Activity level question

You have the potential of conflating several sources but as a general rule of thumb a person with children is at least lightly active. Sedentary includes people who tend to average below 5,000 steps a day in terms of total movement and is centered closer to 3,500 steps. AT 12,000 steps you would be exhausting the MFP definition of active category and verging into very active.

These are labels. labels that are just a shorthand for an activity multiplier of the base mifflin rmr estimate for your gender, height, weight, age. So sedentary is an activity factor of 1.25, lightly is 1.4, active is 1.6 and very active is 1.8. You can plug into sailarabbit.com and see the multipliers they use instead and their associated descriptions. They also let you play with base values other than mifflin. Mifflin is actually a far from bad choice. And is the same value used by Fitbit if you happen to have one.

MFP is giving you 1200 because that is the absolute bottom value for nutrition. What 1200 tells me is that you're selecting a deficit size (rate of loss) that is NOT SUPPORTED by your self declared TDEE.

Not all loss rates are suitable for all people even though "all" people seem to want to lose as fast as possible.

When I was 280lbs choosing to create a deficit of 250 Cal a day and aiming for a 0.25lb a week loss would have been... not optimal! Now that I am 155lbs, if I wanted to lose weight to 153lbs, choosing to create a deficit of 1000 Cal a day and aiming for a loss of 2lbs a week would be... not optimal!

Reversing the two? a much better idea!

1200 a day tells me that you're closer to the me picking 2lbs a week at 155... just aim for a deficit that doesn't exceed 20% of your TDEE while normal weight or overweight. Maybe 25% of your TDEE while obese.

If your activity is consistent... i would consider just setting to active and a lb a week and calling it a day and adjusting after 4-6 weeks based on your weight TREND (using for example happy scale), your LOGGED CALORIES EATEN, and your TOTAL calories (not just the active ones) as detected by your watch.

IF you want to connect watch I would suggest to maybe use an intermediary app such as pacer that is known to work correctly with both MFP and apple watch. Connect watch to pacer and pacer to mfp.

Apple has been known in the past to NOT send all day TDEE data to MFP. And MFP expects all day TDEE data to make the adjustment.

So --- you shouldn't include your intentional exercise in your 'activity' level for MFP. So if you are a sahm -- I'd use 'lightly active' and go from there. You may find you need to change it after seeing what the results are like but that's a fair place to start.

As far as MFP giving you 1200 calories to eat --- that is likely (maybe not, but it's what I see most often) because you have chosen a too aggressive weight loss rate. Did you choose to lose 2lb/wk?

I think it's helpful to also use a TDEE calculator. That will give you your TDEE as well as a BMR. For a TDEE calculator though you do want to include your intentional exercise. Find out how much wiggle room you actually have to create a deficit between your TDEE and BMR. You want to have a calorie goal somewhere in the middle (above your BMR, but below your TDEE). How much you are able to cut down will depend on how much weight you are wanting to lose. Someone with a significant amount of weight to lose can maybe cut out quite a bit of calories, but if you don't have a lot to lose you won't have much wiggle room most likely.

For example...when I started in 2020 --- my TDEE was 1600 and my BMR was ~1300. Not much room for me to cut out too many calories. So I set myself at a 150 calorie deficit. So my daily calorie goal was 1450. I also logged my intentional exercise using MFP and ate back most (usually all) of those calories.