MJW12020 Member

I don't disagree at all. Walking is my favourite form of exercise and a very important part of my weight loss and fitness routine. It is great for general health and wellbeing. I love walking and average around 18,000 steps a day, alongside other activities. I just meant that in terms of adding to an overall calorie burn a…

I will just add my agreement to give it more time. Also, a 30 minute walk once a day does not burn many calories (especially if your dog is not a quick walker). I don't know how much Pilates burns, but suspect it is similar to weight lifting in the sense that it is great for strength and conditioning but doesn't burn a lot…

You probably want to eat back some of the exercise calories, but not all as they are probably overestimated. A lot depends on the device you are using to measure calorie burn and the exercise you are doing - for example the most recent research I have come across suggests that a Fitbit will fairly accurately measure…

I have the HRM mainly for my group coaching workouts (they are designed to work together around the idea of getting a minimum number of 'effort points' each month). I also just use it as an indicator and one of my sources of motivation at other times. It doesn't connect with the Fitbit or MFP in any way and is not factored…

Thank you! The stops at the gym added to the fun :-)

That's really helpful, NorthCascades - thanks. The 60km took about four hours, but at the moment I just have my old commuter bike - a folding bike with 20 inch wheels, which is pretty slow. Probably takes more effort to get anywhere than a "proper" bike though!

Mine has mostly been working normally again. Except that it decided to add my Fitbit calories three times yesterday. All of a sudden I have a 2,000 calorie deficit for the day. According to the diary completion thing, if every day was like yesterday, in five weeks I would be... ummmm... clinically dead, I think 😦

I've relinked multiple times - it only lasts for a couple of hours at most. Reinstalling hasn't helped at all.

They were doing maintenance a week ago and broke something in the system.

It's been identified as a problem by the tech team for nearly a week. They were doing system maintenance and broke something. A fix has been promised since Monday. Still not working.

Yes, there is a current tech issue. MFP staff were doing tech maintenance a few days ago and broke the system. Just need to wait for them to fix it.

Yes, MFP did some tech maintenance stuff and broke the system. I am getting no exercise calories, which sucks. I have been in deficit every single day for a year and while I know I am still actually in deficit, it sucks to show a huge negative for my remaining calories. I tried making my MFP counts look right by manually…

I have a different but related problem with MFP not syncing with my Fitbit at all for most of the day. It is now saying my Fitbit is not connected. I connect it, allow the permissions in Fitbit, get the message that all is good, but it is still not connected.

I have recently taken up running and cycling in addition to the walking I have done for a long time. I usually do this wearing a chest heart rate monitor, giving me a chance to compare this with my tracker. For walking and running they are quite similar, though the tracker is generally lower. For cycling the tracker is…

My work is desk-based, so 'Not Very Active' is the right activity level for me. As a male at my height, weight and age this gives me 1914 calories a day. But I do at least two hours of cardio every day, so end up way above that with lots of extra exercise calories - I average over 3000 calories burned a day in total (based…

If you have MFP set to add your exercise calories, it shouldn't actually make a difference at the end of the day. If you set it to Lightly Active it will give you 1600 calories to eat at the beginning. If you burn 200 additional calories from exercise it will add these so your final target for the day is 1800 calories. If…

This morning was a 26 kilometre bike ride. The afternoon was a walk (with a tiny bit of running) up a very steep bush track (200 metres elevation gain in about a kilometre) and a run back down via a different track - a bit over 4 kilometres all up.

But you will still get more calories (unless I am badly misunderstanding how MFP works). If you have your target at lightly active and your target is 1650, but you actually burn, say, 1850 then MFP will show the extra 200 as exercise calories. You can eat those extra 200 calories and still hit your target.

That is just brilliant. You look great!!

A bowl of salad and a bunch of prawns (or shrimp or whatever they are where you live) - they are ridiculously low calorie and full of protein.

They say losing weight is 80% diet and 20% exercise. I reckon it's also at least 50% will. I know the maths on that doesn't work out, but I don't care. You have the will. You know that it's possible to completely overcomplicate things, but in the end it's pretty simple. you know that and are doing it and seeing the…

I get pretty small fluctuations between days (assuming I weigh first thing in the morning each time), but much larger fluctuations during the day. Definitely not seven pounds - maybe two or three.

I'm a bit confused about what your calorie target is. What is your net calorie deficit, once you add in the 500 calories burned? Also, can you explain why your friend thinks what you're doing is wrong? Is it the size of your deficit, or something else? One kg a week is at the high end of maximum weight loss - certainly…

You're probably right about bodily stress. I felt it when I started group coaching sessions at the gym about six weeks ago - that added about 400-500 calories to my TDEE and I was feeling undernourished at first. I feel that as well on weekend days when I do a lot of walking and end up (according to Fitbit) with more like…

That's really interesting and helpful - thank you. I haven't been tracking my weight change as regularly in recent times as I had been, but seem to have plateaued somewhat at around 75 kg. This plateau prompted my current questioning, but it may also reflect increased muscle development. It may be that the last few kilos…

Thanks again everyone! I will give it a try with my goal set at 0.5kg a week and activity level set to 'very active'. While the activity level may not matter too much (as I have my Fitbit linked), it will look like a more realistic target for me with a bit less adjustment along the way. I'll see how this goes :-)

Thanks!! This information is really useful - much appreciated!

Sorry - just one follow up question (kind of a noobie one, I'm afraid). Given my basic work lifestyle is desk-based, is it the right strategy to set my activity level at "not very active" so my target is based on that, and then add the exercise on top of that? That's the essential approach of MFP, yeah?

This is all really, really helpful - thank you! I will shift my strategy to a much smaller deficit (on recent days where I did something like a really long walk I was ending up with like a 2000 calorie deficit) and concentrate on using the exercise for building muscle and fitness. Thanks again for the fabulous insights!

*** I use a Fitbit (Charge 2) as the primary measure. I have cross-referenced this at times with calculations based on average energy expenditure for activities like walking (adjusted for weight). I recently got a chest strap heart rate monitor, mainly for group coaching sessions (part of a 6 week challenge/promotion at my…