figuring out calorie burn-am I doing it right?

stjeanmama

I just joined 12 days ago and this site tells me to put in my ht/wt and weight goal etc and gives me calories to consume if I did nothing but sit on the couch every day...or words to that effect. Since I rarely, if ever, do that I have been calculating my walking each day into exercise log in addition to my workouts. I am a busy mom of 4 teenagers during most days and I am a nurse and work 12 hr nights and frequently don't stop moving during my shift. It averages out to give me an extra 1000 calories over my goal. Is this really true? I have lost 3lbs in the first week and my wieghin is mondays...but it seems like I should be skinnier? Is there a magic formula to figure in a slowing metabolism? Any ideas or feedback would help me. Thanks

AmyRhubarb

Are you saying you're logging your workouts as well as the walking you do on your job as a nurse? If so, rather than log the walking on the job, I would change your activity level to Active if it's not set on that already, then just log your actual workouts as exercise. MFP will base your daily calories on the info you've entered like you said (height, weight, goal) and the activity level you've entered, so you don't need to add your work to your daily exercise - it will be figured in already. If you add it on top of that, you may end up consuming more than you should for the day.

Awesome job on the weight you've lost already!

aippolito1

If you are a nurse and work a lot, you should be lightly active if not active, especially considering you say you run around with your kids a lot. I would say don't log work, just change your goals to lightly active (it sounds like you're set to "sedentary") and then log actual exercise. If you WENT for a walk, did yoga, went kickboxing, rock climbing, etc. log it.