What should I set my activity level to?

ayj72

Advice please from you lovely people out there. I do not know what to set my activity level as, this seems to be important as it affects the number of calories mfp gives you to eat and adjusts your Fitbit exercise by. I am a full time teacher so when I have a class I'm walking around the classroom (minimum of 4 classes per day) but at other times during my day I might be sitting at my desk for up to an hour at a time. I also walk my dogs twice a day for around 20 minutes 5 days, then at weekends for around and hour and a quarter both days. I also run 3 or 4 times per week varying between 2 and 8 miles a time - I'm usually clocking up 20 miles per week. What activity level should I set if I take into account the weekend dog walking and running? What activity level should I set if I ignore the weekend dog walking and running and only factor in my job and daily dog walks? And which is the right way to go? Thanks in advance.

PAV8888

Too complicated. How many steps you getting on your Fitbit?

Sub 5k set MFP to sedentary
Sub 8.5k set MFP to lightly active
Sub 12.5k set MFP to active
Over 12.5k set MFP to very active and expect positive adjustments from that around 15k

Monitor for 4-6 weeks and adjust based on results.

Don't add step based exercises via MFP separately if you do this!

malibu927

With your Fitbit connected it doesn't matter, but I would say lightly active

lemonychild

If u have a Fitbit it does all the adjusting for you, however u should sync few times a day to see where the cals stand

ayj72

I'm invariably over 12.5k on Fitbit. I do have trouble getting mfp to sync to Fitbit

PAV8888

ayj72 wrote: »

I'm invariably over 12.5k on Fitbit. I do have trouble getting mfp to sync to Fitbit

If you generally end up with more than 12.5K steps on Fitbit, setting yourself to "active" on MFP will generally yield a small positive adjustment (extra exercise calories) at the end of the day. If you set yourself as "very active" on MFP you may find that sometimes you have positive and sometimes you have negative adjustments at the end of the day.

Your preference and your exact numbers will determine how you handle this. Understand that in reality it doesn't matter WHAT you choose as your base setting on MFP. With integration and negative adjustments enabled your final burn is always determined by your Fitbit number and MFPs totals adjust to that number.

Of course it is easier to plan your day if you don't have to deal with a 1000 Cal adjustment at midnight. So if you're generally very active it doesn't make much sense to set yourself up as sedentary.

in any case, monitor your progress and make adjustments 4-6 weeks down the road based on how things work out in real life.

And remember that it is trivial to connect Fitbit to something like trendweight.com, so there is little reason to not be using a weight trend web site to calculate your weight trend so you can make better decisions about your progress.

U2R2

I set mine to sedentary since getting a Fitbit. The reasoning was on days I am sedentary the Fitbit will not effect my calorie allotment but when more active it will add calories. As opposed to an active setting which would allot too many calories on sedentary days.

The trick is to periodically compare your MFP reported calories in minus the Fitbit calories out divided by 3500, to your actual weight fluctuation to determine how accurate the calorie adjustments from Fitbit are for you.

In my case it overestimates my calorie burn by about 25%.

Though I think activating the negative adjustment setting on MFP might also work regardless of the activity level setting.

PAV8888

U2R2 wrote: »

Though I think activating the negative adjustment setting on MFP might also work regardless of the activity level setting.

If you enable integration and disable negative adjustments you are only adjusting MFP's totals UPWARDS when Fitbit detects a higher burn than MFP estimated you would have based on your selection of activity level.

If you enable integration and enable negative adjustments you are "offloading" the calculation of your burn to Fitbit and MFP adjusts both up and down based on what Fitbit reports your TDEE to be.

With negative adjustments enabled the final calories that you will be allotted for the day will be the same regardless of whether you start at "sedentary" and "earn" a hefty positive adjustment or start at "very active" and "earn" a negative adjustment or smaller positive adjustment.

Your final caloric allotment in all cases will be TDEE as calculated by Fitbit less the deficit level selected on MFP.