Which one is the correct way?

essa78
essa78 Posts: 44 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Do I put my activity level at lightly active and then not turn on my Map My Ride app?
Or do I put myself at sedentary and let the app add my exercise?

I have a desk job but I ride my bike to and from work (6-8 miles) where I sit the large majority of the day. I play with the kids and do yoga or swim on the weekends. Sometimes this stuff gets logged, sometimes not. I try to put most stuff in unless I think it's not going to matter.

What is the best way to accurately gauge my total daily calories?

I'm not crazy worried about it, I'm just kinda curious.

Replies

  • Capt_Apollo
    Capt_Apollo Posts: 9,026 Member
    the map my whatever apps are pretty inaccurate as far as calories burned goes.

    if you're a little inconsistent with logging exercise, the best thing for you to do is to figure out your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) and subtract 10-20% from the number, and try to eat that amount every day WITHOUT logging any calories burned.
  • 12_oz_Curls
    12_oz_Curls Posts: 140 Member
    Curious to hear some answers, as I have debated the same myself for a while. I just currently set it to my goal daily intake and let the app add the calories. (If that makes sense)
  • 34blast
    34blast Posts: 166 Member
    I've always marked myself as sedentary, then add in all exercise. Seems simple to me that way. This errors on the conservative side
    Cardio workout track it
    Mow the yard track it
    Bike to work, track it
    Play a sport, track it
    Weight lifting, I don't track, probably only adds < 100 calories in my workout
    Playing with kids, walking around the house, skip it
  • gobonas99
    gobonas99 Posts: 1,049 Member
    I always put sedentary and add my exercise (but I ONLY add intentional exercise - ie if I were you, I would log biking to/from work, swimming (if laps), and yoga....but NOT playing with the kids, general paddling around the pool with the kids, etc). Also, the calorie burn calc'd by MapMyRun is WAY overestimated (it was more than DOUBLE what my HRM calcd - and my HRM calcs on the high side because I have a high working HR). So I would not sync MMR to MFP, but rather manually enter in MFP using half the cals burned from MMR (until I got my garmin connect account set up, and now I use that with the cals burned per my hrm).

    I also usually only eat back half my exercise calories, anyway.
  • essa78
    essa78 Posts: 44 Member
    Ya'll ROCK, thanks so much for the advice!! Off to calculate my goals!! :flowerforyou: :bigsmile:
  • ana3067
    ana3067 Posts: 5,623 Member
    If you consistently ride your bike on a regular schedule, then you can say lightly active if you'd like and then not log any biking unless it's on top of your normal stuff.

    Or calculate your estimated caloric needs both with and without the biking to see how much they differ, subtract 20% to see how much they differ (these deficits would be your caloric consumption for fat loss), and if you feel like you'll have an easier time doing things by including biking into your regular average calorie needs then go ahead. I am likely going to include weight lifting into my calculation once I switch to maintenance and bulk just to make things easier, but I'm inconsistent with cardio so I'd rather log it. Atm I'm eating totally net and logging all exercise.

    http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/CalRequire.html

    MFP is *kitten* for calculating your caloric needs, btw. Please never use it for your estimations, jsut use it as a diary.

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