What should I set my activity level to?
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AnnaBellQ14
Posts: 109 Member
I started walking April 1 of this year. I have a fitbit and my goal is to walk 10,000 steps a day. Most days I meet my goal, but maybe twice a week I'm below, with my lowest number being 7800, one day. A lot of days I'm above the 10,000 mark. What should my activity level be in MFP? Right now I have it set to lightly active. My lowest week has been 73,000 steps a week. My highest week being 98,000 steps a week. The rest somewhere in between. What should I set my activity level to? Also, I swim 3 days a week and I usually enter 45 minutes for that, even though I might be in the water for longer. Just for reference, before I started walking for exercise, I used to average about 5,000 steps a day.
Thanks
Thanks
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Replies
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Since you have a Fitbit, whatever you feel most comfortable at. Sedentary will give you a lower base, but higher adjustments. Lightly active will have a higher base and lower adjustments. The only thing is to make sure you have negative adjustments enabled for the days you move less.0
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sedentary...it's based on pre exercise movement regardless of if you have a tracker or not.
I am lightly active pre exercise but because I have a tracker mine is set at sedentary to get the benefit of my tracker.0 -
sedentary...it's based on pre exercise movement regardless of if you have a tracker or not.
I am lightly active pre exercise but because I have a tracker mine is set at sedentary to get the benefit of my tracker.
Well that might be my problem I have mine set at lightly active...didn't even think of that...glad I decided to click into this post...thanks!
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It depends if your fitbit is linked to MFP or not. If it is, sedentary. If it's not, I'd go with lightly active.0
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AnnaBellQ14 wrote: »I have a fitbit and my goal is to walk 10,000 steps a day. Most days I meet my goal, but maybe twice a week I'm below, with my lowest number being 7800, one day. A lot of days I'm above the 10,000 mark. What should my activity level be in MFP? Right now I have it set to lightly active. My lowest week has been 73,000 steps a week. My highest week being 98,000 steps a week. The rest somewhere in between. What should I set my activity level to? Also, I swim 3 days a week and I usually enter 45 minutes for that, even though I might be in the water for longer.
Connect your accounts at http://www.myfitnesspal.com/fitbit
If (and only if) you enable negative calorie adjustments in your diary settings, then you can set your activity level to lightly active. Set your goal to .5 lb. per week for every 25 lbs. you're overweight: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/change_goals_guided
No need to log any step-based activity—your Fitbit is tracking it for you. Log non-step exercise (like swimming or biking) either in Fitbit (that's what I do) or in MFP—never both. Exercise logged in MFP overwrites your Fitbit burn during that time. Ignore your Fitbit calorie goal and follow MFP's, eating back your Fitbit adjustments.
You can learn more in the Fitbit Users group: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/1290-fitbit-users0 -
editorgrrl wrote: »AnnaBellQ14 wrote: »I have a fitbit and my goal is to walk 10,000 steps a day. Most days I meet my goal, but maybe twice a week I'm below, with my lowest number being 7800, one day. A lot of days I'm above the 10,000 mark. What should my activity level be in MFP? Right now I have it set to lightly active. My lowest week has been 73,000 steps a week. My highest week being 98,000 steps a week. The rest somewhere in between. What should I set my activity level to? Also, I swim 3 days a week and I usually enter 45 minutes for that, even though I might be in the water for longer.
Connect your accounts at http://www.myfitnesspal.com/fitbit
If (and only if) you enable negative calorie adjustments in your diary settings, then you can set your activity level to lightly active. Set your goal to .5 lb. per week for every 25 lbs. you're overweight: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/change_goals_guided
No need to log any step-based activity—your Fitbit is tracking it for you. Log non-step exercise (like swimming or biking) either in Fitbit (that's what I do) or in MFP—never both. Exercise logged in MFP overwrites your Fitbit burn during that time. Ignore your Fitbit calorie goal and follow MFP's, eating back your Fitbit adjustments.
You can learn more in the Fitbit Users group: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/1290-fitbit-users
I have them linked, but I don't have the negative calorie adjustments enabled yet. I will do that. As far as eating back the calories, do I eat them all, or just a portion, like I have seen in other threads?
The main reason I asked is because sometimes I have a lot of exercise calories. I usually go walking at 4 or 5 PM, so I don't get those calories until later in the day. Swimming is even later. So a lot of times, I have a lot of calories left over at the end of the day. For instance, yesterday I ate 1929 calories (1920 being my goal for the day from MFP), I had 520 exercise calories, with 511 left to eat. I did have a late night snack, but still, this is the norm for me during the week. On the weekend I eat more and also try to walk more.0 -
AnnaBellQ14 wrote: »editorgrrl wrote: »AnnaBellQ14 wrote: »I have a fitbit and my goal is to walk 10,000 steps a day. Most days I meet my goal, but maybe twice a week I'm below, with my lowest number being 7800, one day. A lot of days I'm above the 10,000 mark. What should my activity level be in MFP? Right now I have it set to lightly active. My lowest week has been 73,000 steps a week. My highest week being 98,000 steps a week. The rest somewhere in between. What should I set my activity level to? Also, I swim 3 days a week and I usually enter 45 minutes for that, even though I might be in the water for longer.
Connect your accounts at http://www.myfitnesspal.com/fitbit
If (and only if) you enable negative calorie adjustments in your diary settings, then you can set your activity level to lightly active. Set your goal to .5 lb. per week for every 25 lbs. you're overweight: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/change_goals_guided
No need to log any step-based activity—your Fitbit is tracking it for you. Log non-step exercise (like swimming or biking) either in Fitbit (that's what I do) or in MFP—never both. Exercise logged in MFP overwrites your Fitbit burn during that time. Ignore your Fitbit calorie goal and follow MFP's, eating back your Fitbit adjustments.
You can learn more in the Fitbit Users group: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/1290-fitbit-users
I have them linked, but I don't have the negative calorie adjustments enabled yet. I will do that. As far as eating back the calories, do I eat them all, or just a portion, like I have seen in other threads?
The main reason I asked is because sometimes I have a lot of exercise calories. I usually go walking at 4 or 5 PM, so I don't get those calories until later in the day. Swimming is even later. So a lot of times, I have a lot of calories left over at the end of the day. For instance, yesterday I ate 1929 calories (1920 being my goal for the day from MFP), I had 520 exercise calories, with 511 left to eat. I did have a late night snack, but still, this is the norm for me during the week. On the weekend I eat more and also try to walk more.
See what works for you. Some people are able to eat them all back (which should be the case for activity trackers, as it gives your TDEE), others only half. I have a Flex and do a lot of hands-on work at my job, so I try to leave some to account for extra steps that get picked up.0 -
We should all be looking for the maximum number of calories at which we lose weight—never the minimum. Eat back 100% of your adjustments for several weeks, reevaluate your progress, and adjust accordingly.
Unless you enable negative calorie adjustments, you'll never at at a true deficit whenever you burn fewer calories than your activity level.0 -
Okay. This is information I need also. I disabled negative adjustments because it take away calories in the evening AFTER I've already eaten. This causes me to go negative sometimes. How does a person account for that?0
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DoneWorking wrote: »Okay. This is information I need also. I disabled negative adjustments because it take away calories in the evening AFTER I've already eaten. This causes me to go negative sometimes. How does a person account for that?
My adjustments were wonky at first, but they got better—as if MFP was "learning" my routine.
Set your activity level to sedentary, and look at your nutrition for the past 7 days, not just today. (It's easier to see in the app.)0 -
AnnaBellQ14 wrote: »editorgrrl wrote: »AnnaBellQ14 wrote: »I have a fitbit and my goal is to walk 10,000 steps a day. Most days I meet my goal, but maybe twice a week I'm below, with my lowest number being 7800, one day. A lot of days I'm above the 10,000 mark. What should my activity level be in MFP? Right now I have it set to lightly active. My lowest week has been 73,000 steps a week. My highest week being 98,000 steps a week. The rest somewhere in between. What should I set my activity level to? Also, I swim 3 days a week and I usually enter 45 minutes for that, even though I might be in the water for longer.
Connect your accounts at http://www.myfitnesspal.com/fitbit
If (and only if) you enable negative calorie adjustments in your diary settings, then you can set your activity level to lightly active. Set your goal to .5 lb. per week for every 25 lbs. you're overweight: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/change_goals_guided
No need to log any step-based activity—your Fitbit is tracking it for you. Log non-step exercise (like swimming or biking) either in Fitbit (that's what I do) or in MFP—never both. Exercise logged in MFP overwrites your Fitbit burn during that time. Ignore your Fitbit calorie goal and follow MFP's, eating back your Fitbit adjustments.
You can learn more in the Fitbit Users group: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/1290-fitbit-users
I have them linked, but I don't have the negative calorie adjustments enabled yet. I will do that. As far as eating back the calories, do I eat them all, or just a portion, like I have seen in other threads?
The main reason I asked is because sometimes I have a lot of exercise calories. I usually go walking at 4 or 5 PM, so I don't get those calories until later in the day. Swimming is even later. So a lot of times, I have a lot of calories left over at the end of the day. For instance, yesterday I ate 1929 calories (1920 being my goal for the day from MFP), I had 520 exercise calories, with 511 left to eat. I did have a late night snack, but still, this is the norm for me during the week. On the weekend I eat more and also try to walk more.
See what works for you. Some people are able to eat them all back (which should be the case for activity trackers, as it gives your TDEE), others only half. I have a Flex and do a lot of hands-on work at my job, so I try to leave some to account for extra steps that get picked up.
This is exactly what I was wondering, to eat back all of it or not. Yesterday I swam and walk a lot, so my fitbit tells me I burned 3073 calories. So I had 937 exercise calories. I did managed to eat some of it back. But it was at 10 o'clock. I was going to have ice cream, but I thought it would defeat the whole purpose. So I had some fruit, a protein shake, and my normal snack for around this time of the day. Today I will try to eat more during the day, so I wouldn't have so many calories to consume at the end.
So if I activate negative adjustments, it would only take away calories in the morning when I haven't walked yet. Am I thinking about this right? Even now, without the negative calorie adjustment, I see fluctuations in the exercise calories after I get them, sometimes it goes up, and sometimes down, but not so it would take everything away. And it's only little adjustments, not like it's taking away 100 calories or something.0 -
AnnaBellQ14 wrote: »So if I activate negative adjustments, it would only take away calories in the morning when I haven't walked yet. Am I thinking about this right? Even now, without the negative calorie adjustment, I see fluctuations in the exercise calories after I get them, sometimes it goes up, and sometimes down, but not so it would take everything away. And it's only little adjustments, not like it's taking away 100 calories or something.
A negative calorie adjustment means MFP has predicted that by 11:59 p.m. you will have burned fewer calories than your MFP activity level. Click on any adjustment to see the math MFP used to calculate it.0 -
AnnaBellQ14 wrote: »AnnaBellQ14 wrote: »editorgrrl wrote: »AnnaBellQ14 wrote: »I have a fitbit and my goal is to walk 10,000 steps a day. Most days I meet my goal, but maybe twice a week I'm below, with my lowest number being 7800, one day. A lot of days I'm above the 10,000 mark. What should my activity level be in MFP? Right now I have it set to lightly active. My lowest week has been 73,000 steps a week. My highest week being 98,000 steps a week. The rest somewhere in between. What should I set my activity level to? Also, I swim 3 days a week and I usually enter 45 minutes for that, even though I might be in the water for longer.
Connect your accounts at http://www.myfitnesspal.com/fitbit
If (and only if) you enable negative calorie adjustments in your diary settings, then you can set your activity level to lightly active. Set your goal to .5 lb. per week for every 25 lbs. you're overweight: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/change_goals_guided
No need to log any step-based activity—your Fitbit is tracking it for you. Log non-step exercise (like swimming or biking) either in Fitbit (that's what I do) or in MFP—never both. Exercise logged in MFP overwrites your Fitbit burn during that time. Ignore your Fitbit calorie goal and follow MFP's, eating back your Fitbit adjustments.
You can learn more in the Fitbit Users group: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/1290-fitbit-users
I have them linked, but I don't have the negative calorie adjustments enabled yet. I will do that. As far as eating back the calories, do I eat them all, or just a portion, like I have seen in other threads?
The main reason I asked is because sometimes I have a lot of exercise calories. I usually go walking at 4 or 5 PM, so I don't get those calories until later in the day. Swimming is even later. So a lot of times, I have a lot of calories left over at the end of the day. For instance, yesterday I ate 1929 calories (1920 being my goal for the day from MFP), I had 520 exercise calories, with 511 left to eat. I did have a late night snack, but still, this is the norm for me during the week. On the weekend I eat more and also try to walk more.
See what works for you. Some people are able to eat them all back (which should be the case for activity trackers, as it gives your TDEE), others only half. I have a Flex and do a lot of hands-on work at my job, so I try to leave some to account for extra steps that get picked up.
This is exactly what I was wondering, to eat back all of it or not. Yesterday I swam and walk a lot, so my fitbit tells me I burned 3073 calories. So I had 937 exercise calories. I did managed to eat some of it back. But it was at 10 o'clock. I was going to have ice cream, but I thought it would defeat the whole purpose. So I had some fruit, a protein shake, and my normal snack for around this time of the day. Today I will try to eat more during the day, so I wouldn't have so many calories to consume at the end.
So if I activate negative adjustments, it would only take away calories in the morning when I haven't walked yet. Am I thinking about this right? Even now, without the negative calorie adjustment, I see fluctuations in the exercise calories after I get them, sometimes it goes up, and sometimes down, but not so it would take everything away. And it's only little adjustments, not like it's taking away 100 calories or something.
In the morning or if you aren't meeting enough calories for what MFP gives you. So say MFP calculates your maintenance calories to be 1800, and your goal to lose a pound a week is 1300. If you only burn, say, 1650 calories due to taking the day off for illness or whatever, MFP will adjust your goal intake down to 1200 (the minimum) because you don't need as many calories that day.0 -
AnnaBellQ14 wrote: »AnnaBellQ14 wrote: »editorgrrl wrote: »AnnaBellQ14 wrote: »I have a fitbit and my goal is to walk 10,000 steps a day. Most days I meet my goal, but maybe twice a week I'm below, with my lowest number being 7800, one day. A lot of days I'm above the 10,000 mark. What should my activity level be in MFP? Right now I have it set to lightly active. My lowest week has been 73,000 steps a week. My highest week being 98,000 steps a week. The rest somewhere in between. What should I set my activity level to? Also, I swim 3 days a week and I usually enter 45 minutes for that, even though I might be in the water for longer.
Connect your accounts at http://www.myfitnesspal.com/fitbit
If (and only if) you enable negative calorie adjustments in your diary settings, then you can set your activity level to lightly active. Set your goal to .5 lb. per week for every 25 lbs. you're overweight: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/change_goals_guided
No need to log any step-based activity—your Fitbit is tracking it for you. Log non-step exercise (like swimming or biking) either in Fitbit (that's what I do) or in MFP—never both. Exercise logged in MFP overwrites your Fitbit burn during that time. Ignore your Fitbit calorie goal and follow MFP's, eating back your Fitbit adjustments.
You can learn more in the Fitbit Users group: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/1290-fitbit-users
I have them linked, but I don't have the negative calorie adjustments enabled yet. I will do that. As far as eating back the calories, do I eat them all, or just a portion, like I have seen in other threads?
The main reason I asked is because sometimes I have a lot of exercise calories. I usually go walking at 4 or 5 PM, so I don't get those calories until later in the day. Swimming is even later. So a lot of times, I have a lot of calories left over at the end of the day. For instance, yesterday I ate 1929 calories (1920 being my goal for the day from MFP), I had 520 exercise calories, with 511 left to eat. I did have a late night snack, but still, this is the norm for me during the week. On the weekend I eat more and also try to walk more.
See what works for you. Some people are able to eat them all back (which should be the case for activity trackers, as it gives your TDEE), others only half. I have a Flex and do a lot of hands-on work at my job, so I try to leave some to account for extra steps that get picked up.
This is exactly what I was wondering, to eat back all of it or not. Yesterday I swam and walk a lot, so my fitbit tells me I burned 3073 calories. So I had 937 exercise calories. I did managed to eat some of it back. But it was at 10 o'clock. I was going to have ice cream, but I thought it would defeat the whole purpose. So I had some fruit, a protein shake, and my normal snack for around this time of the day. Today I will try to eat more during the day, so I wouldn't have so many calories to consume at the end.
So if I activate negative adjustments, it would only take away calories in the morning when I haven't walked yet. Am I thinking about this right? Even now, without the negative calorie adjustment, I see fluctuations in the exercise calories after I get them, sometimes it goes up, and sometimes down, but not so it would take everything away. And it's only little adjustments, not like it's taking away 100 calories or something.
In the morning or if you aren't meeting enough calories for what MFP gives you. So say MFP calculates your maintenance calories to be 1800, and your goal to lose a pound a week is 1300. If you only burn, say, 1650 calories due to taking the day off for illness or whatever, MFP will adjust your goal intake down to 1200 (the minimum) because you don't need as many calories that day.
Okay. So, I just set MFP to negative adjustments and I got -212 calories. MFP has me at 2139 calories and fitbit at 1927 calories burned for the day. So that difference is -212 calories. That makes total sense. Than you.0 -
AnnaBellQ14 wrote: »AnnaBellQ14 wrote: »AnnaBellQ14 wrote: »editorgrrl wrote: »AnnaBellQ14 wrote: »I have a fitbit and my goal is to walk 10,000 steps a day. Most days I meet my goal, but maybe twice a week I'm below, with my lowest number being 7800, one day. A lot of days I'm above the 10,000 mark. What should my activity level be in MFP? Right now I have it set to lightly active. My lowest week has been 73,000 steps a week. My highest week being 98,000 steps a week. The rest somewhere in between. What should I set my activity level to? Also, I swim 3 days a week and I usually enter 45 minutes for that, even though I might be in the water for longer.
Connect your accounts at http://www.myfitnesspal.com/fitbit
If (and only if) you enable negative calorie adjustments in your diary settings, then you can set your activity level to lightly active. Set your goal to .5 lb. per week for every 25 lbs. you're overweight: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/change_goals_guided
No need to log any step-based activity—your Fitbit is tracking it for you. Log non-step exercise (like swimming or biking) either in Fitbit (that's what I do) or in MFP—never both. Exercise logged in MFP overwrites your Fitbit burn during that time. Ignore your Fitbit calorie goal and follow MFP's, eating back your Fitbit adjustments.
You can learn more in the Fitbit Users group: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/1290-fitbit-users
I have them linked, but I don't have the negative calorie adjustments enabled yet. I will do that. As far as eating back the calories, do I eat them all, or just a portion, like I have seen in other threads?
The main reason I asked is because sometimes I have a lot of exercise calories. I usually go walking at 4 or 5 PM, so I don't get those calories until later in the day. Swimming is even later. So a lot of times, I have a lot of calories left over at the end of the day. For instance, yesterday I ate 1929 calories (1920 being my goal for the day from MFP), I had 520 exercise calories, with 511 left to eat. I did have a late night snack, but still, this is the norm for me during the week. On the weekend I eat more and also try to walk more.
See what works for you. Some people are able to eat them all back (which should be the case for activity trackers, as it gives your TDEE), others only half. I have a Flex and do a lot of hands-on work at my job, so I try to leave some to account for extra steps that get picked up.
This is exactly what I was wondering, to eat back all of it or not. Yesterday I swam and walk a lot, so my fitbit tells me I burned 3073 calories. So I had 937 exercise calories. I did managed to eat some of it back. But it was at 10 o'clock. I was going to have ice cream, but I thought it would defeat the whole purpose. So I had some fruit, a protein shake, and my normal snack for around this time of the day. Today I will try to eat more during the day, so I wouldn't have so many calories to consume at the end.
So if I activate negative adjustments, it would only take away calories in the morning when I haven't walked yet. Am I thinking about this right? Even now, without the negative calorie adjustment, I see fluctuations in the exercise calories after I get them, sometimes it goes up, and sometimes down, but not so it would take everything away. And it's only little adjustments, not like it's taking away 100 calories or something.
In the morning or if you aren't meeting enough calories for what MFP gives you. So say MFP calculates your maintenance calories to be 1800, and your goal to lose a pound a week is 1300. If you only burn, say, 1650 calories due to taking the day off for illness or whatever, MFP will adjust your goal intake down to 1200 (the minimum) because you don't need as many calories that day.
Okay. So, I just set MFP to negative adjustments and I got -212 calories. MFP has me at 2139 calories and fitbit at 1927 calories burned for the day. So that difference is -212 calories. That makes total sense. Than you.
This happens with me everyday first thing in the morning usually it takes away 50-60 calories but the more I move and by the end of the day I always have added calories. It takes some getting used to seeing the fluctuations in the numbers but they even out in the end and you get used to it0
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