Should I keep my calorie limit the same every day?

corysmithsmail

I'm having trouble figuring how to make sure I'm in the right deficit. I had set my MFP to active and to lose at 1.5lbs. I chose this because I heard that active is defined as working out 3-5 days a week. I work out 3-4 days a week, and walk 10k steps a day.

But my question is...the days I don't work out...should I change my status to lightly active? Or am I just overthinking it?

siobhanaoife

The model is to set activity level to whatever your movement is on days that you don't specifically set aside time to exercise. Then log actual exercise sessions manually.

TavistockToad

your activity level is activity outside of purposeful exercise.

i would set it to light active to account for the 10k steps, and then eat back your exercise calories on workout days.

kimny72

siobhanaoife wrote: »

The model is to set activity level to whatever your movement is on days that you don't specifically set aside time to exercise. Then log actual exercise sessions manually.

This. The activity level you choose on MFP is meant for your typical day-to-day non exercise activity, then you log purposeful exercise and eat back (at least) some of those calories as well. That's different than if you use an outside TDEE calculator, which spreads your 3-5 workouts worth of calories over all 7 days.

amy19355

I eat my daily calories with or without a workout session. MFP is tied to my Fitbit, and while I don't expect they have 100% accuracy in recording, still I can use the data to get a sense of how near to my goals I am.
Combined with my level of energy, or hunger pangs, I can usually know if I need to eat more or can have a glass of water and look forward to tomorrow's breakfast.

corysmithsmail

Well that explains a lot. Should have asked this question months ago.

corysmithsmail

Wow. It's only been a day since I've changed my MFP to the suggestions from you guys. And I see a huge benefit. Obviously haven't lost any weight since yesterday lol but I actually see earned exercise calories from my fitbit being linked! Before it stayed at 0 all day unless I went completely crazy overboard with exercise.

Machka9

corysmithsmail wrote: »

I'm having trouble figuring how to make sure I'm in the right deficit. I had set my MFP to active and to lose at 1.5lbs. I chose this because I heard that active is defined as working out 3-5 days a week. I work out 3-4 days a week, and walk 10k steps a day.

But my question is...the days I don't work out...should I change my status to lightly active? Or am I just overthinking it?

Go to My Home > Goals > View Guided Setup

There it says:

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, salesperson)
Active: Spend a good part of the day doing some physical activity (e.g. food server, postal carrier)
Very Active: Spend most of the day doing heavy physical activity (e.g. bike messenger, carpenter)


Activity has to do with what you do each day ... not your "exercise".

Log your exercise separately.

NorthCascades

corysmithsmail wrote: »

Wow. It's only been a day since I've changed my MFP to the suggestions from you guys. And I see a huge benefit. Obviously haven't lost any weight since yesterday lol but I actually see earned exercise calories from my fitbit being linked! Before it stayed at 0 all day unless I went completely crazy overboard with exercise.

In the food log view, there's a button at the top that looks like a little white pie chart. Click it. The first time you go in there it will show you how much of each macro you got today. Change that to week, and change it from macro breakdown to calories. Boom!, there's your gross/net calories for the week, and your average daily deficit for the week.

You said you want to make sure you're in the right cause deficit, that's and easy way to do it. People eat more on weekends, sometimes you don't use all your exercise calories that day and are hungry the next day.

corysmithsmail

Machka9 wrote: »

corysmithsmail wrote: »

I'm having trouble figuring how to make sure I'm in the right deficit. I had set my MFP to active and to lose at 1.5lbs. I chose this because I heard that active is defined as working out 3-5 days a week. I work out 3-4 days a week, and walk 10k steps a day.

But my question is...the days I don't work out...should I change my status to lightly active? Or am I just overthinking it?

Go to My Home > Goals > View Guided Setup

There it says:

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, salesperson)
Active: Spend a good part of the day doing some physical activity (e.g. food server, postal carrier)
Very Active: Spend most of the day doing heavy physical activity (e.g. bike messenger, carpenter)


Activity has to do with what you do each day ... not your "exercise".

Log your exercise separately.

Right...that's what the previous posters all said as well. So I made the changes.

NorthCascades wrote: »

corysmithsmail wrote: »

Wow. It's only been a day since I've changed my MFP to the suggestions from you guys. And I see a huge benefit. Obviously haven't lost any weight since yesterday lol but I actually see earned exercise calories from my fitbit being linked! Before it stayed at 0 all day unless I went completely crazy overboard with exercise.

In the food log view, there's a button at the top that looks like a little white pie chart. Click it. The first time you go in there it will show you how much of each macro you got today. Change that to week, and change it from macro breakdown to calories. Boom!, there's your gross/net calories for the week, and your average daily deficit for the week.

You said you want to make sure you're in the right cause deficit, that's and easy way to do it. People eat more on weekends, sometimes you don't use all your exercise calories that day and are hungry the next day.

That wouldn't help if my calorie limit was based off the wrong activity level. Cause if that was the case, I'd be doing amazing lol

NorthCascades

You said your Fitbit is linked. Check your account settings, make sure "negative calorie adjustments" is turned on / allowed.

What that does is take care of if you select the wrong activity level. If you say you're super duper crazy active and MFP gives you 20,000 calories for the day, but you "only" walk 10k steps, it will give you calories for whatever your actual activity level is.