Activity Level...... Help!!!

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lucyeponce
lucyeponce Posts: 19 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I’m a little lost on activity level. Can someone help me please? I average 10K steps daily, I’m a SAHM to twins who never stop and I’m at the gym 5 days a week for 40 cardio and 45-60 mins strength training. What should I put as my activity level? Please any help would be great!

Thanks in advance

Replies

  • lucyeponce
    lucyeponce Posts: 19 Member
    edited January 2019
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    Exercise add as you go? Can you explain a little more please?
  • kami3006
    kami3006 Posts: 4,978 Member
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    There is an exercise diary where you can log the workouts you do. You would choose the cardio section and pick the type of workout; strength training is logged under the cardio section as well. When you burn calories through exercise, they are added to your calorie goal given by myfitnesspal for you to eat. Since your calorie deficit is already built into that number, eating them will allow you to net the calorie goal given.

    For example: if you're allotted 1500 calories for the day, this would have your deficit built in. If you then burn 300 exercising, you would effectively be at 1500-300=1200 calories for the day. If you eat back the 300 calories then you will be back at the 1500 which is your goal.

    The idea is that you lose weight through your calorie intake and exercise for fitness. You use the exercise calories to fuel your workouts and keep yourself well nourished. Eating them also keep you from having too large a calorie deficit which causes many people to not adhere to their diet and many end up in binge/restrict cycles.

    The exercise diary on the computer is under its own tab at the top. On the app, you can click the exercise link that is part of your food diary.
  • tirowow12385
    tirowow12385 Posts: 698 Member
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    Find your BMR and the use calculators dot net to find how much calories you will need to burn if you wanna lose weight, maintain or gain. The activity levels are base on those, it goes up or down in increments of 300-400 calories per activity level.

    Luckily, you're a walker and you can get a ballpark calorie count of how much you burn per day and match it to the calorie levels to find out how active you are.
  • deluxmary2000
    deluxmary2000 Posts: 981 Member
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    Does the 10,000 steps include your cardio sessions? It's not an exact science but based on your steps I would put your activity level at "lightly active" and then log your gym sessions as extra exercise.
  • kami3006
    kami3006 Posts: 4,978 Member
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    ^Fair point. If you're counting your exercise in your steps then I would do this as well. 10,000+ would be active if it's outside intentional exercise.
  • lucyeponce
    lucyeponce Posts: 19 Member
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    The 10K is with working out. I have been logging in my exercise through my health app. I burn average 600-700 calories for my workouts.

    My BMR is 33.4 and my TDEE 1554. I don’t really understand these numbers.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
    edited January 2019
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    lucyeponce wrote: »
    The 10K is with working out. I have been logging in my exercise through my health app. I burn average 600-700 calories for my workouts.

    My BMR is 33.4 and my TDEE 1554. I don’t really understand these numbers.

    I think you probably mean your BMI (Body Mass Index) is 33.4 (that's a simple height weight ratio which would be saying you are in the obese category at 33.4).

    BMR is your Basal Metabolic Rate - what your body would be burning in a fasted state and completely inactive. On its own it's not that useful a number but it is the base number from which you can estimate your actual needs.

    Part of that is your activity setting which acts as a multiplier on your BMR.
    The other part is exercise - which on MyFitnessPal is completely separate from activity setting. You estimate the calories burned by logging in your exercise diary and those calories get added to your daily goal.

    BMR X Activity Setting + Exercise = Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) which would be your weight maintenance level of eating.

    Where your calorie deficit comes from is the rate of weight loss you select (2lb a week for example).

    Do have a read of the sticky threads pinned to the top of the various forums as they have a wealth of information.

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