What is considered light activity level?

Lyndonbearsmommy

2 questions in one day!

Is 12,000 average steps per day considered light activity? I have a sedentary job, but try to get up and move as much as possible, including walking. I walk on lunch and breaks, and in the evenings. I also do other exercises, but not consistently, so I'm not considering that. I'm not sure if that would be considered sedentary or light activity?

cwolfman13

sedentary pretty much means you're doing nothing...you crawl out of bed and walk to the couch and sit...or you get to work and sit...then you get in the car and sit some more..and when you get home, you take a seat. 12,000 steps is in no way sedentary.

I have a desk job and have no clue how many steps I take in a day...but I'm still light active with just having to get up and walk around the office, fix this or that or clean this or that when I get home..cooking, yard work, etc.

In my experience, the vast majority of people aren't really sedentary.

Liftng4Lis

If you're using an activity tracker to track your steps, I was told to put your activity level on sedentary, enable negative calorie adjustments and let it do the rest.
If you're not using the tracker, sounds like you're lightly active.

Christine_72

I use a fitbit, and I walk 20,000 steps on most days during the week and I've got mfp set to sedentary. I let fitbit do the math for me.
As above, if you're not using a tracker, set yourself to lightly active

SezxyStef

@Liftng4Lis & @christinev297 do you guys use TDEE? or NEAT?

Just curious as I typically go with TDEE and set MFP using NEAT and sedentary as you suggested and my calories were soooooooooooooooooo low...1460 vs 1800....I take it you guys trust the data coming from your trackers?

arditarose

I'm a part time music teacher for little kids, living in the city (decent amount of walking), and lifting 4 days a week. I've always gone with the lightly active option on MFP and it fits well. The lifting is basically included in that activity level.

Christine_72

Stef I use the neat method, I haven't got into a consistent exercise groove to use TDEE. At first I was sceptical of the data, and it did my head in lol I had to take a deep breath and trust what it was telling me. So far, so good

Liftng4Lis

SezxyStef wrote: »

@Liftng4Lis & @christinev297 do you guys use TDEE? or NEAT?

Just curious as I typically go with TDEE and set MFP using NEAT and sedentary as you suggested and my calories were soooooooooooooooooo low...1460 vs 1800....I take it you guys trust the data coming from your trackers?

I'm doing NEAT right now, (I was doing TDEE until I received my jawbone). I actually custom set my calories and let the tracker earn the rest.....cough* except for right now, since they aren't syncing...again

Christine_72

What is this stupid issue everyone's having with syncing still. Is it an I-phone thing? Mine didn't sync for a day and a half, over a week ago. But has been good since. I've got an android, a new update came into the play store this morning.

Liftng4Lis

christinev297 wrote: »

What is this stupid issue everyone's having with syncing still. Is it an I-phone thing? Mine didn't sync for a day and a half, over a week ago. But has been good since. I've got an android, a new update came into the play store this morning.

Jawbone and MFP are having issues and I don't have an I phone, so nope, it's not that.

Abby2205

For me, lightly active is 8-9000 steps per day, and active is about 12-13000. I determined this by setting my activity level, enabling negative adjustments, then watching it for a week of two to gauge how many steps equals roughly 0 calorie adjustment.

Liftng4Lis wrote: »

If you're using an activity tracker to track your steps, I was told to put your activity level on sedentary, enable negative calorie adjustments and let it do the rest.
If you're not using the tracker, sounds like you're lightly active.

It's six of one, half dozen of the other. If you set your level to sedentary but are actually more active, MFP gives you a lower calorie goal at the start of the day and as the day goes on you earn more calories. If you set your activity level higher, you start with more calories and won't see as much of a jump during the day. I set mine to match my activity, I like my calorie goal to stay roughly the same all day as long as I do my normal activity. Other people like the psychological boost of seeing the extra calories build as the day goes on and set themselves to sedentary.

Christine_72

Abby2205 wrote: »

Other people like the psychological boost of seeing the extra calories build as the day goes on and set themselves to sedentary.

yeah I think this applies to me

Sued0nim

christinev297 wrote: »

I use a fitbit, and I walk 20,000 steps on most days during the week and I've got mfp set to sedentary. I let fitbit do the math for me.
As above, if you're not using a tracker, set yourself to lightly active

This

But I walk about half that and I measure workouts with my HRM

I like seeing the calories increase

2500 steps is about sedentary I think
By 10,000 I've earned 450 calories giving me a 2200 TDEE ...which is probably about 100 below my actual TDEE based on my data

PAV8888

MFP activity definitions track pretty close to this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14715035

Incidentally, this would put your 12,500 steps in the MFP "active" category. For me 12,500 come in at slightly below active, by about 5%.

(Fitbit Charge HR) tracker accuracy is dismal! Bloody thing can't even track my walking steps right, under-estimating the number of steps during fast walks!

HOWEVER, most fitbit people when asked confirm that Fitbit's calorie calculations are correct.

I concur since I have observed a difference of less than 5% between my estimated caloric deficits based on MFP logging adjusted via Fitbit's TDEE estimation and the results of DXA scans.

For planning purposes selecting an activity level close to reality is best. Negative adjustments should probably be enabled for "lazy" days, especially when choosing the "active" or "very active" settings.