Setting activity level + exercise calories

HabibaBassem

Hi, I workout 4-5 days a week for an hour, but I work a desk job. I want to eat in a deficit. Should I set my activity level to sedentary and each back my exercise calories, or set it to lightly active and not eat back my exercise calories?

There is the evil idea of setting it to sedentary and NOT eat back exercise calories, but I think this will be too harsh on me, as my deficit calories at sedentary lifestyle are 1200 calories 😫

csplatt

I sit at work and go with sedentary then log all my exercise to eat back

spiriteagle99

I do the same. It allowed me to lose 55 lbs. and maintain the loss for 10+ years. If your exercise is the same all the time, it can work to just average out the calories by adjusting your activity level, but if you do different exercise on different days (i.e. run 4 miles one day, 10 another, or pilates one day and swimming another) then logging and eating back the calories as you burn them is more accurate.

Mithridites

Sedentary. Then eat back 75% of the exercise calories you're given until your rate of weightloss confirms their accuracy. The data we get from activity trackers and exercise machines can be... overly generous.

AnnPT77

Either approach can work. Increasing the activity level to account for exercise is likely to work better in someone with a consistent exercise schedule over a typical week, less well for someone who's quite variable.

If you decide on the "increase activity level" option, you might consider cross-checking with a calculator like this one, which is more descriptive about different levels of activity, and lets you compare multiple research-based calorie needs estimating formulas:

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

Mithridites wrote: »

Sedentary. Then eat back 75% of the exercise calories you're given until your rate of weightloss confirms their accuracy. The data we get from activity trackers and exercise machines can be... overly generous.

I endorse the advice of comparing actual to expected results (averaged over 4-6 weeks, or whole menstrual periods if a person has those), then adjusting.

If there isn't extremely high exercise in the picture, then eating 50-75% of the exercise calories initially is likely to be fine (but so is 100%). Individuals will vary, not just in exercise calories, but in all aspects of the estimates.

I'd observe, though, that while activity trackers can over-estimate calorie needs, they can also under-estimate them. (When looking at 24 x 7 calorie estimates from a good tracker, they'll probably be reasonably close for most people, but a few people are statistically non-average in either direction, high or low.)

My good brand/model fitness tracker - actually two different ones so far - that gives reasonable estimates for others is 25-30% low in estimating my all-day calorie needs, as compared with around 9 years of reasonably meticulous calorie logging. That's hundreds of calories a day. That extreme an example is rare, but it can happen.

SoCalSwimmerDude

csplatt wrote: »

I sit at work and go with sedentary then log all my exercise to eat back

^ This

tomcustombuilder

HabibaBassem wrote: »

Hi, I workout 4-5 days a week for an hour, but I work a desk job. I want to eat in a deficit. Should I set my activity level to sedentary and each back my exercise calories, or set it to lightly active and not eat back my exercise calories?

There is the evil idea of setting it to sedentary and NOT eat back exercise calories, but I think this will be too harsh on me, as my deficit calories at sedentary lifestyle are 1200 calories 😫

What is your height and weight?

While 1200 sounds really low, for some small women that are sedentary outside of the gym it’s what it can take in order to be successful at fatloss.

These calculations by the app are strictly a jumping off point. Your weekly calorie decision in 4-6 weeks will be the telling factor. Pick something that sounds reasonable and stick with it for the previously mentioned timeframe and adjust accordingly at that point.

HoneyBadger302

Personally, I much prefer to eat about the same amount every day rather than more on days I workout - and trying to only eat back "half" of the exercise calories (as is generally recommended) gets to be more work than I want to sit there doings.
So I much prefer a TDEE (total daily energy expenditure), averaged over a week, and set my daily calories to the level that would be needed for the loss rate I'm going for.
I just don't do well with going up and down from one day to the next, plus cardio "hungries" tend to hit the next day for me, so again, just easier to eat about the same amount.

lynn_glenmont

tomcustombuilder wrote: »

HabibaBassem wrote: »

Hi, I workout 4-5 days a week for an hour, but I work a desk job. I want to eat in a deficit. Should I set my activity level to sedentary and each back my exercise calories, or set it to lightly active and not eat back my exercise calories?

There is the evil idea of setting it to sedentary and NOT eat back exercise calories, but I think this will be too harsh on me, as my deficit calories at sedentary lifestyle are 1200 calories 😫

What is your height and weight?

While 1200 sounds really low, for some small women that are sedentary outside of the gym it’s what it can take in order to be successful at fatloss.

These calculations by the app are strictly a jumping off point. Your weekly calorie decision in 4-6 weeks will be the telling factor. Pick something that sounds reasonable and stick with it for the previously mentioned timeframe and adjust accordingly at that point.

A daily goal of 1200 calories can also often be an indication of setting an overly aggressive loss-rate goal.