Confused!

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scarletthais
scarletthais Posts: 10 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi everyone!

I'm sorry if this question has been asked loads, but I've been searching and found no answers yet.

I've just started using the app and I've been logging every day since Tuesday last week. In October I started jogging twice a week, rowing twice a week, and aiming to get at least 5000 steps a day (I work from home).

I joined MFP a few years ago but I've just decided to start using properly. I've noticed today that my activity was set to Inactive, so I changed it to active to see what would happen and my daily calorie allowance shot through the roof.

I really need to lose weight. Lots of weight! So I don't want the app telling me, that as a female, I can eat 2500 calories a day! On the other hand I don't want to lie to it if there's a perfectly good reason I should be eating more than I have been this week (about 1300 a day is the idea...but I went out drinking twice...Gonna cut down on that) So what is the reason, especially as It already logs my steps and activity from other apps?

Any insights are so much appreciated!

Replies

  • scarletthais
    scarletthais Posts: 10 Member
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    Ahhh... so is the activity level just about how much you move around? Like housework etc?
  • RelCanonical
    RelCanonical Posts: 3,882 Member
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    The activity level is based on how you are generally throughout the day, and does not include "standard" exercise, which is added on as you do it. For example, if you have an office job where you sit all day, you should set your activity level as sedentary. If you have manual labor job (like amazon warehouse or something) you should set it as active. There are jobs that are in-between where you stand all day, like a teacher. Those are lightly active. Set your activity level based on that, and then log exercise.
  • scarletthais
    scarletthais Posts: 10 Member
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    Excellent, thanks, it's a bit clearer now.
  • allyphoe
    allyphoe Posts: 618 Member
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    How tall / heavy are you? I'm 43, 5'3ish, and about 145, and I maintain on 2,100 calories plus intentional exercise. 2,500 calories is not necessarily an overestimate for you.
  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,522 Member
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    @malibu927 said it perfectly. Good way to get started. Let me add that I favor putting it a 1lb loss per week (not more). If you use -1lb/week and sedentary, log carefully, and are conservative about eating back exercise cals, you'll lose a bit more than a lb a week in a pretty sustainable way.

    Be strong and carry on!
  • __TMac__
    __TMac__ Posts: 1,665 Member
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    More data points for you:

    I work at home too. I'm lucky if I get 3k steps a day. I work out vigorously for 30m to 1h a day (rowing is my primary sport as well). I'm set to sedentary and 1 lb/wk, and eat back my exercise cals. I take the rowing cals the C2 gives me at face value; I reduce running and biking cals (estimated by MapMyRun) by about 25%.

    55 lbs down, 23 to go. :)
  • RobBasss
    RobBasss Posts: 65 Member
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    The activity level really needs to be renamed or a caveat added, I had it on moderately active, because I workout 5x a week, I was overeating for months :/ Now that I have it set correctly, down 3lbs and counting.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,982 Member
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    scarletthais wrote: »
    Ahhh... so is the activity level just about how much you move around? Like housework etc?

    Activity Level refers to your job:

    w66thwdus9r7.jpg

  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,522 Member
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    Playing with the settings, the added calories for lightly active, active, very active appear to add 15%, 40%, and 44% to what you get for sedentary.

    BTW: This is a very similar calculator and the page also shows the "Mifflin - St. Jeor" formula on which this is all based:

    http://www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 13,796 Member
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    5k steps is the upper bound of sedentary.

    Sedentary is just shortcut for Mifflin St jeor's.bmr x activity factor of 1.25. (x1.4, x1.6, x1.8 for.the.other settings)

    Translation.... everything you do that doesn't exceed 3.5k to 5k steps is already included in your sedentary calories.

    Anything beyond that... Isn't.

    For the op I would just add rowing as an exercise unless i was losing faster than expected.

    If a connected tracker is connected and negative adjustments are enabled, then MFP takes your calories out to be as estimated by the tracker.

    The calories to be eaten are then based on the tracker's estimate of your calories out for the day.
  • scarletthais
    scarletthais Posts: 10 Member
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    kshama2001 wrote: »
    scarletthais wrote: »
    Ahhh... so is the activity level just about how much you move around? Like housework etc?

    Activity Level refers to your job:

    w66thwdus9r7.jpg

    Thanks, it must have told me this when I set it all up 3 years ago, and I forgot about it.
  • scarletthais
    scarletthais Posts: 10 Member
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    allyphoe wrote: »
    How tall / heavy are you? I'm 43, 5'3ish, and about 145, and I maintain on 2,100 calories plus intentional exercise. 2,500 calories is not necessarily an overestimate for you.

    I'm 29, 5'9 and around 119kg
  • tinkerbellang83
    tinkerbellang83 Posts: 9,073 Member
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    I am 33 5'8" and started out at 116kg, on days when I work out I eat around 2400 calories (I am down to 103kg and still losing eating this), on rest days I aim for 1600-1800 and have been losing a 1lb per week.

    You will want to make sure the calorie goal that you are set at is sustainable, for you to be aiming for around 1300 I reckon with similar stats to my start stats you have yourself as 2lb per week loss, you could drop it down to 1.5lb/1lb per week and increase your calorie goal. Yes it will be a slower rate you lose at, but then you can fit in an occasional drink in.

    If you stick at 1300/2lb per week be sure to eat back your exercise calories (or at least some of them) so you don't burn yourself out.
  • Silentpadna
    Silentpadna Posts: 1,306 Member
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    The activity level you set, if accurate, will give you lower calorie adjustments for your normal activity. If you are somewhat constant, you should see similar adjustments every day. If you are active and your settings are sedentary, your exercise adjustments (the MFP calorie recommendations) will be large.

    For example, when I was learning, I had it set for sedentary, as a lot of folks here do and recommend, but my calorie adjustments would be 1500 sometimes because I get about 13K steps per day, plus cardio workouts. When I set it to active, my base calorie intake recommendations are much higher and the exercise adjustments are smaller. For similar days using both settings, the overall caloric intake after adjustments is about the same. Here is where this gets important: if you are setting it for sedentary and you are active, then saying you are not going to eat back exercise calories "just to be safe" (whatever "safe" means), you will be doing yourself a disservice. I'm still somewhat of a noob, but I can say that, having the activity level set to match what I really do works just fine. I would also add that the recommendation to eat back a certain % of exercise calories should also depend on how big the calorie adjustments are (i.e. how far apart your actual activity level is from what your settings say it is).

    On a separate note, for those interested, when I go by estimated active TDEE less a deficit - I end up with very similar numbers. As it should be.

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