Time to Change Activity Level?

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TH2017
TH2017 Posts: 47 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I have been on MFP for a few weeks/months and while I initially had success, I am starting to stall out. I did have a few weeks where I had to scale back my workouts due to injury but I am back to working out on a regular basis.

I have a desk job, so on days when I don't have any purposeful exercise I don't get many steps (6k or less) in and therefore don't burn many calories. But on my workout days which I do at least 3 times a week I can hit 9k or 10k easy. When MFP says sedentary or lightly active what do they really mean and when should someone reset their goals and change the activity level? Now that I am working out more should I change my activity level to lightly active instead of sedentary?

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  • malibu927
    malibu927 Posts: 17,565 Member
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    MFP doesn't include exercise in its activity level (TDEE calculators do). Keep it at sedentary, log and eat back at least a portion of your exercise calories, and make sure your logging is as accurate as possible. If you're stalling out, increasing activity level, which increases your calories, is the wrong thing to do.
  • TH2017
    TH2017 Posts: 47 Member
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    malibu927 wrote: »
    MFP doesn't include exercise in its activity level (TDEE calculators do). Keep it at sedentary, log and eat back at least a portion of your exercise calories, and make sure your logging is as accurate as possible. If you're stalling out, increasing activity level, which increases your calories, is the wrong thing to do.

    Really?
  • misnomer1
    misnomer1 Posts: 646 Member
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    Keep setting at 'sedentary', log all your intake, weigh everything before logging and choose correct entries. Log all your exercise in exercise diary as and when you do them.
  • TH2017
    TH2017 Posts: 47 Member
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    lorrpb wrote: »
    TH2017 wrote: »
    malibu927 wrote: »
    MFP doesn't include exercise in its activity level (TDEE calculators do). Keep it at sedentary, log and eat back at least a portion of your exercise calories, and make sure your logging is as accurate as possible. If you're stalling out, increasing activity level, which increases your calories, is the wrong thing to do.

    Really?

    She means increasing your MFP activity setting would be counterproductive because it will give you more cals. That's not what you want if you're in a stall. Of course you would want to increase your actual physical activity!

    OK. But just wondering if I am not fueling my exercises properly. I am a shorty so MFP only gives me 1200 calories for 2lbs a week. Even if I slow the rate of loss to 1lbs I would only get 30 of so more calories.
  • Maxematics
    Maxematics Posts: 2,287 Member
    edited August 2017
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    Because 1200 calories is the lowest MFP will go for women. If you get 1230 calories for a loss of one pound per week, your actual calorie allowance to lose two pounds per week is 730 calories which is not recommended. Also, you're fueling your workouts just fine. People don't stall from not eating enough.
  • TH2017
    TH2017 Posts: 47 Member
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    misnomer1 wrote: »
    Keep setting at 'sedentary', log all your intake, weigh everything before logging and choose correct entries. Log all your exercise in exercise diary as and when you do them.

    I guess I will just have to keep at it.

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