Still confused...

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skyekeyes
skyekeyes Posts: 2 Member
in Getting Started
Hi, all.

I joined today and have been reading some of the posts on the message boards. I read the pinned thread entitled "Newbies Read Me," or something to that effect, about entering exercise numbers. Most of those early pertinent informational posts were quite wordy and I'm still not clear on the answer. I'm really not looking for a long explanation of the hows and whys, just a yes or no.

I selected "Sedentary" in my daily activity section. If I then enter my projected exercise activity in the Goals section at set-up, do I still enter it every day in the exercise diary?

Thanks for any clarification, and I apologize for beating the (seemingly) proverbial dead horse. :wink:

Replies

  • sybrix
    sybrix Posts: 134 Member
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    Yes, you will need to manually enter your exercise daily.
  • bumblebreezy91
    bumblebreezy91 Posts: 520 Member
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    Yep, enter everything you do and everything you eat everyday to get the most out of MFP. :)
  • jensiegel39
    jensiegel39 Posts: 163 Member
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    I'm new also, and it has been quite enlightening to enter my exercise and food every day. I didn't realize that I wasn't eating nearly enough calories until I did. I thought I was eating so much! And likely your exercise will vary each day unless you do exactly the same thing. Another tip people on here gave me is to purchase a heart rate monitor that counts burned calories and not to take the word of the gym machines. I bought one today, but I didn't calibrate it right so it wasn't accurate. But you want to be as accurate as possible to get a good picture of what you're doing or not doing. I didn't realize I was not eating enough fat, so I stepped it up with some peanut butter and cheese. And of course, my carbs were high, so I've identified ways to cut them. It's just such a helpful tool and has really made me change the way I think.

    Best of luck to you! Please feel free to friend me if you'd like!

    Jen :)
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
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    I selected "Sedentary" in my daily activity section. If I then enter my projected exercise activity in the Goals section at set-up, do I still enter it every day in the exercise diary?

    Yes. The exercise section of Goals plays no part in the calories calculation - it's simply a benchmark for you to measure your exercise against.

    It would benefit from a note to this effect, IMHO.
  • skyekeyes
    skyekeyes Posts: 2 Member
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    Thank you, everyone, for the replies. It's good to know entering the exercise in the goals section was just a benchmark and didn't affect any calculations.

    Jen, it's interesting to read your response about how you didn't realize you were eating too much of one food group and not enough of another. My carbs were actually low, but I've been a Type I diabetic since I was 12 and have migrated away from a lot of simple sugars, so that didn't surprise.me. What really did surprise me was how much sodium I was ingesting in just one day! I'm not a big one for adding table salt to food, but just simple salad dressing alone sent it through the roof. I'll have to definitely pay more attention from now on.

    I love looking at all your graphics reflecting your goals and how many pounds lost. Is that something that just appears on our profile, or do we need to add that somehow?

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