What is my activity level?

HI there, I need some help please. I am doing well on my weight loss journey and BMI dropped from 34 to 31. Now a big part of this is my activity level. I am undertaking a minimum of 30 minutes aerobic exercise, 6 days a week. It's generally 45-60 mins but at least 30. So with that in mind why should my activity level be?

Answers

  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,420 Member
    Well, on myfitnesspal it asks you to choose an Activity Level that is only your day to day regular routine.

    It then asks you to add in any additional purposeful exercise in the Exercise section, and then it gives you more calories to use. Here is the explanation: https://support.myfitnesspal.com/hc/en-us/articles/360032625391-How-does-MyFitnessPal-calculate-my-initial-goals


    With that said, you have already lost a significant amount of weight so you know how much approximately to eat. You can set your own calorie goal in the Goals section if you would prefer to do it that way.
  • Retroguy2000
    Retroguy2000 Posts: 1,848 Member
    You've been losing weight for a while. If your calories in and activity has been consistent, then you can work out your TDEE yourself.

    e.g. if your CI is 2,000 and you're losing 1 pound per week, that's 500 per day, so your TDEE is currently 2,500.

    That's all you need.

    If you're really curious, you can enter your data in here and pick the activity level which most closely matches your computed TDEE. Remember that unlike MFP, this calculator is your total activity, whereas MFP defines it as day to day activity not including workouts.

    https://www.sailrabbit.com/bmr/
  • westrich20940
    westrich20940 Posts: 921 Member
    MFP doesn't care about your intentional exercise when it asks what your 'activity level' is.

    If you've been doing this for a while and this activity is a typical/consistent part of your life - I'd honestly switch to using a TDEE calculator (which will include intentional exercise) and then manually set your calorie goal from there and then just don't log your workouts in MFP anymore.

    But, if you do still want to do it all through MFP --- for your activity level what's your job? If it's a desk job...and the only activity you typically do is your intentional exercise you've listed...your activity level is 'sedentary' and then log those activities.

    How are you determining your caloric needs currently?
  • tomcustombuilder
    tomcustombuilder Posts: 2,229 Member
    HI there, I need some help please. I am doing well on my weight loss journey and BMI dropped from 34 to 31. Now a big part of this is my activity level. I am undertaking a minimum of 30 minutes aerobic exercise, 6 days a week. It's generally 45-60 mins but at least 30. So with that in mind why should my activity level be?
    Figure what your current weekly calories are and stick with those.

    No reason to re invent the wheel and potentially harm your progress. You can set your own calorie goal so I'd just do that as that's what many of us do rather than using activity level and calories burned to figure things out.