Activity Level Settings

joannat2508

Hi
I am using MFP to assist with my weight loss. When it asked me to pick activity level I chose lightly active. I work in an office and mostly sit at my desk but sometimes can be out and about as I work on Real Estate, I drive to work.
I am also training for a long course Triathlon but this is in November so at present am using the next 20 weeks to build base level fitness.
I aim to do something 5-6 days per week either swim, run, bike or walk and can burn approx 200-600 calories per session depending on what I do. I mainly do not use my exercise calories when eating.
I am not sure which level or activity to put for myself and although I do sit mostly at work lightly active is probably too low on calories for the amount I am burning on average each week thus making me consume way too low.
I am looking for some advice and more info on the active levels.
Thanks

billbiggers06

I was wondering the same. The level guidance is occupation biased. I work at the desk, but at home and I rarely sit for long. I ride my bike several times a week around 15 miles with 1,000’ elevation and do other exercise. I am getting 1650 calories, which seems low for me (5’9” 199lbs). I have found the exercise calories to be overly generous and I’m trying to use about half of them at most.

mtaratoot

@joannat2508 and @billbiggers06

If your non-exercise activity level is sitting at a desk, lightly active might be the right setting. Then when you do intentional exercise, be sure to log it. Your calorie goal will increase with exercise, and you should eat to your new "plus exercise" goal. That's how MFP works. You get a calorie goal that assumes you aren't doing intentional exercise. That's because many times when people INTEND to exercise, they don't. Then if they eat as if they did exercise.... you know what happens.

When you run to train for a triathalon or go for a 15-mile bike ride, log those. Then eat the calories.

If you have a fitness tracking device, you might consider setting your activity level to sedentary if not lightly active. Your device should sync with MFP and you will automatically have your calorie goal increased. If you choose a higher level of activity, you may not see the calorie increase unless and until you get that much activity logged on your device. And once again, if you don't get that much activity but eat as if you did.... Don't do that.

I hope that helps, and I hope you find success here on MFP. It has some great tools!

AnnPT77

billbiggers06 wrote: »

I was wondering the same. The level guidance is occupation biased. I work at the desk, but at home and I rarely sit for long. I ride my bike several times a week around 15 miles with 1,000’ elevation and do other exercise. I am getting 1650 calories, which seems low for me (5’9” 199lbs). I have found the exercise calories to be overly generous and I’m trying to use about half of them at most.

Good advice from Mtaratoot, as usual. His post probably made it obvious why the MFP level descriptions are occupation based: That's the main source of calorie burn above our resting metabolic rate for most of us. Then we're supposed to log and eat exercise, as he said.

If a person doesn't want a varying daily calorie goal (because exercise varies), a better route would be to use a TDEE calculator outside MFP where you can average in your exercise plans. (Of course, it's then important to actually do that planned exercise or the calorie estimate will be wrong!)

This is the TDEE calculator I like best:

https://www.sailrabbit.com/bmr/

I like that one because it has more activity levels with better descriptions than most other TDEE calculators, plus lets you compare multiple research-based estimating formulas, including some that will consider body fat percent, if you're the rare person who has a good estimate for that. (Those home scales that claim to estimate body fat tend not to be reliably accurate.)

All those options make the user interface kind of complicated and scary looking at first glance, but if you take a moment, it will make sense.

Any calculator (or MFP or your fitness tracker) will only give you an estimate that amounts to a population average for people similar to you on the small number of data points we enter into it. Most people will be close to average in calorie needs, but some will be noticeably higher or lower, and a rare few quite surprisingly far off in either direction. That's the nature of statistical estimates. It's not so much that the calculator is inaccurate, it's that each of us is more or less average.

Use some estimate and a consistent set of practices for 4-6 weeks (whole menstrual cycles if that applies), then adjust based on your personal results.

In that sense, it's fine to take your best guess at the right MFP activity level, track carefully, then see what results after that multi-week experiment. An imprecise initial guess at activity level is unlikely to be the difference between loss and gain - it's most likely to be no more than a little slower or a little faster than the perfect setting, if you're somewhere around the boundary of the descriptions. It's not worth agonizing over. Just run the experiment, then you'll know.

One last comment: Letting exercise calories increase your calorie deficit (for faster weight loss) can potentially increase health risks, compromise exercise performance, and make it hard to stick with a routine long enough to lose a meaningful total amount of weight. Faster weight loss isn't always a good thing.

Best wishes for long-term success!

joannat2508

Thanks all - I will stick to the settings and consume some of my exercise calories