Sedentary or Lightly active?

smotheredincheese
smotheredincheese Posts: 559 Member
edited November 26 in Health and Weight Loss
Since joining MFP about 5 months ago I've had my activity level set to sedentary. I work in an office and spend literally 9 hours a day sitting at a desk and I used to live a five minute walk from my office so my day to day schedule involved very little activity.
I've recently moved further away from work so now do a lot more walking - I hit 10,000 steps on my fitbit most days. So I don't know if I should change my activity level to lightly active - I'm still doing the same desk job despite all the walking I do during my commute.
How do you determine your activity level?

Replies

  • Meganthedogmom
    Meganthedogmom Posts: 1,639 Member
    You're still spending most of your day sitting at a desk, so I would say sedentary and log your exercise.
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
    Lightly active definitely. And log exercise (just not your commute walk).
  • malibu927
    malibu927 Posts: 17,562 Member
    If your Fitbit is connected to MFP, it doesn't matter what your activity level is. Changing it to lightly active will give you more calories to start with, but you'll get a smaller adjustment than you would at sedentary.
  • I_Will_End_You
    I_Will_End_You Posts: 4,397 Member
    malibu927 wrote: »
    If your Fitbit is connected to MFP, it doesn't matter what your activity level is. Changing it to lightly active will give you more calories to start with, but you'll get a smaller adjustment than you would at sedentary.

    ^^ This.
  • goldthistime
    goldthistime Posts: 3,213 Member
    I found the Sedentary activity level wasn't giving me enough calories to work with, especially on days where I didn't exercise. Lightly Active gave me what I thought was too many. I just left the setting on Sedentary but overrode my goal calories to a number in between the two.
  • Asher_Ethan
    Asher_Ethan Posts: 2,430 Member
    I hit at least 10000 steps a day on my fitness tracker and I have mine set to lightly active. Set it to lightly active and don't record your commute to work.
  • segacs
    segacs Posts: 4,599 Member
    edited November 2015
    10000 steps isn't sedentary. For me, it ends up being somewhere between lightly active and active -- though that depends on your stride.

    But I agree with everyone else: If you're using your Fitbit and it's linked to MyFitnessPal, it doesn't really matter, other than affecting the size of your daily adjustment.

    In general if you've linked your Fitbit, you shouldn't be manually logging any step-based activity anyway. Just log non-step activity like, say, swimming or cycling or whatnot.
  • Kst76
    Kst76 Posts: 935 Member
    malibu927 wrote: »
    If your Fitbit is connected to MFP, it doesn't matter what your activity level is. Changing it to lightly active will give you more calories to start with, but you'll get a smaller adjustment than you would at sedentary.

    What does that mean. ..smaller adjustment?
    I just bought fitbit and I'm confused.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    karintalley wrote: »
    malibu927 wrote: »
    If your Fitbit is connected to MFP, it doesn't matter what your activity level is. Changing it to lightly active will give you more calories to start with, but you'll get a smaller adjustment than you would at sedentary.

    What does that mean. ..smaller adjustment?
    I just bought fitbit and I'm confused.

    If you choose lightly active, you will get a higher initial allowance, but you will have to move more before Fitbit begins adding more calories (because you got more calories at the beginning of the day).
  • sweetpea03b
    sweetpea03b Posts: 1,123 Member
    Garmin and fitbit sync to tell MFP how many calories you're burning so if you burn more calories than is set in MFP it will give you an "adjustment" and add calories in the exercise column... so either way it won't matter what you have it set to.
  • smotheredincheese
    smotheredincheese Posts: 559 Member
    Thanks for the replies guys :)
    I dont have my fitbit synced up with mfp, I used to but it seemed like it was massively overestimating calories burned so I add my exercise in manually. I'm going to up my activity level to lightly active and reasses if I stop losing, I've been very hungry lately so think I maybe need the extra calories.
  • segacs
    segacs Posts: 4,599 Member
    Yeah, if you want to make an adjustment from Fitbit exercise, then just sync the two and let it do the work for you. You say you feel like it's been overestimating, but you also feel too hungry. So probably it's quite accurate.

    If you don't want to sync the two, then up your activity level on MFP a bit.
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