Another question: What is the best way to maximize the usefulness of the activity log? I've just been tracking my physical activity, but should I be logging sleep and inactivity as well?
I've been very curious as to know how many people actually log ALL of their activities... washing dishes, sleeping, etc.
I usually just log when I work out. It seems like adding all the other stuff would just be a little too obsessive. Plus I wouldn't want to think I was burning more calories than I actually was since there is really no way to know the accuracy of fitday when it comes to this.
I have my baseline as "seated some movement" because when I'm home, that's pretty much what I do. I log work, shopping, sleeping and exercise, though exercise is frustrating because most of what I do isn't offered as a choice. Alaskan tribal dancing is a choice, but no pilates???
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If I keep starting over, eventually it will stick, right?
Starting weight:182
Current weight: 140
Goal weight: 135
I'm thinking that you have to log sleep. When I log sleep, my number of calories burned for the day goes down.
If I don't log sleep, I end up with lifestyle for 23 hours and gym activity for 1 hour. So the formula assumes I am "seated with some movement" for 23 hours? This would give me too many calories to burn, right?
Sleep. I forgot that I do this every day. Logging sleep would make calories burned much lower and more accurate. I don't ecpect Fitday calorie counts to be perfect. I do hope to have reasonable counts in my calories burned to calories eaten to be able control weight loss. I have lost 7 pounds in 2 weeks just being aware of what I eat and exercising 20 minutes per day.
Now that I think about it, I'm not sure about logging sleep. It depends if the Harris Benedict equation already assumes sleep, and if activity log sleep means extra sleep, like naps. I honestly don't know.
It might be that fitday had some awkward wording when you go to your activity log and it says "23 hours seated, some movement". I tend to take things literally!
At one point one of the administrators (I think) posted that sleep is already taken into account.
However, when I put my sleep in as an activity, the numbers all track really closely to what I am losing. Some folks have commented that the activities calories burned seemed too high, so I started off adding sleep in and have been doing so for 2 months.
You may have to do a period of trial and error to see what works best for you. Too bad we can't plug into something and have it tell us exactly what we eat and what we burn...it's an estimate at best.
__________________ Cassie
"If you drop an egg, you don't say, 'Oh, shoot' and drop the other 11, do you?"
-Source unknown, but obviously brilliant
Reached goal 4/16/2010...but kind of afraid to look these days