Change activity level or eat back a percentage of exercise calories?

cj778449

When I started the app I chose sedentary (office job) and ate at a deficit with light exercise. For the past two months I've incorporated strength exercises 4Xs a week, HIIT cardio 2X a week and I average about 14k steps a day. My job is technically an office job but I have a standing desk, standing desk elliptical and desk treadmill so I'm on my feet, moving all day. Should I change my activity level to active? or very active? OR keep my activity level sedentary and eat back some of my calories? If it's the second option, how much should I be eating back? 25%, 50%?

Additional info: 5" 6" currently 150 lbs, 25% bf, and I've lost 13 pounds since 1/28/19. TIA!

cmriverside

You have two months of data. Look at it and decide based on your weight changes and calories. I am set at Moderately active AND I eat all my exercise calories and I'm not nearly as active as you are.

I used my own collected numbers to set my calorie goals.

MikePTY

First you have to decide what you are adding as intentional exercise in your exercise log? Are you adding only your strength training and HIIT or are you adding your standing desk elliptical and desk treadmill as well? If you are not adding the latter, you are probably "active", and should change your activity level to that, AND eat back your exercise calories. And by exercise calories I mean at least most of them. Ideally you should be eating back all of the calories you burn from intentional exercise if they are properly measured. The reason why people are recommended sometimes doing 50-75% to start is because the estimators can often overestimate, so until people have a better idea of their burn, it can help them from overeating. But you shouldn't always be aiming to eat a small percentage back. I'd start with somewhere between 50-75% and work your way up to eating more of them.

Alternatively, if that all sounds like something you could never see yourself doing, go to a site with a TDEE calculator and calculate your TDEE using the heavy exercise option. Then you can set a daily calorie goal without needing to eat your exercise calories back but they are incorporated in your goal. I threw your stats in there using the Scooby TDEE calculator and got a daily maintenance of 2593 with a goal (15% calorie reduction) of 2204 a day.

cj778449

I don't manually add anything under exercise. But I do have Fitbit so I see my calories increase throughout the day depending on the # of steps I get. Thanks for the great advice! I'm a little nervous about eating calories back because I worry about overestimating calories burned. Maybe start at 50% and check in a few weeks and make sure I'm still losing weight?

sijomial

cj778449 wrote: »

I don't manually add anything under exercise. But I do have Fitbit so I see my calories increase throughout the day depending on the # of steps I get. Thanks for the great advice! I'm a little nervous about eating calories back because I worry about overestimating calories burned. Maybe start at 50% and check in a few weeks and make sure I'm still losing weight?

If you have a Fitbit just use it or it's a bit pointless bothering with it at all.
Surely your Fitbit is estimating your exercise so why are you thinking of doing it manually too?
You really should have mentioned the Fitbit in your OP as the responses would have been very different. The assumption being made is that you are using MyFitnessPal to set your goal and estimate your activity within that and your exercise on top of that.

You might want to change your activity setting though to something far closer to reality of 14,000 steps so that you don't get huge daily adjustments. The end total will be the same but easier to predict and plan for.

You have selected a couple of tools to help you with your weight loss - suggest you use them as designed rather than deliberately skew the outcome by putting in false data.
What you are doing is the equivalent of using a calculator to add up numbers for you accurately and then choosing to enter incorrect information to influence the outcome.

cj778449

@sijomial my question wasnt about Fitbit or manually entering exercise. It was simply do I change my activity level or eat my exercise calories. Thanks for eventually answering my question....

cj778449

How am I deliberately skewing the outcome? I eat 1500 calories a day because I WAS sedentary. As of two months ago I'm no longer sedentary but I still eat only 1500 calories. I'm not sure what was so confusing about that question

sijomial

cj778449 wrote: »

@sijomial my question wasnt about Fitbit or manually entering exercise. It was simply do I change my activity level or eat my exercise calories. Thanks for eventually answering my question....

But using a Fitbit changes everything. The initial answers you got would not have been the same if you had worded your OP differently.

Would a summary help?

• Yes your activity level should be realistic.
• If you follow your Fitbit goal you are eating exercise calories. You haven't actually confirmed which calorie goal you are using.
• Yes if you are setting your goal using MyFitnessPal you should be eating exercise calories as that's how it works.
• Yes you should eat all your actual exercise calories, if you think your estimates are inflated by some particular amount then adjust accordingly.

sijomial

cj778449 wrote: »

How am I deliberately skewing the outcome? I eat 1500 calories a day because I WAS sedentary. As of two months ago I'm no longer sedentary but I still eat only 1500 calories. I'm not sure what was so confusing about that question

Sedentary means mostly seated and you described your current job as "My job is technically an office job but I have a standing desk, standing desk elliptical and desk treadmill so I'm on my feet, moving all day"

I'm not in the slightest confused that you clearly aren't sedentary now - maybe your motives aren't to skew the outcome but that would seem to be a reasonable conclusion if you know your activity setting is miles wrong by your description and your step count. What your activity was two months ago isn't at all relevant to what you are eating now is it?

PAV8888

If you have a linked Fitbit the final exercise adjustment adjusts your MFP goal to what your Fitbit estimated your total daily energy expenditure to be.

It is irrelevant what level of activity you choose. The final adjustment for the day will make it so that your total calories out are equal to what your Fitbit estimated.

The closer your MFP activity level is to what your Fitbit detects, the smaller the adjustment.

For me, and based on my food logging and type of activities I engage in, my Fitbit has estimated my TDEE with an apparent error of less than 5% over any two month period I measured during the past 4 years.

So yes, I trust my adjustment.