Torn on exercise calories/activity

topher347

I've been losing for almost 10 months now, down about 81 pounds in that time. 39m/139lbs,5'5.

In that time I've been not using exercise calories, and had my activity on active. My activity schedule is about the same most weeks

Sunday- lifting, about 1-1.5 hours (including rests)
Monday- rest day
Tuesday- lifting, cardio at work (walking about 4 miles at a 14-15 min/mile pace) I work a desk job but stand for about 80% of it, and walk around a bit while working as well.
Wednesday- same as Tuesday
Thursday & Friday- work and cardio, no lifting
Saturday- same as Sunday

On the work days with cardio, I get about 10-13k steps in. I've been taking an average of what my apple watch tracks for a combination of active and resting energy, which is about 2100.

Currently I'm set at 1800 calories and lightly active. I'm wondering if it would be better to go to sedentary since I work a desk job, and turn on exercise calories and eat at least most of them back, or possibly the same but at lightly active. I do track my cardio walks with my watch so those get logged, but I don't even try to estimate the cardio for my lifts, so I don't add those in at all.

My diary is open to peruse as well.

Thanks for any help!

AnnPT77

It's a personal preference.

We need to account for exercise calories somehow, especially once we reach maintenance.

We can average in the exercise calories, and eat the same number of calories every day. Or we can have a baseline number of calories based on our BMR and non-exercise activity, and add exercise calories in when we exercise, eating different numbers of calories on exercise days. We can even do a variant on that last thing, use the baseline non-exercise calories, add the exercise, eat the exercise calories that day or later (i.e., "calorie banking", such as by using the weekly views in the MFP app to balance calories).

Any of those will work. It's a matter of which serves a person's lifestyle best, IMO.

Personally, now in year 8 of maintaining after loss, I set my base calories based on my (personalized) non-exercise activity estimate, minus 100-150 calories to create a calorie bank whether I exercise or not. I estimate my exercise calories carefully, and log the exercise when I do it. I may eat the exercise calories that day (usually), or let them increase the bank. Once in a while, I like to have an indulgent meal or day (over maintenance calories); that's when I spend down the bank. In year 8, I don't track my calorie "bank account" super meticulously, though I do depend on it existing. I use the scale and clothes-fit to stay at a reasonable weight. That seems to work, too, for me.

My "whys": As a hedonist, I like the occasional indulgence. My main exercise choices (in caloric magnitude) are weather-dependent and seasonal. That makes average exercise calories a little harder to predict. I know that over the long haul - especially as an active aging woman (68) - I'll have episodes where I can't exercise much at all due to injury, illness, or the need for surgical recovery. That makes calorie banking and accounting for exercise separately be methods that work well for me.

Different things will work for different people, I think . . . during loss, and beyond. Personalization of tactics is key, IMO.

Retroguy2000

All you need to know is your Calories In and your weight change. That tells you what your maintenance is, and you can adjust your CI accordingly from there. How you choose to represent that in MFP is up to you. Pick whatever activity setting you want, log your exercise with calorie estimates if you want, or don't. As the Rock says, it doesn't matter. You already have all the information you need, it's just how you want to see it here in MFP. Personally, I'd suggest you pick an activity setting that's slightly above your desired CI (so that if you hit your desired CI you will see an encouraging sign of progress) and not log the exercise, and just track CI and weight. Know that if your exercise regimen changes, then your CI might need to adjust accordingly.

Btw, I glanced at your diary just to see how much protein you're getting, and you're getting plenty. Maybe a little bit more than you need for muscle growth (0.7g - 0.8g per pound is plenty), but that's completely fine.

topher347

Retroguy2000 wrote: »

All you need to know is your Calories In and your weight change. That tells you what your maintenance is, and you can adjust your CI accordingly from there. How you choose to represent that in MFP is up to you. Pick whatever activity setting you want, log your exercise with calorie estimates if you want, or don't. As the Rock says, it doesn't matter. You already have all the information you need, it's just how you want to see it here in MFP. Personally, I'd suggest you pick an activity setting that's slightly above your desired CI (so that if you hit your desired CI you will see an encouraging sign of progress) and not log the exercise, and just track CI and weight. Know that if your exercise regimen changes, then your CI might need to adjust accordingly.

Btw, I glanced at your diary just to see how much protein you're getting, and you're getting plenty. Maybe a little bit more than you need for muscle growth (0.7g - 0.8g per pound is plenty), but that's completely fine.

I'm thinking not logging the exercise is probably the best thing to stick with. I feel like I'd be off too much trying to estimate calories for lifting one way or another. At this point I do still seem to be slowly losing at 1800, so I'll stick with that until I feel it needs to go down, or I hit a point where I'm comfortable switching to lean bulking.

I did switch up my protein goal a bit, and will see how that goes. I find I have an easier time eating more protein than the new higher carb goal, but will see how it goes.

Thank you both for the advice!