How to figure out Activity level In steps?

iNikosaurus

Hello everyone! I'm trying to figure out my activity level using steps. I have 3 apps running each day while I start my journey so I can average out my steps per week and per weekend as they greatly differ at those times. I've generally found that people believe:

Sedentary (less than 5,000)
Low active (5,000-7,499)
Somewhat active (7,500-9,999)
Active (10,000-12,499)
Highly active (12,500+)

The problem is, mfp only has 4 options so I'm sure the numbers are skewed a little bit. That or I simply take the first four and anything above 10k steps is considered highly active. Let me know what you think on it.


To go further, I'm using this to figure out my basic daily expenditure. On an average weekday I work as a full-time custodian who is on their feet for a solid 5 hours cleaning and whatnot. Then I walk my dog 2 times a day for about 20 mins each, rather briskly generally, but i clock in 2000 steps approximately each time. Then I have 25 minute from work at night to get home. All around I average about 13k on weekdays.

Weekends on the other hand I merely do some house chores, do my shopping and walk my dog 3 times for about 20 minutes each. I'm estimating that I'll have about 7k steps for weekends.

So as you see my activity level greatly changes from weekday to weekend.

Ad a side note, I am not exercising yet until my weight goes down more. I think I'm fairly active to get away with it for now. When I do exercise I will figure out how to go about it then. I'll likely not be eating them back unless I'm hungry or if my calories are too low.

Cheers, let me know what you think! Should I assume that mfp activity levels are the first in that list and highly active is 10k+?

As another side note: as I mentioned, I've been using 3 different pedometer to track my steps. They are all fairly similar at the end of the day so I average between them for my total steps. Weight-loss isn't precise, all numbers are estimate. I just want to estimate what activity level I am. Thanks!

EricTreloar

I have no idea. I'm thinking that if you're getting a calorie adjustment for your activity level but then have a step counter adding calories to your daily goal, does that seem right? Does your step counter is counting for all the steps that your activity level is. I think it's best to shine on the side of caution sent you activity level to the lowest and do the minor calorie adjustment with the number of steps you getting. And you're doing great I shoot for 5500 steps a day and I feel like that's pretty active.

Timshel_

I set mine to sedentary, then I could log my exact exercise calories or lack of on a day, where if you choose any of the other active levels that is generically built in.

shadowfax_c11

Mine is set to highly active. When I get home from work I am usually hitting about 13-14k steps. At the end of the day I can be anywhere from 15-18k steps. MFP gives me a calorie adjustment of an additional 3-400 calories on top of what it thinks I should eat for a highly active activity level.

On days I don't work my step count can vary from under 5k to a bit over 10k depending on what my plans are. I usually do not get an adjustment upward and when I had negative calorie adjustments enabled I sometimes had adjusted down. I decided I would rather go to maintenance or a smaller deficit on the weekends than try to stick to a drastically lower calorie goal than I have during the week.

Using a fitness tracking device helps a lot with this area.

lemonychild

I would say u should put active and eat just a bit less on the weekend

Christine_72

I average around 20,000 steps a day and have mfp set to sedentary

I have my fitbit synced so I let it handle the math for me. So much easier than manually adding exercise and having to guesstimate.

thunder1982

I am assuming while you have 3 apps running none are synced with MFP.

You average just over 11k steps over the course of the week. If you arent planning on syncing any devices to do the adj for you, then personally I would put somewhat active. It gives you a little cushion for logging inaccuracies while still taking into account you move more than the average person.