Activity level?

ayennie_

Hi everyone - I have been googling how to pick an activity level and I'm not sure what to pick. I was recently quite sedentary, or at least I'm guessing. I walked my dog and went to the gym sometimes. I am now changing up my routine. My activity is below:

M-F 8 hours sitting at work
15 minute bike ride to and from work
30 minutes of walking dog leisurely
And 1 hour at the gym (cardio and weights) 1-2 times a week

Thank you for your help!!

malibu927

MFP's activity level doesn't include exercise, so go with sedentary

addin619

You can connect your Myfitnesspal apps with google fit.. if you already set your activity at google fit it will be automatically updared to your Myfitnesspal apps.

tinkerbellang83

Your activity level is your normal day-to-day work/school/home life activity level, not your exercise.

hydechildcare

I pick sedatary no matter my level just because I sit in an office for 8 hours. I would rather have less calories to eat than over eat.

CJOttawa

My understanding is this:

• Activity level is a legacy setting from an era when fitness trackers and smartphones weren't a thing. (context: MFP has been around since about 2005; the first iPhone was released in 2007)
• MFP will guess how many calories you burn above your BMR based on the "activity level" setting. If you're more or less active, the estimate will be wrong.
• With smartphones and fitness trackers in the mix, set MFP to "sedentary/not very active" and let your phone/fitness band feed MFP with actual, real-world step-count and exercise data.

I'd like to hear others chime in on this but that's my understanding.

misnomer1

I started with sedentary. Logged and weighed food accurately for 40 days. Tracked my weight everyday. At the end of 40 days, my weightloss suggests that I was at a calorie deficit of 900 on average for past 40 days, with maintenance of ~2700. So I changed setting to 'active' which at maintenance gives me a non exercise TDEE close to 2700.

ncfitbit

I would pick sedentary in your case and let MFP give you credit for the exercise you do after work. Personally, I find it quite motivating to see that my extra movement is helping my weight loss efforts, but just as importantly it helped me see that I had to work quite hard to burn a few hundred calories, but it is quite easy to eat that many!

Some people say some cardio equipment will give inflated calorie burns so be mindful of that. If you find you are not losing weight eating back the extra exercise calories MFP gives you, see if you need to adjust that. I now use a heart rate monitor for most of my exercise, which isn't perfect either, but I seem to be getting more accurate calorie burn figures with it.

Rosemary7391

CJOttawa wrote: »

My understanding is this:

• Activity level is a legacy setting from an era when fitness trackers and smartphones weren't a thing. (context: MFP has been around since about 2005; the first iPhone was released in 2007)
• MFP will guess how many calories you burn above your BMR based on the "activity level" setting. If you're more or less active, the estimate will be wrong.
• With smartphones and fitness trackers in the mix, set MFP to "sedentary/not very active" and let your phone/fitness band feed MFP with actual, real-world step-count and exercise data.

I'd like to hear others chime in on this but that's my understanding.

I've given up on my step counter and just set it to "lightly active". I was getting fed up of seeing extra calories on my diary, eating more and then watching them disappear (and put me over) because I don't walk evenly throughout the day. I walk to get places, that seemed to confuse it!

Ree13x

Go with sedentary and then just log your activity (either with a tracker or the old fashioned way). If you log everything properly it will adjust for you pretty well in my experience. Never feel like you have to eat past the point where you're satisfied just because those extra calories show up though. all they really mean (for me anyhow) is that I get to treat myself to a reasonable desert after dinner or to a post-workout snack If i'm feeling especially exhausted after lots of activity. The software is a guide more than anything after all.