Maintenance Calories

The activity level setting is meant to reflect only daily activity, not including exercise. That means your job, but also other activities from your day to day life: chores, waking to and from work, etc.

On top of that, you log your exercise which will give you extra calories.

If those 8-10k steps a day are part of your day to day life, I would choose active as your activity level.

If you have many weeks of logging data to use (calorie intake + bodyweight) you can get a better maintenance estimate using your own data.

This thread discusses several methods for estimating maintenance calories:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10638211/how-to-find-your-maintenance-calorie-level/p1

It's true that the basic MFP method is to set activity level based on daily life before intentional exercise, then estimate and eat back exercise calories when we exercise. That works great for me, because my exercise is variable and somewhat unpredictable.

However, it does result in a different calorie intake on different days.

If someone wants to eat the same number of calories every day, then yes, a TDEE calculator (which averages in planned exercise) is a better way to go.

Personally, I think this TDEE calculator is better than the one linked above:

https://www.sailrabbit.com/bmr/

. . . because it has more activity levels, and they have better descriptions - ones that mention both daily life activity (occupation) and exercise. It also lets you compare results from multiple research-based estimating formulas, rather than just one. The downside is that the user interface is a little more busy, so it takes more careful reading.

Still better yet, IMO, for a TDEE estimate, is this very good spreadsheet from MFP user heybales, which separates out some of the components of activity for separate estimation (so is a bit more nuanced), and also uses research-based formulas. It's here:

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/home/leaving?allowTrusted=1&target=https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1G7FgNzPq3v5WMjDtH0n93LXSMRY_hjmzNTMJb3aZSxM/edit?usp=sharing

It's important to recognize that any of these are *estimates*, and that test-driving an estimate for 4-6 weeks (whole menstrual cycles for women of that age) is the way to validate them. There's individual variation. The formulas will be close for many people, a little bit off (high or low) for a few people, and surprisingly far off for a very rare few people (possibly for non-obvious reasons). That's the nature of statistical estimates, pretty much.

I agree with the doctor dude.. select moderately active.. the worst that could happen, is you eat a few too many calories, and in a few weeks, you will see some weight gain, if you are eating too much.

If that happens, simply cut 100 calories off your total, and see what happens.

I'm always amazed at people who are so detailed. They turn this into a huge chore, which is so complicated. They are everywhere, but most people aren't at a healthy weight in America.

I've been dieting for years, and lost 90 lbs.. so obviously NOT an expert.. BUT, I am losing weight steadily, and I don't sit around factoring daily calories by how much exercise I do. Why not? because the little exercise we do at the gym, isn't enough to make a huge difference.. diet is the cause of most weight loss. By micromanaging every detail, living life has become a math problem, and a chore, and maybe this helps them explain why they aren't successful, without admitting that is usually due to a lack of consistency.

My advice is more simple.. use the scale, let it guide you over the course of weeks.. see how what you eat affects you.. if you come up with 2200 calories, and live the same in the next few weeks, and maintain, then 2200 is you maintenance level.. if you gain weight, cut calories, if you lose, and do not want to.. add calories.. just do so in small increments.

It's crazy that when people are asked.. why am I fat? the answer is too many calories. Guess what? Correct. It's that simple.. and the reverse is simple as well.. eat less. Just keep living your life the way you want, and adjust calories to fit.

Yes, it isn't simple to DO, but it doesn't help make it any easier, by making it more complicated.. figure out how many calories you need to maintain, and if you then want to lose.. go ahead and subtract 500, so in theory you lose 1 lb. a week. See if you lose. Teak it until you get a number which gets you the result you like.. ONE number, which averaged out over 4 weeks, gives you the weight loss desired.. or if you are AT maintenance.. just stay at whatever keeps your weight steady.

Then the struggle is with consistency. It shouldn't be a struggle to figure out maintenance calories. Jut trial and error, and unless you are doing huge variations in exercise, in a random pattern, do not worry about calculating every day.

If you do 4 workouts a week, every week, at about the same intensity, this will be included in the process, and accounted for.

Good Luck. Trust the results to guide you.

By all means start with a calculator, but you definitely need to experiment and use your own data.

MFP calculates my sedentary maintenance calories at around 1500. A month where I did pretty much nothing because of a badly sprained ankle and I was trying to eat maintenance showed me my actual maintenance calories was, at least at that point, more like 1800.

Historically, to be honest, that fits. I seem to be about 250-300 calories more than MFP estimates. This is highly convenient for me, but there are also some people who are somewhat lower than estimates. Lots of people are off one way or the other in smaller amounts.

The calculators work on statistical averages. That means they're pretty close for most people but to get it really dialed in you need to just... try and see what happens. I know regain can be scary but it's not a big thing. You watch for a month or two, see what your weight does, and then adjust. Worst case you need to lose or gain a couple of pounds.