logging exercise

dr_tina

Just a question...are you guys logging all kinds of physical activity? For instance, I just went grocery shopping for an hour, do I put that down under walking? Also things like cleaning up around the house? I hardly consider these things a work-out, but given I am a very sedentary person 95% of the time, I think that it would raise my calorie amount.

luvbwfc

I would only log out and out exercise, not general day to day tasks, as these would fall under your activity level.

Sedentary <> in a coma never moving

rockerbabyy

when i first started out and had my activity level set to sedentary, i would log walking my kid to school, and all yard work. i would also log long shopping trips (ie costco, etc). when the walks to school started being easier, i changed my activity level to lightly active and i no longer log those or my shopping. i still log some yard work though - raking leaves it hard! lol

heybales

You can also add up that activity type stuff for a week and see what it adds on average every day.

And then go change your profile to a higher level of daily activity and see if the goals jump up too much or not high enough.

Then you can decide if you tweak the goals to somewhere inbetween.

The BMR is totally an estimate.

That is why some like the BodyBugg/Body Media/FitBit - they start with estimate but then move up or down based on your actual level of normal activity that doesn't register as exercise (if it involves arm movement anyway). But even there, if you make the setting for exercise to be too high a MET value (that's what they use), then a bunch more is tagged and used in BMR calculations.