Logging exercise and calorie goal settings

kwedman488

So I'm starting month 2 of insanity today, and I really want to get results which I haven't been getting from month one. I believe it's from not eating enough, so I'm trying to make my diary is well set up as possible to help me eat enough but not too much, etc. I know that MFP is meant for you to eat your exercise calories back, which is how I have it and the way I like it, but what I need to know is what I should have my calorie goal without the exercise set to. MFP had me set to 1450 or some such thing when I set it to lose a half pound a week, and sets it to 1250 when I set it to 1 lb a week. My BMI is 1318, which is neither of these. Right now I set it to lose 1 lb a week but set the calories to 1350, just to make it even but close to my BMI. Insanity has you calculate your BMR as well as your TDEE: for me, my TDEE is roughly 2240, but I took 500 from that since I want to lose fat and gain muscle. Is this what I should be doing? Insanity is more cardio than strength training, so I don't know if eating at maintenance or above would help me gain muscle and still lower body fat %. Can anyone help me with this? Also, since I have my BMR as my calorie goal, should I then log when I work at my jobs as well (they require standing the whole time and a lot of walking around for the entire shift). Right now I have been logging it, but only for half the time I worked to prevent over-calculating. Should I continue to do this since BMR doesn't take exercise/activity level into account? Any help would be greatly appreciated; I don't want to mess this up.

refinedredbird

I didn't completely understand your post, but I think I have the gist. Here is what I would do in your situation. Calculate your TDEE already set at a "lightly active" or "moderately active" so that it already includes your Insanity workouts and don't eat back exercise calories. Then, depending on if you have a small or large amount of weight to lose, subtract 10-20% of that TDEE number and eat that many calories per day.

kwedman488

Well I want to be able to eat exercise calories back so that my overall net is correct and everything. But is 1350 what I should be putting as my calorie goal? I have myself set as very active because I also run a 5k every morning cross country and I'm doing the 30 day arm and squat challenges. So I'll burn generally upwards of 1,000 cals a day overall. And is logging when I work at my job a good thing to do then if I'm not using TDEE?