Advice would be very much appreciated.

hamburger100
hamburger100 Posts: 9 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I'm 63, 158lbs and 5ft 2ins, and I would like to lose about 20lbs. Going by various TDEE sites I should burn around 1470 per day when sedentary, (which I think I lean towards). When I return to work in a few weeks, I'm currently WFH, I'll start to do a 30minute walk 5 days a week. Are these calories, (once I have deducted 250 from the 1470), worth eating, or is it not worth it for so few calories?

Replies

  • MaltedTea
    MaltedTea Posts: 6,286 Member
    For an hour's worth of walking (30 min there and another to return),you wouldn't be sedentary and may want to recalculate your TDEE which is good practice to do regularly anyway. I recalculate mine the first of every month other people have their own preferred schedules to do so.
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,941 Member
    It's totally worth it, and it does sound like a plan. Have you set up your profile here and chosen a 0.5lbs weight loss goal? What does MFP give you for your stats? MFP uses a different way of calculating calories, without exercise while TDEE includes any exercise. Thus the results should probably be fairly close at the moment.

    The most important things are
    * patience. Weight loss doesn't happen just like that. It takes time and dedication
    * thorough logging. With so little to lose it will be slow and you need to be thorough. A foodscale, weighting in grams works best for most. Also it's important to chose correct database entries.
    * weight loss is not linear. there will be days where the scale weight will be down, and days where it will be up. That's not due to bodyfat fluctuating, but everything else like water weight, stuff in your intestines, etc. Thus it's important not to panic and to trust the process. Hey, I think I broke a record by having a 2 month 'stall', and then, all of a sudden I lost the weight I should have lost in 4 days. Well, of course I didn't lose the fat then. But my body was likely storing water for whatever reason, masking the weightloss. And suddenly I had a massive water whoosh.
  • SnifterPug
    SnifterPug Posts: 746 Member
    In theory you should be counting those calories and eating accordingly. In practice, given you will have had a few weeks to get used to the calorie consumption, I would suggest you try not eating them and see how you go. If you are feeling very hungry then you have wiggle room. If not, then you might get a bit of a weight loss boost (or, if you have lost weight, your BMR might have gone down a bit so the net result could be similar).
  • hamburger100
    hamburger100 Posts: 9 Member
    Thank you. I think MFP gives me 1260cals (BMR). I didn't know whether a decent estimate would be to go between TDEEs for sedentary, (1470), or 1690 for lightly active (before the 250 deficit), so 1330.

    Thanks again.
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,416 Member
    I would use "Lightly Active" and "Lose 1/2 pound per week."

    Since your work-walking will be a part of your regular routine, you would account for it in the Activity Level part of the Goals, and do not add in more calories to the "exercise" portion of this site for that particular walking.

    That is how the tool is intended to be used, and the way you'll be able to have a sustainable plan
  • VioletRojo
    VioletRojo Posts: 597 Member
    MFP doesn't use TDEE it uses NEAT. With TDEE you figure out what your total calorie expenditure is and deduct 10% or 20%, whatever suits you. You will not eat back your exercise calories because exercise is already figured in to your calorie allowance.

    NEAT (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis) uses the calories you expend living with the exception of exercise. You calculate your deficit from your NEAT, then add in any exercise calories you earn.

    Both methods are valid, but will give you different targets. If you get them confused, you'll end up eating the wrong amount of calories.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    hamburger100 wrote: »
    I'm 63, 158lbs and 5ft 2ins, and I would like to lose about 20lbs. Going by various TDEE sites I should burn around 1470 per day when sedentary, (which I think I lean towards). When I return to work in a few weeks, I'm currently WFH, I'll start to do a 30minute walk 5 days a week. Are these calories, (once I have deducted 250 from the 1470), worth eating, or is it not worth it for so few calories?

    Since you are here on MFP, it would be simpler to let MFP, which uses NEAT instead of TDEE, do the calculations for you and eat back your exercise calories.

    https://support.myfitnesspal.com/hc/en-us/articles/360032625391-How-does-MyFitnessPal-calculate-my-initial-goals-
  • Beverly2Hansen
    Beverly2Hansen Posts: 378 Member
    I personally use TDEE and for me it's steadier weightloss. So I do not log exercise calories but listed myself as active. With NEAT which requires eating back exercise calories you often deal with calorie burn over estimations which were ruining my weightloss efforts. I think you need to decide which method will work best for you but if it's TDEE you don't log the exercises although that's a nice walk. 🙂
  • wunderkindking
    wunderkindking Posts: 1,615 Member
    edited June 2021
    I am another TDEE person. For me my JOB is sedentary but my activity is;
    1-) Day to day consistent
    2-) Hard/impossible to log (tell me how to log dog agility training or disc dog or whatever and we'll talk, but I could not begin to guess, LOL)

    That said I DO log any above and beyond I exercise I do, that is not a regular part of life. This is relatively rare, but does exist. Whether I eat the calories or not depends but typically I eat at least some of them.
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,242 Member
    Everybody who says that MFP is based on NEAT plus exercise is correct.

    That said you have some issues that could potentially impact you:

    --a small deficit as you should be correctly aiming for (but which reduces your margin of error)

    --a relatively long duration moderate intensity exercise activity where the inclusion of gross calories in the exercise calculation exacerbates inaccuracies

    --a consistent activity that frankly is good for you anyway even on days where you don't go to work!!!!


    An hour of walking a day at a moderate I'm trying to exercise without killing myself pace is about 6,000 steps more or less for most people and if lumped into your general activity level would push most people to lightly active if they were otherwise couch potatoes

    If your total steps are closer to 10k you might be better off to view yourself as active.

    There is no reason not to engage in that same walk on the weekend ❣️

    Thus I would put myself lightly active and evaluate my weight trend against my login with the view of seeing whether I should be actually active instead of lightly active

    If you do go ahead and do sedentary plus exercise calories, remember that **specifically for walking at a moderate intensity** the math of mfp giving you 1.25 times BMR (sedentary) for the time the exercise activity is giving you about three times BMR works out pretty close to eat half the exercise calories as your actual net during the time period would be about 1.75 times BMR instead of the three the exercise activity logs

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