Setting diary goals

39flavours

Hello all, I'm after some advice about how to set up my goals for my diary and was hoping someone might be able to help.

So I have 40 lbs to lose and so have set my weight loss goal to 1.5 per week.
I workout 5-6 days a week for one hour doing a mixture of cardio and weights. For the rest of the day I'm pretty sedentary as I work from home, so on a typical day I do around 3000 steps.

So I have set my activity level to lightly active. I don't log my exercise as I don't have a reliable way to calculate my burn from it but by changing activity from sedentary to lightly active I hope that this covers it.

My actual daily cardio is about ten minutes running/walking and ten minutes rowing but the intensity will vary depending on my mood.

Does this seem like a reasonable way to work it or should I put sedentary and then do my best to estimate my calorie burns from the exercise?

Thanks in advance

sijomial

Walking, running and rowing (especially if using a Concept2) are usually easy to get perfectly reasonable calorie estimates for.
The strength training estimate (in CV part of your exercise diary) is also pretty conservative.

You can choose to estimate it all after the event on here or go to a TDEE site and estimate it all in advance as a daily average - that the method works (estimating actual duration, intensity etc) should reassure you that precision in exercise burns maybe nice but it's not essential.

Really a personal choice to have a same every day goal including exercise or a different daily allowance varying in line with your exercise.

39flavours

Thanks, what is concept 2? The thing is I find it hard to remember after the event just how many times I walked vs ran or rowed at full pelt vs took it easy, and for how long, what speed etc. Plus I don't really understand the km/h options on the data base. My weight training varies in intensity too. My fitness tracker is next to useless and only does steps and heart rate. TDEE estimates seem very broad too.
That's why I was thinking it would be easier to just set a higher activity level to cover the bases.

sijomial

39flavours wrote: »

Thanks, what is concept 2? The thing is I find it hard to remember after the event just how many times I walked vs ran or rowed at full pelt vs took it easy, and for how long, what speed etc. Plus I don't really understand the km/h options on the data base. My weight training varies in intensity too. My fitness tracker is next to useless and only does steps and heart rate. TDEE estimates seem very broad too.
That's why I was thinking it would be easier to just set a higher activity level to cover the bases.

Concept2 is the market leader in indoor rowing machines.

Yes the TDEE method is extremely broad brush approach.
But it still works....
That you forget your duration after the event isn't any less accurate than guessing it in advance using the TDEE method. Perfection simply isn't required to achieve results.

You can change your chosen units of measurement in your settings, you don't have to use the metric system.

That your weight training intensity varies is a tiny variable, think of it as an average estimate - some days low, sometimes high but mostly about right.

39flavours

Thanks again,
I guess my concern is that I already only seem able to lose weight at a slow pace so I feel the need to be as accurate as possible. It seems daft to aim to be super accurate with calories consumed, only to then be vague with calories burned.

kshama2001

39flavours wrote: »

Thanks again,
I guess my concern is that I already only seem able to lose weight at a slow pace so I feel the need to be as accurate as possible. It seems daft to aim to be super accurate with calories consumed, only to then be vague with calories burned.

What do you mean by "only seem able to lose weight at a slow pace"? When I first came to MFP my expectations were skewed by The Biggest Loser. Did you just start exercising recently? You could be retaining water from that.

You can keep it as you have it and reevaluate after a month.

However, most people here find that the MFP database exercise calories are 50-100% accurate for them. You could start with eating 50% of the calories you earn from exercise and reevaluate after at least a month. If you lose more than expected, eat a higher percentage of your exercise calories.

Kamille68

O Yes the biggest loser😂😂😂😂 i watched that too.

Kamille68

Just a few months ago I learned that it was all fake. Not a weekly weigh in but after 6 weeks.

cmriverside

You don't mention how much weight you need to lose.

It's not a quick process.

And like sijomial says, it isn't an exact process either.

I'd say focus on learning to track your food accurately and keeping your food in calories. The exercise is a little bit of a guess, but you can get close enough. I just figure a flat 300 calories per hour of moderate exercise and 500 if I'm going hard.

It has worked for me.

39flavours

Thanks riverside, I did say, I've got 40 lbs to lose.
I'm not that worried about the pace, I've lost 4 lbs in six weeks, and I'm pretty confident about my tracking, I'm just not so confident about my exercise tracking.

I'm pretty sure that 300 cal for an hour of exercise would be too high an estimate for me though.

I just wanted to ask about what to set my activity level at so that I'm not over or under eating. I have a lowish heart rate too, about 55bpm rhr so I think I'm quite good at subconsciously conserving my energy.
I think I'll just stick with the lightly active setting as, like you say, it's not an exact science.

Also, I've never seen biggest loser, not my cuppa tea, but I think I know what it's about!

Duck_Puddle

You may be better off setting yourself as sedentary and estimating your cardio separately.

I am also part of the actual sedentary crowd because I also work a desk job in my tiny house and get about 3k steps a day outside of purposeful exercise.

I need to do about 5 hours of workouts a week at an average of “moderate” level to come in at what mfp gives for lightly active. It sounds like you’re about 1/2 that (but I might not be understanding your schedule properly)?

I know it seems difficult to estimate after the fact-but maybe log exercise on the conservative side and see if that makes a difference. It’s all an estimate one way or another and it’s just a matter of finding the best estimates for you.