“Lightly Active”

Xunii75

Hi all! I’m trying to figure out my level of activity to determine calorie needs. I’m 71 btw, and have lost 46 pounds. I walk 4 miles in the morning and another 2 to 4 miles throughout the day, puttering around. Would that be considered lightly active? Thanks for your help!

sijomial

Assuming you are intending your activity level to cover your walking (rather than logging those walks as exercise) then I'd probably start with Active and see how it goes for a month.

But your weight loss goal is also determined by the other choices you make when you complete your goal set up and picking your desired rate of weight loss (or maintenance, or weight gain...) has a very big impact on your calorie goal. Worth having a play with the settings to see the impact on your target calories.

Xunii75

Thanks!

I2k4

Pretty new to MFP, it appears defining activity level sets a baseline calorie intake (mine's set Lightly Active) but then entering any substantial exercise in the Diary manually adds more food even if those manual workouts seem to fit within that basic Lightly Active and the target activity goal set. Taking all these calculatons as pretty rough and ready, and pretty satisfied so far, I am unclear about it.

Xunii75

Thanks! My watch exports my steps to MFP so makes that part easy! I’ll figure it out eventually. I was continuing to lose weight with the setting I had. If it was only an exact science! Lol!

Lietchi

I2k4 wrote: »

Pretty new to MFP, it appears defining activity level sets a baseline calorie intake (mine's set Lightly Active) but then entering any substantial exercise in the Diary manually adds more food even if those manual workouts seem to fit within that basic Lightly Active and the target activity goal set. Taking all these calculatons as pretty rough and ready, and pretty satisfied so far, I am unclear about it.

The activity level on MFP is meant to reflect non-exercise activity. If you chose an activity level setting based on your activity level including exercise, then you shouldn't manually add workouts to your diary or you'll be double counting your exercise.
The real test is your actual weight loss rate though, if you're losing at the intended rate, that's the most important thing. If you aren't losing at the intended rate, you can make adjustments.

heybales

Xunii75 wrote: »

Thanks! My watch exports my steps to MFP so makes that part easy! I’ll figure it out eventually. I was continuing to lose weight with the setting I had. If it was only an exact science! Lol!

Which Watch?

If Apple then it is steps, and any workouts you log.

How many steps - because there are some general ranges for just the daily activity steps that gives a hint to activity level?

But ditto to advice that much walking daily would be Active.
But don't log as a workout too since already included in daily activity.

swimmom_1

When I put in my Elliptical or any other walking exercise, MFP deletes my steps my IPhone counts. Which is weird because it won't give me steps then for the rest of the day then. I don't want double credit (because only deceiving yourself) but won't give me any other steps. That's why I thought it asks you the start time of the exercise along with the minutes of it.

cwolfman13

I2k4 wrote: »

Pretty new to MFP, it appears defining activity level sets a baseline calorie intake (mine's set Lightly Active) but then entering any substantial exercise in the Diary manually adds more food even if those manual workouts seem to fit within that basic Lightly Active and the target activity goal set. Taking all these calculatons as pretty rough and ready, and pretty satisfied so far, I am unclear about it.

If you include your exercise in "light active" activity level, you wouldn't log it separately. MFP is designed for your activity level to be your day to day humdrum...like sitting in an office most of the day would be sedentary. You then log exercise after the fact because it is NOT included in your activity level.

If you include it in your activity level and then log it and get additional calories, you are double dipping. You only log what ISN'T accounted for already in your activity level.

Lietchi

swimmom_1 wrote: »

When I put in my Elliptical or any other walking exercise, MFP deletes my steps my IPhone counts. Which is weird because it won't give me steps then for the rest of the day then. I don't want double credit (because only deceiving yourself) but won't give me any other steps. That's why I thought it asks you the start time of the exercise along with the minutes of it.

Apple doesn't 'play well' with MFP. Try syncing Apple with the Pacer app and then syncing the Pacer app with MFP, instead of syncing directly between Apple and MFP.

I2k4

cwolfman13 wrote: »

I2k4 wrote: »

Pretty new to MFP, it appears defining activity level sets a baseline calorie intake (mine's set Lightly Active) but then entering any substantial exercise in the Diary manually adds more food even if those manual workouts seem to fit within that basic Lightly Active and the target activity goal set. Taking all these calculatons as pretty rough and ready, and pretty satisfied so far, I am unclear about it.

If you include your exercise in "light active" activity level, you wouldn't log it separately. MFP is designed for your activity level to be your day to day humdrum...like sitting in an office most of the day would be sedentary. You then log exercise after the fact because it is NOT included in your activity level.

If you include it in your activity level and then log it and get additional calories, you are double dipping. You only log what ISN'T accounted for already in your activity level.

Thanks to the two of you for clearing it up. Being fairly sedentary apart from workouts, I like diarizing those workouts with entries and notes instead of a separate logger to remember them. I guess will reset my actvity level to minimal - probably means recalibrating that whole section of the app since theres a warning pop-up. Good to do it Day 1 of September.

mtaratoot

swimmom_1 wrote: »

When I put in my Elliptical or any other walking exercise, MFP deletes my steps my IPhone counts. Which is weird because it won't give me steps then for the rest of the day then. I don't want double credit (because only deceiving yourself) but won't give me any other steps. That's why I thought it asks you the start time of the exercise along with the minutes of it.

My Garmin device does something similar, and it makes sense.

I think what it does is calculate what it calls "active calories." They can come from steps or from logging an activity. When Garmin syncs with MFP, if the activity burned more calories than the steps, the steps get reduced or eliminated. The part that's weird is that if I delete the activity, the calories from steps don't come back. Same thing happens if I manually record an activity in MFP. An example is my bike commute. I'm out on the bike several times during the day, but none is long enough to call it an activity. If I log an hour on the bike in MFP, I have to tell it what time it happened. It reduces calorie burns from steps that happened during the hour that I told it I was on the bike.

I think it's fine. I think it makes sense. I don't think it's broken.

heybales

mtaratoot wrote: »

swimmom_1 wrote: »

When I put in my Elliptical or any other walking exercise, MFP deletes my steps my IPhone counts. Which is weird because it won't give me steps then for the rest of the day then. I don't want double credit (because only deceiving yourself) but won't give me any other steps. That's why I thought it asks you the start time of the exercise along with the minutes of it.

My Garmin device does something similar, and it makes sense.

I think what it does is calculate what it calls "active calories." They can come from steps or from logging an activity. When Garmin syncs with MFP, if the activity burned more calories than the steps, the steps get reduced or eliminated. The part that's weird is that if I delete the activity, the calories from steps don't come back. Same thing happens if I manually record an activity in MFP. An example is my bike commute. I'm out on the bike several times during the day, but none is long enough to call it an activity. If I log an hour on the bike in MFP, I have to tell it what time it happened. It reduces calorie burns from steps that happened during the hour that I told it I was on the bike.

I think it's fine. I think it makes sense. I don't think it's broken.

It's a tad different than what happens with Apple data because Apple doesn't send correct info.

Garmin isn't sending Active calories - it's sending the Total Daily burned. So the line may say "steps" - but that's not really what that calorie adjustment is from, tap and hold to see more details - it'll show that TDEE from Garmin and time stamp, and what MFP thought you'd burn based on selected activity level plus any workouts it knows about.

Garmin Total - MFP estimated daily - known workouts = Adjustment.

Eating goal + adjustment + workouts = new eating goal. Deficit always in place.

If you delete a workout that came from Garmin it should correct the math though.
I correct the calories on the workouts all the time and the math instantly changes.
If I delete it it changes.
Now in my case, the delete does NOT go back to Garmin and delete the workout there, reducing the TDEE Garmin would send.

If you delete the manually created workout and it DOES sync back and delete it from Garmin, then the TDEE just got reduced, therefore the math would end up exactly the same.

mtaratoot

Thanks for the clarification. To be honest, I really don't care so much how the mechanics work. I have noticed that, for me, it gives a pretty good estimate based on my results on the scale.

I was wondering, and I really don't know, if Garmin sends an appropriate calorie burn when I ride my bike even if I don't tell it I'm doing that. When I go online and look at my daily dashboard, it knows when I'm on a bike. Accelerometer I presume. I've logged enough bike rides that it guesses, and it's right. That would explain somewhat variable numbers of calories for relatively similar steps in a day.

mjglantz

@mtaratoot
I'm not that confident on the calorie burn reported by my Garmin and that's OK. Over the years on maintenance I kind of know how much to eat (at 5'7" and also 71) I set my calories at 2,000. I'm actually very active with dog walking, working out, walking around, yoga, Zumba, strength work....get around 20,000 steps/day on average. while MFP shows both actual and net calories I pay attention to the actual calories and how my weight is staying.

heybales

mtaratoot wrote: »

Thanks for the clarification. To be honest, I really don't care so much how the mechanics work. I have noticed that, for me, it gives a pretty good estimate based on my results on the scale.

I was wondering, and I really don't know, if Garmin sends an appropriate calorie burn when I ride my bike even if I don't tell it I'm doing that. When I go online and look at my daily dashboard, it knows when I'm on a bike. Accelerometer I presume. I've logged enough bike rides that it guesses, and it's right. That would explain somewhat variable numbers of calories for relatively similar steps in a day.

Every blue moon I've had the Garmin cycling computer have it's calculated burn actually close to a power meter burn value, which is the most accurate.

Usually it's 200-600 higher than reality for a 1.5 hr hard ride.

It seems to be better on the family easy trail ride with kiddo and friends.

So it depends on what your ride is probably.

And steps on the bike are from road vibrations - so variable for even same distance done.
If you tell it you are doing a ride - it'll start out with knowing to watch other data rather than incorrect steps until it figures it out.

russellholtslander1

If you already have a level you lost 46 lbs. on, and simply trying to figure out which level to put in to officially track it now, then I'm guessing you had a caloric range that you were eating before, which helped you lose weight.

Let's use 1800.. if that is what you ate while losing.. and you have been doing the 4 miles of exercise, and haven't change lifestyle activity much.. has anything changed, besides switching to tracking if on MFP.

I know I lose weight on 2000-2400 calories. My exercise is consistent, and so is my lifestyle. I walk, and do work at my desk, and not much else.

When I joined MFP, I put sedentary, picked my weight loss per week, and I didn't put in exercise.. the result was 1640 calories. On the 4-5 days I walk 2 miles in 45 minutes at the park, I supposedly burn 292 calories.. even if I added those back, it would be 1932 calories. I tend to eat around 2200, and in 18 days, I've lost 21.2 lbs.

Every time, you add another factor in, you have room for error, and these small errors add up, so even if you try to enter accurate info, you may find that your new recommendation is 200 calories more OR less than what WAS working.

So if nothing changed, but your tracking, I would try the calorie level you were on before, and see if weight loss continues.. before I switched to whatever MFP pops out as a recommendation.

The settings are there to guide people who have no idea what works, and asks questions to get the best answer, but it isn't perfect. You seem to already have an idea what works. Congrats on the 46 lb. weight loss. I understand the desire to track everything, but in the end, you simply want results. I use MFP to track, but eat far more calories, than they suggest, and it works. Now, I could be worried, and try to get my settings to where they came out to 2200, by adjusting the answers to their questions, but all I really need to know is how many calories, and track what I eat.. I don't worry that MFP has a different set of goals for me. What I do works, and that is what the goal is.. not hitting some numbers.

So try " lightly active ", and see how it compares to what was working, then ask yourself if it makes sense, if you changed anything.. and either eat what you were eating, or if you think you changed, and the MFP recommendation makes sense, try that.. BUT let the results determine where you end up, based on your goals. The MFP numbers should get you close, but you have to fine tune it in the end.