Activity Level Selections

cnferrara · February 2018

I read how MFP wants you to choose your activity level but I am wondering how others choose. I am a stay at home mom. There are definitely times where I am sitting. But I also do housework, have appointments several times per week, do a home workout almost every day, go to the gym 2-3 times per week, walk the city or mall most weekends with my family, and take yoga (Buti yoga which is a movement yoga) once a week. I don’t consider that sedentary. How do others choose?

janejellyroll · February 2018

When I began MFP, I chose "sedentary" because my job is a desk job. I left out my intentional exercise because MFP doesn't intend for us to count that. I logged my exercise and ate back the calorie burns from that.

Later I got a Fitbit, synced my accounts, and allowed it to do activity adjustments for me.

If I was unsure about my activity level, I think I would choose a lower one, monitor my results for 4-6 weeks, and then adjust it upward if I found that I was losing faster than I expected.

jjpptt2 · February 2018

There are typically 2 approaches to this -

1 - NEAT (or MFP's approach)
Set your activity setting based on how active you aside from your intentional exercise, then log your exercises in MFP and eat back some/most of those earned calories.

2 - TDEE
Set your activity setting based on how active your lifestyle is INCLUDING intentional exercise, then do NOT log exercise and do NOT eat back any exercise calories.

Ultimately, once you get things dialed in, both methods should have you eating basically teh same number of calories. It just comes down to personal preference and how you want to log/track things.

cwolfman13 · February 2018

You will notice that MFP makes no mention of exercise in the descriptors...that is because the MFP method excludes exercise from your activity level and you log it after the fact to account for that activity and get additional calories.

When I started, I set myself to sedentary because of my desk job...I was losing a bit faster than what I had targeted so I bumped it up to light active for my day to day...this was likely due to the fact that I'm really fidgety and when I get home from work I was chasing around a 2 year old and had an infant at the time...not to mention cooking and cleaning and other domestic duties.

Really, you just have to pick one and get started...make adjustments as per your actual results.

sijomial · February 2018

First step is to decide how you are going to account for your exercise, either the MFP method setting a goal that excludes exercise (gives a variable daily amount in line with added exercise) or go to a TDEE site if you prefer to eat the same level every day (includes an averaged amount for your exercise).

The activity setting (and all the other estimates involved in trying to work out your calorie balance) just gives you a starting point. After a month or so your results can guide adjusting your calorie goal.

I chose sedentary originally (desk job) and ate back all my thousands of exercise calories from a heavy but varied exercise routine. After a month I fine-tuned my goal manually to achieve the desired rate of loss.

Now I'm retired I would go for active setting as I'm always on the go - and still of course eat back all my exercise calories.

cnferrara · February 2018

Thank you all!

Mslmesq · February 2018

I don’t bother figuring it out. I just bought a fitbit and set it to sedentary. After a few months, I can tell you I aberage aboutt 500 extra calories a day with my movement/exercise over my base total daily sedentary rate.

I’d advise you to just get a fitbit. It’s easier.

flowe128 · February 2018

I don’t get this. How can MFP not factor exercise as a variable that decides how many calories to eat?

I used to use the fact that most of my day I work at a desk. However I am a crossfitter and martial artist and I run and cycle at least once a week on top of that. I use a fitbit as well and working out burns anywhere from 450’calories to 1200.

I am struggling with this because I had an episode where I blacked out during a workout and one recommendation is I eat more because of the level of activity. Mind you I have lost as much as forty pounds but I have packed as much as 12 back on appearing to be muscle.

I can’t see how not counting intentional exercise as part of your activity being the right thing to do.

I saw great progress doing that and I followed a rule of keeping at least a 1200 calorie buffer between my daily allowance but when I passed out that went out of the window momentarily. As well as some two a day workouts. It seems say I sit behind a desk all day and forgetting the fact that I literally destroy my body for an hour isn’t the best approach for nutrition.

Any thoughts?

h1udd · February 2018

Yes.

Exercise calories are notoriously difficult to log accurately there is too much variation depending on person, size, effort, efficiency so for MFP to say ok you workout 3 times a week that’s 1200kcal extra is going to be wildly inaccurate for most ... then there is the extra exercise you might do ... ie today I am throwing in an extra run .... it’s more accurate to ignore exercise and let the user input what they think they burned based on what they did and how easy/hard it was for them

sijomial · February 2018

@flowe128

"I can’t see how not counting intentional exercise as part of your activity being the right thing to do. "
Sorry but that doesn't make sense to me at all - that exercise calories are separate just means you have a variable amount to eat in line with that day's exercise.
The method works extremely well for people with irregular routines or long duration exercise that needs fuelling at the time of the exercise. I do long duration cycle rides which need to be fuelled properly on the day, eating an average amount (TDEE) method would be hopeless for me.

"I saw great progress doing that and I followed a rule of keeping at least a 1200 calorie buffer between my daily allowance but when I passed out that went out of the window momentarily."

Goals are to be hit, not massively undercut!!

The fault isn't the method or the tool, it's your massive deficit which was your own decision.

BitofaState · February 2018

flowe128 wrote: »

I don’t get this. How can MFP not factor exercise as a variable that decides how many calories to eat?

I used to use the fact that most of my day I work at a desk. However I am a crossfitter and martial artist and I run and cycle at least once a week on top of that. I use a fitbit as well and working out burns anywhere from 450’calories to 1200.

I am struggling with this because I had an episode where I blacked out during a workout and one recommendation is I eat more because of the level of activity. Mind you I have lost as much as forty pounds but I have packed as much as 12 back on appearing to be muscle.

I can’t see how not counting intentional exercise as part of your activity being the right thing to do.

I saw great progress doing that and I followed a rule of keeping at least a 1200 calorie buffer between my daily allowance but when I passed out that went out of the window momentarily. As well as some two a day workouts. It seems say I sit behind a desk all day and forgetting the fact that I literally destroy my body for an hour isn’t the best approach for nutrition.

Any thoughts?

It does factor it in, but you have to earn those calories - either logging them yourself or by using a Fitbit/Polar or other activity tracker and then you choose to eat them back, or you set a lower goal (1lb/week) and hit a larger reduction (2lb/week).

The blackout is most likely a combination of low glycogen levels combined with pushing too hard. When and what you eat is also important, especially when timed against exercise.

Find the balance point - MFP or fitbits or whatever give you a steer, but they're all based on averages and will never be precise, only roughly right.

Set a level.

Make sure you aren't hangry all the GD time, that might also mean ajusting the source and timing of those calories rather than the amount.

Give it 4-6 weeks to see what the impact is.

If it doesn't work then adjust - either add in more activity, make your activity more strenuous (wear a backpack with 20lbs in whilst you do the housework), or cut back on the calories.

Activity Level Selections

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