How to add exercise calories?

Rubyhelena8
Rubyhelena8 Posts: 13 Member
in Goal: Maintaining Weight
Hi,

First question, if I’m maintaining my weight do I add exercise/steps calories to my BMR or sedentary TDEE? Say I’ve just downloaded pacer and they said I have burnt 400kcal walking, do I eat 400+my sedentary TDEE or BMR or what so confused!? I’m currently maintaining my weight. I basically do 7000-17000 steps a day it really depends. And also ngl I love food and I like the idea of eating the max. Amount of calories possible without gaining weight lol! I’m a bit confused how to account for these steps in my calories especially when it varies so much day to day. The start of the year I put my TDEE as lightly active and I don’t seem to have gained weight but my weight fluctuates more (before I was in a deficit of 100kcal below sedentary). Should I keep my activity level at lightly active or change my calories per day depending on my step count? I get very confused when it gets to this area of calories counting lol! Thanks :)

Replies

  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    How did you determine your TDEE? Typically TDEE already includes exercise, but since you're saying your "sedentary TDEE," it gives me the impression you didn't include exercise. If your "TDEE" is based on your estimate of your calorie use before exercise, you'll add your exercise steps to that.

    If your goal comes from MFP, it's not TDEE, it's your daily activity level BEFORE intentional exercise. If you're setting your activity as "lightly active" based on your walks, you DON'T want to add those calories and double-count.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    What proportion of that huge step count is from daily life and what proportion from purposeful exercise?

    If it's all daily life that's way, way more than Lightly Active.

    BTW if you are maintaining weight over an extended period of time changing how you estimate and log your steps won't change your overall eating allowance but might proportion it differently day to day.
  • Rubyhelena8
    Rubyhelena8 Posts: 13 Member
    sijomial wrote: »
    What proportion of that huge step count is from daily life and what proportion from purposeful exercise?

    If it's all daily life that's way, way more than Lightly Active.

    BTW if you are maintaining weight over an extended period of time changing how you estimate and log your steps won't change your overall eating allowance but might proportion it differently day to day.

    Majority of it is going on walks. Usually I do a 50 minute walk in the morning and a couple more walks later in the day and doing extra walking around the house. How would I know how many cals to eat a day?

  • Rubyhelena8
    Rubyhelena8 Posts: 13 Member
    janejellyroll wrote: »
    How did you determine your TDEE? Typically TDEE already includes exercise, but since you're saying your "sedentary TDEE," it gives me the impression you didn't include exercise. If your "TDEE" is based on your estimate of your calorie use before exercise, you'll add your exercise steps to that.

    If your goal comes from MFP, it's not TDEE, it's your daily activity level BEFORE intentional exercise. If you're setting your activity as "lightly active" based on your walks, you DON'T want to add those calories and double-count.

    I used an online calculator. I always see people say 5k+ steps a day Is slight active so I’ve set it as lightly active. But sometimes I do way more steps. I was wondering if I should just set my TDEE as sedentary and then say 5k steps=250cals for me, would I add 250 to my sedentary TDEE?
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    Rubyhelena8 wrote: »
    sijomial wrote: »
    What proportion of that huge step count is from daily life and what proportion from purposeful exercise?

    If it's all daily life that's way, way more than Lightly Active.

    BTW if you are maintaining weight over an extended period of time changing how you estimate and log your steps won't change your overall eating allowance but might proportion it differently day to day.

    Majority of it is going on walks. Usually I do a 50 minute walk in the morning and a couple more walks later in the day and doing extra walking around the house. How would I know how many cals to eat a day?

    I can't tell the proportion from that as on one hand you have steps and on the other you have time and frequency.
    Was hoping for more like for example 5,000 from daily life and 10,000 from exercise.

    Personally I would set my activity level to exclude the purposeful walks and especially if your exercise walks are varied day to day log them using a net calorie estimator for walking - https://exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs

    Don't understand why you are talking of adding random numbers to a sedentary activity level rather than just set your appropriate activity level for your daily life. Why not let the app do the maths for you?
  • wunderkindking
    wunderkindking Posts: 1,615 Member
    If you do something 5-6 days out of 7, it's routine and it's just part of your life -- personally I let it figure in activity level and am done with it. Also, it's just a starting point. You are not married to that number. If you don't lose after a couple of months, gain a pound, or lose too fast just... adjust the number.

    You're going to have the number change as you lose, anyway. Both because lower weights less take fewer calories to maintain (so you have to create your deficit out of a smaller number) and because how much you will burn will change based on NEET and different lean/fat percentages.

    It's a moving target. Pick some activity level, try it. If it doesn't work or stops working, do something else.

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