being completely immobile.
I don't disagree that people should learn what works for them, however you are supposed to eat back at least some of your calories per how MFP calculates everything. You don't have to, but there's no reason not to as long as you are logging correctly because all it will do is give you a slightly (depending on your workouts) higher deficit. Someone who is losing weight with MFP should have the proper calorie reduction calculated for safe weight loss and don't need a larger deficit. I've lost weight on weeks before with eating back 50% of my exercise calories.1 -
Just pick something and log and adjust based on your results.
I have a desk job, and I log pretty much every step I take outdoors as exercise (so, I don't log trips to the printer or the office kitchen or bathroom, or walking around inside my own house, or at the grocery store, but pretty much everything else, including walking to the subway or to a carry-out place for lunch or doing yard work or heavy housework), and I still had to raise my activity level to active (not just lightly active) to have MFP's estimate of my daily calorie burn before accounting for logged exercise come close to what my actual results indicate my pre-exercise calorie burn is, based on more than two and a half years of logging. Even set at active, MFP still thinks a woman of my weight, height, and age would be burning about 200 calories a day less than my CICO logging (yes, I use a food scale at home and double-check the entries I use, and I use MFP's famously over-stated estimates for my exercise, unless I use a machine and it says it was less--but usually MFP's estimate is lower than the cardio machine's estimate) and weight records say I do. I can only think I'm logging timber or mining coal in my sleep.
I am a bit of of a fidgety person, inclined to practice dance steps and what-not while I'm waiting for the coffee machine, the microwave, etc., but a full activity level plus 200 calories of fidgeting? Then, too, MFP's formula may be assuming post-menopausal at my age, but what I've read suggests that's only about 400 calories across the whole month (or 13 or so calories a day). I may have a little more muscle mass than the average woman of my age and BMI, but all of this together doesn't seem like enough to account for the difference between my results and the prediction of the formula.
TL; DR Anyway, what I'm saying is, all the formulas in the world don't beat your own data, whether you choose to base it on eating back exercise calories or not -- or even whether your logging is accurate or not. So long as you're reasonably consistent, your logging and results will show you what to expect from what you eat -- even if you're consistently logging 1400 calories of food as 1200 or 1600.0 -
Ashtoretet wrote: »If you choose anything beyond sedentary you don't eat back your calories. Don't use the MFP calorie counter for exercise. Calibrate machines to your age/sex/weight and then halve the calories burned total to get a reasonable "eat back" amount.
I hope this isn't right. I am set to Lightly Active and am given calories to eat back every day. It just takes more activity before I get them.
What do you mean you're given calories to eat back?0 -
Ashtoretet wrote: »Ashtoretet wrote: »If you choose anything beyond sedentary you don't eat back your calories. Don't use the MFP calorie counter for exercise. Calibrate machines to your age/sex/weight and then halve the calories burned total to get a reasonable "eat back" amount.
I hope this isn't right. I am set to Lightly Active and am given calories to eat back every day. It just takes more activity before I get them.
What do you mean you're given calories to eat back?
From exercise. I have my fitbit syned with mfp, so I'm given extra calories to eat back from my exercise burns.
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@Ashtoretet What Christine_72 said. My Fitbit is synced to MFP. As soon as I hit higher than Lightly Active, as far as my steps go, I start getting calories added back to my original allotment. I also walk/run 5.5 miles daily (today I did 8 miles), so I always can eat more than the 1360 I am given for my goal. I never eat back all, but almost always some. Especially if I am starving. I have noticed that on Mondays and Tuesday I seem to always be hungry and feel like I have low energy. The rest of the week I am great!1
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Oops, double posted. I can't figure out how to delete a reply.0
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If I choose very active in my profile, should I log my exercise (so I can eat more) or not? Or should I choose lightly active and log my exercise? To make matters more confusing, I bike for exercise and the calories burned in the mfp calculator is not very accurate. I was thinking about logging the exercise then only eating up to hlf back but i dont want to enter "starvation mode". Any ideas on what would be the most accurate option?
This is what MFP says about Activity Levels ... you probably read this when you set up your profile?
How would you describe your normal daily activities?
Sedentary: Spend most of the day sitting (e.g. bank teller, desk job)
Lightly Active: Spend a good part of the day on your feet (e.g. teacher, salesman)
Active: Spend a good part of the day doing some physical activity (e.g. waitress, mailman)
Very Active: Spend most of the day doing heavy physical activity (e.g. bike messenger, carpenter)
So if you think you are "very active", I take it that you're a bike messenger or carpenter or similar? You're active during your 8-10 hours of work each day?
As for entering the cycling you do after your very busy day at work ... I'm a cyclist and I choose one of the slowest speeds (I think it is the 16-19 km/h choice). I might ride faster than that, but I go with that one because I think the calorie count is more accurate.
Since there is no such thing as starvation mode, you are safe to eat half your exercise calories back. But you might want to go with 75% or even 100% on occasion if you've done a long ride.
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Ashtoretet wrote: »If you choose anything beyond sedentary you don't eat back your calories. Don't use the MFP calorie counter for exercise. Calibrate machines to your age/sex/weight and then halve the calories burned total to get a reasonable "eat back" amount.
I hope this isn't right. I am set to Lightly Active and am given calories to eat back every day. It just takes more activity before I get them.
It isn't right.
What the overwhelming majority of respondents said is right - that you set your activity level based on what you do outside of intentional exercise, such as work & daily chores. That's how MFP is designed to work.
If, say, someone works loading & unloading trucks all day, there's no way they should choose "sedentary".
If you have better information than the MFP calorie calculator for exercise (Fitbit, HRM, better calculator, whatever), use it - you can override (type over) the calories MFP estimates for an exercise, or add your own custom exercises (MFP will use the calories-per-minute of your first use of a custom exercise to calculate subsequent uses of that exercise with a different number of minutes).
And you still may have to adjust your settings after you have a month or two of experience: Though my actual life is sedentary, I found I had to set my MFP activity level to "Active" and eat back all my (HRM) exercise calories in order to get MFP to give me the right calorie goal. Nothing trumps your own experience.0 -
I know this isn't my post, but going along with what you guys are talking about...
I'm a stay at home mom 5 days a week, meaning in my feet quite a bit, cleaning chasing a toddler, carrying a toddler, etc. and work out everyday. Am I classified as lightly active?0 -
It is up to the person since nobody is really sedentary unless they are laying in a hospital bed or in a wheel chair. My activity in MFP is set to active because although I don't work, I am moving around all the time doing things in the house, garden, shopping etc.
I log my exercise calories just for the heck of but mostly because I care about the time/minutes that I spend exercising, not for the actual calorie count or to justifying eating more. MFP and machines give inflated numbers and I don't use a fitness tracker because it doesn't doesn't apply to my fitness/exercise routine.
If I were to eat all or even part of my exercises calories all the time, I would gain weight (small and old female), so my method works for me since I am in maintenance. And by the way, I used similar approach when I was trying to lose a few lbs.
Bottom line is that people should experiment and try to use the method that works for them, either for losing or for maintaining.
Sedentary: Spend most of the day sitting (e.g. bank teller, desk job)
Lightly Active: Spend a good part of the day on your feet (e.g. teacher, salesman)
Active: Spend a good part of the day doing some physical activity (e.g. waitress, mailman)
Very Active: Spend most of the day doing heavy physical activity (e.g. bike messenger, carpenter)
So by MFP calculations as I have a desk job, I am sedentary. Their calculations aren't based on being completely immobile.
MFP says this, which is why so many people (without Fitbits, since if you have an activity tracker it doesn't matter) improperly choose sedentary. But what MFP assumes for sedentary is really, really sedentary. I have a desk job and no young children; I simply live in a city, and yet I am easily lightly active (when it comes to proper calorie goal) even before any intentional exercise just because of walking for errands and commuting.
This is also why extra calories from moving around kick in so early when you do have a Fitbit (or the like) synced.1
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