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    Activity levels & exercise

    Posts: 173 Member
    edited January 19 in Fitness and Exercise
    A quick question;

    I am a reasonably active person. I walk a lot (10,000 - 15,000 steps per day) and workout most days.

    Up until now I've had my activity level set to sedentary then allowed my fitbit to award extra calories for walking and manually added exercise on the days I've worked out. I then aim to stay within my net calories (ie my calorie allowance plus I eat my exercise calories).

    My question is, if you are active, should;

    - your activity level be set to high and exercise not be recorded?
    - activity level be set to high PLUS record exercises and earn extra calories per workout?
    - activity level be set to low then add in steps / exercise on days they are actually performed and earn the calories that way? (What I am doing at the moment)


    Thanks in advance.

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    Replies

    • Posts: 17 Member
      Bump for later!
    • Posts: 173 Member
      Anyone? I'd be grateful for some feedback.
    • Posts: 1,418 Member
      I have mine set to lightly active, and I eat my TDEE-20% which puts me at 1900. I don't eat back calories since they are included already. I may bump up to moderately active now that I started Insanity, but I only burn about 350 calories a day with that.

      Also, I walk about 10,000 steps a day too, but I do that everyday so I don't include it.
    • Posts: 2
      BUMP! I'm not sure either.
    • Posts: 43
      What you are doing should work fine... However, if you walk 10 000 plus steps everyday, it would be less work for you to include that in your activity settings, then just log the extra workouts.
    • Posts: 3,515 Member
      I think it's mainly personal preference. You can:

      a) try to accurately log calories by using a fitbit or HRM and add them over and above your sedentary activity level TDEE. Or:

      b) you can set your activity level to include your exercise and then work off that total instead.

      (a) has the advantage that if you are doing cardio/hiking then a HRM/fitbit will give you the closest to an accurate burn you're going to get (as long as you set them up properly. Unfortunately if your exercise consists of weight training, then you are going to be hard pressed to find an accurate calorie burn. In these circumstance (b) is probably the best way of doing things.....
    • Posts: 7 Member
      Personally I do it similar to yourself. Congratulations on all the weight you have already lost. Guess you must be doing something right.
    • Posts: 61,406 Member
      You've lost over 80 pounds. We should be asking you questions. Trust your judgement as whatever you've been doing up to now is working. And working well
    • Posts: 531 Member
      This is a good question . I am set to active and try and eat back exercise calories. I use a hem, but I do know it doesn't give an accurate reading for strength training. I still use it for timing and so I add something. I am still losing loads. I am thinking when I go back to maintaining I might need to increase calories more . At the moment I am not worried about losing and am eating just below. I think I might have a high metabolism .
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