Activity level question

I used to use a peddler when watching TV. My pedometer registered it as steps. But they weren't steps really, so I never recorded anything. Peddlers are bonus activity which is still better than no activity.

I don't have the calorie answer, but peddlers don't work the whole range of muscles an exercise bike does. My heart rate goes up with the full stroke(?) of biking. I know I'm not saying that quite right, not a biker.

I've not used a pedal machine, but I ride stationary and outside. Calories for stationary steady state is fewer calories than outside riding, and I would assume the pedal machines are even less.

cmriverside is correct trial and error will give you the best answer.

For now I think I would leave my activity level and not count those calories as additional. 1000-1500 is a really high estimate. My guess is it counts the calories you burn for being alive.

It sounds like you have a good routine going: Kudos!

But I suspect the 15 pounds in the first 2 weeks included a lot of reduced water retention and reduced weight of waste in the digestive tract, which is a normal thing to see. Your next 4 weeks will give you a better estimate of calorie deficit and fat loss.

I'm not trying to mean when I say that: It's just that the math seems improbable. To lose 15 pounds of fat in 2 weeks would imply that you've eaten on average 3,750 calories fewer daily than you burn. There are a minority of people who burn 3750 calories every day, let alone 3750 plus however many calories you've been eating . . . and they aren't usually people with desk jobs and moderate exercise regimens. If you're eating 1500, the lowest MFP will give a man, 15 pounds in 2 weeks would imply daily calorie burn averaging 3750+1500=5250. But MFP wouldn't tell that person to eat 1500, even at MFP's maximum weight loss rate.

The 2 pounds a week you've seen in this 3rd week is more realistic, but even then I'd suggest waiting until you have at least 2 and ideally more like 4 more weeks to average in. We usually tell folks to go for 4-6 weeks or if female one whole monthly cycle, but also usually suggest they ignore the first week or two if they're really unusual compared to later weeks.

The folks above have given you good advice, IMO.

Wishing you continuing success!

I agree with pridesabtch above.

At your weight, @InquisitorDeckart it's okay to lose quickly, but not expect it to continue. Two pounds per week should be the most you can safely lose. Above that and you risk some nutrition shortages.

I also agree that 2500ish (total calories eaten, not "Net" - you don't specify which you're using with that 1500) should be a good Goal for you. Lots of us tried that Gung Ho approach of, "Eat as little as possible, exercise every day and then crash and burn," but it's definitely not a healthy or recommended approach!

Try to get in as many whole foods as possible, lots of protein, plenty of whole fruits and vegetables. Right now with your low calories nutrition is going to be your big concern.

Okay. I don't use the app with a circle nor a fitness device like Garmin, so hopefully someone else will be able to decipher what you just said.

It seems to me that you are in fact trying to eat more than 1500 total calories, which is good. Your device is adding on that 1000 for exercise, I think. Maybe post a screenshot.

ETA: I wrote this (below) before seeing your most recent reply. Most of it still applies, so I'm going to run with it rather than attempting a complicated rewrite. If you feel like you answered some of it, yes you did. But not all. Original unedited message follows.

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There are a lot of questions in my mind, so this could be long. I'm sorry. I'm trying to help.

For one, it sounds like you're manually logging your exercise in MFP. Is that right?

Or do you have your Garmin synced to MFP? That would be the best choice here to do the math for you, and set your calorie goal at the best starting estimate you have available - it still is just a starting estimate, still needs that 4-6 week test drive. But it's a better starting point than guessing at activity level and logging exercise manually.

If you have your Garmin synced, and it and MFP are estimating your exercise calories and adjusting your calorie goal, then yes, eat the number of calories MFP recommends. Don't eat lots fewer. Eat close to the estimate for that 4-6 weeks, I'd recommend. Be sure you have negative adjustments turned on in MFP. Set your activity level on the low side to minimize negative adjustments, I'd suggest.

If you don't have Garmin synced to MFP, but are logging exercise manually, that's a different thing. Most - not all - of the rest of this post is about that possibility.

I'm unclear by what you mean by "the calories in the circle". Do you mean you eat the number of calories in the circle on the MFP phone/tablet app's dashboard, like the 1850 shown on mine?

If that's what you mean, yes, that's what should guide your eating, generically. But it still matters how the number got there (sync or manual entry, among other issues).

I'm a Garmin user. If not the above, are you talking about the calories page in Garmin Connect, like this:

If so: Nothing on that page is what you should log as exercise in MFP, if you are logging exercise manually.

The number in the circle is the number of calories my Garmin thinks I burned yesterday in total, from a combination of just being alive, doing job/home chores and stuff, plus intentional exercise. The "Resting" calories are what it thinks I'd burn just being alive, lying in bed, doing nothing - in a coma, pretty much. (It's estimated Resting Metabolic Rate, RMR - a number close to estimated Basal Metabolic Rate, BMR. MFP already accounts for estimated BMR before even considering any activity level or exercise calories.)

The "Active" calories also aren't exercise calories exclusively, but rather an estimate of all of that job/home movement stuff, plus exercise - everything that isn't the "just being alive" calories. MFP has already included an estimate of your job/home kind of stuff in your calorie estimate. That's what "activity level" does.

The only way I know to get exercise calories from Garmin's displays, excluding RMR , is by starting an Activity in Garmin. For some but not all types of exercise sessions recorded in that way, Garmin will provide a separate estimate of resting calories (RMR for that time period) and exercise calories, anything it thinks was burned above BMR. That's still an overstatement of the number of calories you'd want to log as exercise in MFP, because MFP already assumed normal activity above BMR for that time period. But it's close enough to use as an exercise estimate, especially if your Activity Level in MFP terms is fairly low, and your exercise activity is short, like maybe roughly an hour or less.

Below is an example from Garmin Connect of what I'm talking about, a page within the Activities section. If I were logging calories manually using Garmin as a source, the Active Calories here is what I would log for a normal, short-ish exercise session. I know of no other Garmin source for that, and specifically none for anything that wasn't recorded explicitly as an Activity in Garmin.

Even if I recorded something as an activity in Garmin, but it went on for multiple hours at a relatively low intensity, I wouldn't log all those calories as exercise, because the excess calories - the calories MFP assumed I'd burn doing normal life non-exercise stuff - would add up over a long timespan like that, and start to matter. I'd be giving myself double credit for too many calories, essentially. Short sessions, there are maybe excess calories, but relatively few in the big picture.

I'm not going to give you precise estimates, because MFP will already have given you a good estimate - as long as we can help you sort out the effect of the exercise calories.

Generically, given your demographic data, we'd expect your total daily energy expenditure - TDEE, the number of calories you burn in all ways from just being alive to job/chores/etc. to intentional exercise - to be somewhere in the 3000s, probably. To lose 2 pounds a week, you'd want to be eating somewhere in the 2000s - specifically, on average 1000 calories fewer than your TDEE. Eating lots less than that would be a bad plan: A "bet your health and well being, just for fast loss" kind of plan. Not the path of thriving.

If MFP says you should eat 2800, do your best to eat 2800. Don't eat 1500ish or so, and risk your health. Eating too little is dangerous, plus makes it much more likely that a person will give up before getting all the way to goal weight, because eventually it tends to be Just. Too. Hard.

If MFP says 2800 for 2 pounds a week loss, it thinks you're burning 3800 on average. That's not an irrational estimate. If you want to check, take a look at a TDEE estimator like this one:

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

Those can give you estimates with and without varying levels of activity/exercise, and that specific one has a lot of different levels of activity, each well described, and lets you compare multiple research-based estimating methods (one of which MFP also uses).

Another thing: If you eat way below the number of calories MFP suggests, there is no way to be getting adequate nutrition. That's true even if you stay within the macro percents MFP recommends. The "right" percent of a too-small number of calories is too few nutrients. There's no way to get adequate nutrition on too-low calories, because we need certain absolute minimums of certain nutrients to maintain health. Protein and fats are among those nutrients. The percents are just a way of getting a reasonable approximation of those nutritional needs when we are eating a reasonable number of calories. Too few calories, too little nutrition.

Ideally, sync your Garmin to MFP, enable negative adjustments, stick pretty close to the recommended calorie level on average for 4-6 weeks, stay reasonably close to the nutritional percents on average if health also matters to you (because it's the calories that directly affect weight loss; nutrition is an indirect effect on weight loss at most). And yes, increase your activity level with things like the under-desk pedals, as long as you're not overdoing to the point of causing fatigue, because fatigue is counter-productive for both of weight loss or fitness improvement.

Like I said, I'm not trying to be mean or critical. I'm trying to help. Getting to a healthy weight and staying there has been a huge improvement to my quality of life, and I want that for everyone, you included. Maybe try to think of me as your concerned but anxious internet auntie, because I'm for sure old enough, and a definitely want to see you succeed and thrive long term.

I know this may all sound complicated, and it's normal to feel that way at first. But you can sort your way through it, figure things out, and succeed with your goals. Lots of us here have done that, and we aren't Extra Special . . . just committed to the goal, and persistent. You can do that.

Best wishes!

I'd start with the assumption that Garmin is picking up that movement. Various models differ somewhat, but it's not just tracking arm movement. For example, heart rate will go up if you're moving other body parts, and there can be more, but it's subtle.

If you add on 1000 calories, and some/most of those are double counting what Garmin is already recording . . . you wipe out your 1000 calorie deficit or most of it pretty fast.

I'd repeat my advice: Syncing Garmin is a good start. Enable negative adjustments. Eat all the calories it and MFP recommend, on average over a day or few. Stay close to that, like +/- 50 calories daily as averaged over a week (use the weekly calories page in the MFP app's Nutrition page to track this). Go for 4-6 weeks. Even if Garmin happens to estimate on the high side for you, with a 1000 calorie estimated daily deficit, high, high odds you'll lose weight. If your average weekly weight loss - ignoring those first couple of weird weeks - is much lower than that safe-ish 2 pounds a week, use the 4-6 week average loss to adjust your calorie goal, personalizing it.

That'll work, I predict.

Not that I'm aware of. I'd still not expect the Active Calories to be a great estimate, because the desk elliptical is long duration, low activity.

Different Garmin models track different types of activity, loosely because some activities require specialized sensors that some models may not have. But the generic ones I know about, like "Cardio" wouldn't fit very well, I think.

Honestly, I think your Garmin will have been detecting something. Why not give it a try?

I admit, I'm a little confused by the fact - if I understand you correctly - that you've been way undereating your calorie goal, but you want to add around a thousand exercise calories to increase your calorie goal. Various experienced MFP-ers, people who have been successful, are suggesting that a thousand calories is a very high estimate for this activity. We could all be wrong, but . . . ?

If you let Garmin do the adjustment for another month, and you eat close to your full calorie goal, I don't think you're at high risk even if Garmin's undercounting those calories. At the end of the month, you can make evidence-based decisions.

No.

Now you've got your manually added exercise, you're synced to mfp, you're getting exercise calories ALREADY sent over to mfp, you're probably not set up correctly on Garmin or on the sync…staaaahp. LOL

Keep doing what you've been doing, and keep logging.

Go back and read up on Garmin, Ann outlined what you need to do to sync your Exercise correctly. She's used the two sites together for a long time. Don't mess with your settings until you actually understand them.

Do not add the pedaling machine based on mileage. It will not equate on Garmin. When I spin I burn about 400cal/hour, when I ride I get closer to 600/hour. You are a man and larger than me, so you will likely burn more, but there is no way you burn 400cal/hr (3200/8hr)on the desk model.

I think your original plan of using MFP's estimate of 2800 and staying at or slightly below it is a good plan. Try that for 4-6 weeks as Ann suggested and adjust from there.

If that adjustment includes 3000-something or even 1000-ish of manually entered exercise on the Garmin side or the MFP side, it's probably not right.

Simplify.

Sync your Garmin, enable negative adjustments, if you do intentional exercise of a type Garmin can explicitly deal with by starting/ending an activity on your watch, do that. For your 4-6 week trial, don't manually enter other exercise on Garmin or MFP.

Run the 4-6 week trial, eating close to what your calorie adjusted MFP goal is on average.

Garmin sees your steps, sees your movements and heart rate increases and a bunch of other stuff, and makes an educated guess at your calorie burn. That guess may not be perfect, but doing manual adjustments before you even know how well it's estimating . . . I think you're much, much more likely to be making the estimates worse, not better.

Give the simple scenario a chance: It's a scenario that's supposed to work, works (or pretty close) for many many people.

Over the course of a day - before the day is over - MFP and Garmin will try to sync up, but they have to quite literally guess (project statistically) what will happen between then and midnight, based on what's happened so far that day. Those guesses can be wrong. Don't let that freak you out. At the end of the day, they will fully reconcile based on their best estimates.

If that ends up giving you a big passel of calories late in the day, don't feel you absolutely must eat those that very day. You can mentally bank some of them eat them on another day soon, and use the weekly average calories in the MFP phone/tablet app to track that. The diary/daily goal stuff on MFP resets at midnight, but your body doesn't. It's average calories over a week-ish or so that will drive weight changes in the longer-term trend.

Somewhere along the way, I suggested you set your MFP activity level on the lower side of reality. That will make positive calorie adjustments more probable than negative ones, and make it more likely that any negative ones are small. IMO, you wouldn't want to try to "catch up" a big negative adjustment quickly on the subsequent day(s), because that can set up for binge/restrict cycles. Better to avoid large negative adjustments in the first place.

Still negative adjustments should be turned on, so that if you do have a very, very low activity day, you preserve your calorie deficit for your intended weight loss rate target. I hope that makes sense.