Determining Fitness Level?

Koifish07

Hi all,

I've had MyFitnessPal for a while, but only really started my weight loss journey 60 days ago, just after Labor Day weekend. As a graphic designer, I spend the majority of my work days at my chair. So I marked the lowest level of activity in my profile.

That being said, every day since Labor Day weekend, I've walked regularly for an hour, sometimes more, every night to end my day. Does that mean I should change my level of activity, or does being an office worker mean I should keep that particular setting as is.

I'm mostly curious because I want to know how that affects my calorie goals for losing weight. Thanks ahead of time for your responses.

spiriteagle99

Your activity level is determined by what you do outside of deliberate exercise, i.e. work and home life. If you are sedentary most of the time, that is your activity level. MFP expects you to log your deliberate exercise separately, since most of us don't do the same thing every single day. Log your walks and see how many extra calories that gives you. It can be encouragement to be consistent in the activity or to do more. Some people eat only half their exercise calories, some eat 100%. Try one method and see if your weight loss is in line with expectations. Adjust as needed.

Koifish07

spiriteagle99 wrote: »

Your activity level is determined by what you do outside of deliberate exercise, i.e. work and home life. If you are sedentary most of the time, that is your activity level. MFP expects you to log your deliberate exercise separately, since most of us don't do the same thing every single day. Log your walks and see how many extra calories that gives you. It can be encouragement to be consistent in the activity or to do more. Some people eat only half their exercise calories, some eat 100%. Try one method and see if your weight loss is in line with expectations. Adjust as needed.

Thanks for your response @spiriteagle99

I think that's all I really needed to know. The results have been speaking for themselves, so I don't think I'll be changing anything any time soon. That said, what you said makes a lot of sense.

cwolfman13

Koifish07 wrote: »

Hi all,

I've had MyFitnessPal for a while, but only really started my weight loss journey 60 days ago, just after Labor Day weekend. As a graphic designer, I spend the majority of my work days at my chair. So I marked the lowest level of activity in my profile.

That being said, every day since Labor Day weekend, I've walked regularly for an hour, sometimes more, every night to end my day. Does that mean I should change my level of activity, or does being an office worker mean I should keep that particular setting as is.

I'm mostly curious because I want to know how that affects my calorie goals for losing weight. Thanks ahead of time for your responses.

There are two primary methods for calorie counting which are NEAT (Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis), which is what MFP uses, and TDEE. MFP is designed where your activity level is your day to day hum drum and you log deliberate exercise after the fact for which you will be allocated more calories to your base to account for that activity.

TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) attempts to account for all of your daily activity up front in your activity level. Done correctly and comparing apples to apples rate of loss goals, they're basically 6 of 1, half dozen of the other.

Pros of the NEAT method are that it can help teach you what your body actually needs to fuel your fitness. The biggest con is that it can be difficult to accurately estimate calories out for a given activity or exercise. It also typically results in your calorie target being variable, sometimes highly variable depending on what you're doing.

TDEE works well for people who exercise regularly and it's just a daily habit and the amount and duration of exercise is relatively the same day to day and week to week. As a regular exerciser I prefer it to the NEAT method, though the NEAT method is what I started with here on MFP.

Also keep in mind that the descriptor for sedentary describes a desk job...many people who have desk jobs aren't really sedentary even without deliberate exercise. I have a desk job, but even without deliberate exercise I'm light active as I do get up and move about the office quite a bit during the day and when I get home I'm usually up and on my feet doing stuff for at least a couple of hours before I sit down to eat dinner...cooking, cleaning, playing with my kids, etc. Sedentary is a reasonable place to start if you have a desk job, but I found that I was losing weight quite a bit faster than I intended to so switched mine to light active and then logged my deliberate exercise after the fact.

cmriverside

Just as a general FYI:

Every bump "up" in Activity Level on MFP gives me 250 more calories to my base calories (before exercise calories.)

If it gives 1500 for Sedentary, then it will give 1750 for Lightly Active.


Just play around with it in the Goals section. There are many ways to customize how you use this site.



I have been not-working for 15 years. I live in a pretty tiny condo, so not a lot of required daily work to keep it going. No yardwork. MFP gives me way too few calories if I choose Sedentary - even though by all accounts I am sedentary.

Just as cwolfman13 said above, I am also set at "Active" and I eat 300 calories more than that when I walk outdoors on hilly terrain daily for an hour.

You really do have to do your own experimentation and collect your own data. The calculator is just a tool to get you started.