When you select how active you are does this include the workouts you do as well?

Answers

  • COGypsy
    COGypsy Posts: 1,475 Member

    No, MFP expects you to base the activity level on your routine daily life and to track/add exercise separately.

  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 10,459 Member
    edited September 23

    it depends.

    What @COGypsy says works for 95% or so of people.

    I am typically extremely active, and seldom sit for extended periods. So I might not get the NEAT burn (typical non-exercise daily movement-ie housecleaning, chasing kids, work related steps) but if I put myself down as sedentary or mildly active, which I usually am outside of exercise, I’d break the app.

    If you’re turning your move rings 3+ times a day, this might be a consideration. Or, enable the “Negative Calorie Adjustment” on your exercise diary to offset some of that. Again, don’t bother unless you’re extremely active.

    It’s typically common for me to turn my move ring five six, sometimes even seven times a day, so I’m an outlier and want to stress that. I only mention this because it’s not a 100% correct for 100% of users to set at your activity level and let it track/add exercise calories.

  • rms62003
    rms62003 Posts: 270 Member

    Somewhat of a yes and no. I went a little in between. Since I don't trust the exercise calories that MFP records (think they are too high) I have the adjustment turned off.

    I have a fairly sedentary job, but work out 4-5 hours a week. So, I put the activity as 'lightly active' to partially account for my exercise, even though I'm sedentary.

    I think if you read a lot of posts here, people are mixed on how they do this. Basically, we are all different, and there's no one hard and fast way to do it. You'll need to find the setting that works best for you.

  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,937 Member
    edited September 23

    Here's the myfitnesspal's Help article with the official explanation.

  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,823 Member

    My approach is to select minimum activity then link my fitness watch (in my case Garmin, but Apple works well, too, as well as others). I enable negative calorie adjustments (which I hate, but they solve a stupid arithmetic problem created by Garmin).

    Blammo, I get three numbers every day: "Plan," "Exercise," and "steps." Plan is the number from MFP which depends on your bio-stats and the activity level you select, Exercise are the calories calculated by your watch when you track an activity, "Steps" are the calories calculated by your watch for activity outside your workouts (mostly from "steps").

    When you do this, you might as well set your activity level to "sedentary," whereupon your fitness device will typically add to it. When enabled, "steps" can be negative. It's usually when you do a big workout but are otherwise sedentary. It's kind of irritating, but just go with it.

    Final word: when I'm trying to drop pounds, I don't eat all my active calories. They are definitely overestimated for me!

  • spiriteagle99
    spiriteagle99 Posts: 3,860 Member

    I have my activity level set to sedentary, since a lot of my time is spent sitting, either on the computer, or reading, or watching TV. However, I also get regular and irregular exercise: long daily walks with the dog and running, yoga, or biking. Those I log as they occur. In my case, I burn more calories than MFP gives me for the exercise I log. I lost 55 lbs. and have maintained that loss for over 10 years, eating back all my exercise calories

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