Need help with my activity level

frankensteinsbride28
frankensteinsbride28 Posts: 50
in Health and Weight Loss
Hello!
I work a desk job 8 hours a day with a 2 hour commute. I am beginning to work out today, i will be working out at least 4 times a week. I am wondering, If when I start doing my work out each day, will this change my activity level? If so, any suggestions as to what I should change it to?

My main problem when dieting is that i dont eat enough, and now that I will be bring excersize into the picture, I dont want to make it worse. Also, I dont want to say im more active than i am and start eating too much. Help is greatly appreciated!

Replies

  • jshinoff
    jshinoff Posts: 25 Member
    You should have your activity level as sedentary and use either an activity monitor (Nike Fuel Band) or HRM (such as adidas micoach) to estimate caloric burn of your exercise sessions.
  • frankensteinsbride28
    frankensteinsbride28 Posts: 50
    thanks so much for the advice!
  • aegiirl
    aegiirl Posts: 9 Member
    Try not to think of dieting as a negative thing. I think of dieting as watching what I eat and occasionally being more strict about it. Instead of restricting your diet, try to eat more natural foods, and try new recipes. I have found that I eat more food when eating healthy and I feel better too. :)
    Also if you are a coffee drinker, try to cut back or cut it out. there are a lot of mixed messages about coffee... I love it, but the caffeine causes me to be dehydrated.
    Which leads me to drink LOTS of water especially if you are trying to be more active.
    Maybe even think about getting a posture correcting chair if you work at a desk. And engage those abs and stand/sit up straight! :)
    You can do this!
  • marc8686
    marc8686 Posts: 199 Member
    you absolutely HAVE to eat plenty of food. eating too little will be counterproductive, your body will react and actually lose weight SLOWER. you need to be eating 4-5 times a day to reach your caloric net goal for the day. this will help boost your metabolism......soon you wont be able to help it, you will feel hungry 2-3 hours after each meal. start eating a big healthy breakfast, a morning snack and a large nutritious lunch, then a few more half meals throughout the rest of the day.
  • frankensteinsbride28
    frankensteinsbride28 Posts: 50
    It's so hard, because I beat myself up and get almost scared to eat because weigh in day is creeping up on me and god forbid I put on that extra .4 of a pound.
    I really appreciate the post, that's such a good way to look at it and I will definately try and think of it in a more positive way.
  • pkw58
    pkw58 Posts: 2,038 Member
    You should have your activity level as sedentary and use either an activity monitor (Nike Fuel Band) or HRM (such as adidas micoach) to estimate caloric burn of your exercise sessions.

    I have the dreaded sedentary desk job and I haven been using the nike fuel band for a few months now. I walk to the bathroom that is farthest from my office, walk the tunnels downtown at lunch, take the stairs. Park my car in the farthest corner of the parking garage. You name it, I walk it. My husband uses a fitbit.

    I left my settings on sedentary but now that I am trying to maintain my weight I will see what I need to do calorie wise… I will just keep logging and adjusting.
  • Lovestoscrapbook
    Lovestoscrapbook Posts: 295 Member
    I work 10 hours a day typically with a 45 minute commute each way so we have similar "low level" comparisons in terms of physical activity. Even when I started working out, I left my level at "sedentary". Any calories gained back in exercise are a bonus in terms of being able to enjoy something I wouldn't on a day I don't exercise.
  • tvanhooser
    tvanhooser Posts: 326 Member
    You should have your activity level as sedentary and use either an activity monitor (Nike Fuel Band) or HRM (such as adidas micoach) to estimate caloric burn of your exercise sessions.

    This! I agree....but if you don't have a heart rate monitor handy right away, I find the heart-rate based calorie calculator at shapesense.com helpful to give a more accurate estimate of calorie burn than I get here. You just have to take your pulse when you're finished with a workout and plug in all the numbers. It's even more accurate if you know (from a doctor's test) or estimate it with the tool (you should see the link on the shapesense page) your VO2max. That's what I use since I don't have an HRM and it sure beats a generic calculation cause it takes into consideration my current age, weight, VO2max, exercise duration and heart rate from that exercise. Hope that helps!
  • marc8686
    marc8686 Posts: 199 Member
    It's so hard, because I beat myself up and get almost scared to eat because weigh in day is creeping up on me and god forbid I put on that extra .4 of a pound.
    I really appreciate the post, that's such a good way to look at it and I will definately try and think of it in a more positive way.

    i understand. the thing to keep in mind is that FOOD is not the enemy. food is the fuel that runs your body. Food is a VERY good thing.

    1) The enemy is eating the WRONG foods more than eating too much.
    2) avoid processed foods, sweets, fried food, soda, etc.
    3) hit your daily calorie goal eating 3-5 times a day,
    4) make your meals in the morning and midday bigger than the evening

    follow a few simple guidelines like that and youll be fine. if youre serious about a long term lifestyle change, id recommend investing in a genetic test like i did to get personalized diet and exercise instructions based on your DNA. not everybody's body reacts the same to certain exercises and diets. watch this for a brief idea of what im talking about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hH_kOy5Y7E i can explain it further if you are interested.

    marc
  • TrinaJ11
    TrinaJ11 Posts: 159 Member
    Something that's helped me figure out how to set my activity levels is advice I got from someone else. If you workout 1-3 days a week set it to lightly active, 3-5 days a week should be active, and 5-7 days a week very active. Sedentary should only be used if you don't work out...at all. I honestly swear by this.
  • Pebble321
    Pebble321 Posts: 6,423 Member
    Something that's helped me figure out how to set my activity levels is advice I got from someone else. If you workout 1-3 days a week set it to lightly active, 3-5 days a week should be active, and 5-7 days a week very active. Sedentary should only be used if you don't work out...at all. I honestly swear by this.

    This only applies if you aren't using MFP's method of adding in exercise later. It's a good idea for people who freak out about "eating back exercise cals".

    OP, if you can get a good mindset around "food = fuel for exercise" then you can stick with your sedentary activity level and add in your exercise as you do it each day. HRM's are nice to have but not essential. I just used MFP's numbers last year and they worked fine for me.

    If you get too freaked out about adding extra cals to your diary every day, then MztRii's suggestion above is a great solutions.

    Either way you will be eating more to fuel the exercise - the only difference is whether you add in exercise (and cals) each time you do it, or whether you estimate it up front and have it already included in your total. The numbers are going to work out about the same either way.
  • TrinaJ11
    TrinaJ11 Posts: 159 Member
    Something that's helped me figure out how to set my activity levels is advice I got from someone else. If you workout 1-3 days a week set it to lightly active, 3-5 days a week should be active, and 5-7 days a week very active. Sedentary should only be used if you don't work out...at all. I honestly swear by this.

    This only applies if you aren't using MFP's method of adding in exercise later. It's a good idea for people who freak out about "eating back exercise cals".

    OP, if you can get a good mindset around "food = fuel for exercise" then you can stick with your sedentary activity level and add in your exercise as you do it each day. HRM's are nice to have but not essential. I just used MFP's numbers last year and they worked fine for me.

    If you get too freaked out about adding extra cals to your diary every day, then MztRii's suggestion above is a great solutions.

    Either way you will be eating more to fuel the exercise - the only difference is whether you add in exercise (and cals) each time you do it, or whether you estimate it up front and have it already included in your total. The numbers are going to work out about the same either way.

    Actually I do eat back most of my exercise calories and have lost consistently 1lb every week as I have it set. I guess every person is different but it worked for me.
  • frankensteinsbride28
    frankensteinsbride28 Posts: 50
    Thank you everyone for the great advice. I will take all of it I can get!
  • marc8686
    marc8686 Posts: 199 Member
    the "eat back your exercise calories" debate has never made sense to me. its really quite simple. a calorie is FUEL to your body. your MFP caloric goal is set based on having a NET (total for the day) calorie count 2,000 calorie deficit (unless you change it manually) to lose X lbs per week. my point is this, think of it in terms of a financial ledger.....you have an income column (calories eaten) and an expense column (calories burnt). it doesnt matter how you cut it, you still want your total balance for the day to be the recommended value below. think of your daily calorie goal as a negative number. mine is 2300. so i start the day with a ledger of -2300. the goal is to get this calorie ledger to 0 calories, at which point my caloric intake for the day is the recommended calorie deficit to lose weight. when i eat a 700 calorie breakfast, thats +700 so my ledger for the day is now -1600. then i have a 200 calorie snack thats +200, balance is -1400. lunch 600 calories (+600) so balance = -800. now when i go work out and burn 300 calories, thats -300 from my ledger for the day, im back to a calorie balance of -1100. so to get back to a zero calorie balance for the day. your net calories should get as close to zero as often as possible, to do this, i cant just eat 2300 calories of food and call it good. if i did a 500 calorie workout that day..........then my calorie ledger for the day is still at -500 after eating 2300 calories. its a simple logical plus and minus to end the day with a proper calorie deficit to lose weight. having too big of a calorie deficit will lead your body to thinking calories are in short supply and it needs to store more and burn less (less weight lost)

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