"Sedentary" vs. "Lightly Active" and tracking exercise
idipyoudipwedip
Posts: 22 Member
So when I first got MyFitnessPal, I set my activity level as Lightly active because while I do sit most of the day as a student, I exercise every day with HIIT cardio and moderate bodyweight and dumbell strength training for 30-40 minutes. However, if I'm tracking these workouts and MyFitnessPal then increases the calories I'm allowed to eat (anywhere from 200-300 more calories), shouldn't I have it set as Sedentary instead? Or as an alternative, Lightly Active without tracking my exercise?
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I don't log exercise on lightly active days but drop down to sedentary on my days off work and manually add exercise from heart rate monitor stats0
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Your activity setting on MFP does NOT include exercise, so sedentary would probably be better.0
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What's your weight doing? If it's going down or up according to your settings then perfect. If not then adjust the settings as needed. Excersize calories can be over estimated. It's just a matter of watching the scale over time and making adjustments to your settings if needed.0
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Yes, if you're logging your exercise, set your activity to Sedentary or you'll double count. My rule of thumb was to err on the side of underestimating calories burned and overestimating calories consumed to ensure I maintained a deficit to keep losing.0
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I'm curious any vivofit 2 users out there? I have a relatively active job and just ordered one. Would I be better letting it deduct steps or just leaving it at lightly active? I have a polar h7 for intentional cardiovascular recording. Would I get more accurate results with that than just lightly active?0
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I've always taken that setting to mean how active are you outside of exercise. For example, if you wait tables for a living, then you'd set it above sedentary. But basically, if you don't work on your feet, you should set it to sedentary.0
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I've always taken that setting to mean how active are you outside of exercise. For example, if you wait tables for a living, then you'd set it above sedentary. But basically, if you don't work on your feet, you should set it to sedentary.
See that is where I get confused. I work on my feet but sometimes only work 4 hours and most of it spent chit chatting because I work until midnight at a grocery store. But other times I'm all over the place and want to just apply bengay to my entire body when I get home. I bought a vivofit to encourage me to put more overstock away instead of standing around and talking late at night. Or at least look at work like a challenge instead of some tedium I need to get through0 -
I prefer setting mine sedentary and adding exercise in as I do it. It helps to have an activity tracker, but even before that, that's what I'd do. That way, if I have an off day or a sick day, I don't have to manually adjust my calorie intake.0
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I prefer setting mine sedentary and adding exercise in as I do it. It helps to have an activity tracker, but even before that, that's what I'd do. That way, if I have an off day or a sick day, I don't have to manually adjust my calorie intake.
I'm gonna try that. Just curious though would wearing a fitness band while also recording exercise through a heart rate monitor double count? The band itself doesn't have a heart rate monitor and exercise of choice is stationary bike. Unfortunately it's a Garmin band and the hrm is polar0 -
I prefer setting mine sedentary and adding exercise in as I do it. It helps to have an activity tracker, but even before that, that's what I'd do. That way, if I have an off day or a sick day, I don't have to manually adjust my calorie intake.
I'm gonna try that. Just curious though would wearing a fitness band while also recording exercise through a heart rate monitor double count? The band itself doesn't have a heart rate monitor and exercise of choice is stationary bike. Unfortunately it's a Garmin band and the hrm is polar
You wouldn't double-enter them, but you can use the HRM to check how accurate the Garmin is. Unless you have a way of entering your data into an exercise machine, I wouldn't enter that amount at all. That's because machines will calculate based on a set of average data, and unless your data is close, the amount of calories burned will be off. If you can get an activity tracker with built in HRM, that's going to be the best estimate of your calories burned. I don't know any machine that gets it 100% right, but at least a tracker with an HRM will be close.0 -
You activity level with MFP is just supposed to be you day to day hum drum without deliberate exercise which is why you track deliberate exercise separately. You may or may not be light active without any deliberate exercise...I have a desk job, but I'm still light active without any exercise because I have a lot of other daily stuff going on that keeps me moving...cooking, cleaning, chasing after my 3 and 5 y.o., regular yard work, walking the dog, general recreational activity that doesn't rise to the level of exercise, etc.0
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I've always taken that setting to mean how active are you outside of exercise. For example, if you wait tables for a living, then you'd set it above sedentary. But basically, if you don't work on your feet, you should set it to sedentary.
See that is where I get confused. I work on my feet but sometimes only work 4 hours and most of it spent chit chatting because I work until midnight at a grocery store. But other times I'm all over the place and want to just apply bengay to my entire body when I get home. I bought a vivofit to encourage me to put more overstock away instead of standing around and talking late at night. Or at least look at work like a challenge instead of some tedium I need to get through
If you want to play it safe, set it to sedentary. Especially if you're using a fitness tracker to add back calories for steps. But if you're not adding back those step calories, it's probably fair to call yourself lightly active.0 -
I'm set at sedentary and do between 15,000-25,000 steps everyday. I did have it set to lightly active, but because I go into sloth mode after 5pm it always took calories away by the end of the day. If set to lightly active and above, it expects you to keep up that level until midnight.0
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Piggybacking on OP's question - I walk ~12k steps during 8-5p at my job. When I get home I walk on the treadmill for 30-45 min. I have mine set to lightly active and then I add in the night cardio. Is that wrong?0
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Piggybacking on OP's question - I walk ~12k steps during 8-5p at my job. When I get home I walk on the treadmill for 30-45 min. I have mine set to lightly active and then I add in the night cardio. Is that wrong?
I wouldn't think so. If your ~12k steps is normal for you during the day, at least for the 5 day work week, then that's part of what you normally do. If you have a tracker that counts calories, you might set it to sedentary for a week to see where things are, but if you have it set up that way and are losing weight, I wouldn't worry about it if it were me.0 -
I've always taken that setting to mean how active are you outside of exercise. For example, if you wait tables for a living, then you'd set it above sedentary. But basically, if you don't work on your feet, you should set it to sedentary.
See that is where I get confused. I work on my feet but sometimes only work 4 hours and most of it spent chit chatting because I work until midnight at a grocery store. But other times I'm all over the place and want to just apply bengay to my entire body when I get home. I bought a vivofit to encourage me to put more overstock away instead of standing around and talking late at night. Or at least look at work like a challenge instead of some tedium I need to get through
If you want to play it safe, set it to sedentary. Especially if you're using a fitness tracker to add back calories for steps. But if you're not adding back those step calories, it's probably fair to call yourself lightly active.
I'm not sure what I'm gonna do. Not sure if I'm gonna link it up or just use it for the useful data and motivate myself to earn the lightly active setting. And as for what I meant about double adding I mean it won't count my exercise bike as steps if I leave it on right?0 -
I prefer setting mine sedentary and adding exercise in as I do it. It helps to have an activity tracker, but even before that, that's what I'd do. That way, if I have an off day or a sick day, I don't have to manually adjust my calorie intake.
I do this too. Have a desk job so 4 days a week, 10 - 12 hours a day sitting on my backside.0 -
I prefer setting mine sedentary and adding exercise in as I do it. It helps to have an activity tracker, but even before that, that's what I'd do. That way, if I have an off day or a sick day, I don't have to manually adjust my calorie intake.
I do this too. Have a desk job so 4 days a week, 10 - 12 hours a day sitting on my backside.
Man that sucks. My but falls asleep if I sit more than half hour. And I'm a computer geek who could spend all day configuring a home server just for fun if you let me0 -
I'd like to add a question on to this:
If your activity level setting is supposed to not include exercise then where would the step count fall under; activity level or exercise? Should one eat back those calories or not? Should activity level be affected by how much one walks?0 -
I've always taken that setting to mean how active are you outside of exercise. For example, if you wait tables for a living, then you'd set it above sedentary. But basically, if you don't work on your feet, you should set it to sedentary.
See that is where I get confused. I work on my feet but sometimes only work 4 hours and most of it spent chit chatting because I work until midnight at a grocery store. But other times I'm all over the place and want to just apply bengay to my entire body when I get home. I bought a vivofit to encourage me to put more overstock away instead of standing around and talking late at night. Or at least look at work like a challenge instead of some tedium I need to get through
If you want to play it safe, set it to sedentary. Especially if you're using a fitness tracker to add back calories for steps. But if you're not adding back those step calories, it's probably fair to call yourself lightly active.
I'm not sure what I'm gonna do. Not sure if I'm gonna link it up or just use it for the useful data and motivate myself to earn the lightly active setting. And as for what I meant about double adding I mean it won't count my exercise bike as steps if I leave it on right?
It might, that's one of the things trackers can have trouble with. I personally wouldn't worry about steps, just the estimate of calories burned with the HRM, but that's just me. I also don't ride any kind of bike, so I haven't had that issue!0 -
bspringer544 wrote: »I'd like to add a question on to this:
If your activity level setting is supposed to not include exercise then where would the step count fall under; activity level or exercise? Should one eat back those calories or not? Should activity level be affected by how much one walks?
The general advice I got was to link MFP and Fitbit (i dont' know tracker you're using, just using mine as example), make the calorie goal on both the same, and only enter food on MFP and only enter exercise on Fitbit. Because I have mine set to sedentary, any extra movement I do outside of normal gets counted and if it goes over what my calorie goal says I should be burning, it'll add those calories to my total for the day, so I get to eat extra.
Example: My goal is set to 1600 right now. Over the normal course of the day, that total is supposed to be what I normally burn, with a built-in deficit. So on a normal day, I usually don't burn more than this. The Fitbit does track it, but doesn't add anything until I burn more. If I exercise or are doing some kind of activity outside my normal day (or end up walking around the office a lot), that burns more calories than normal. When that happens, Fitbit will add those extra calories to my daily total, giving me more calories I can consume on that day. When I exercise, I add that to Fitbit with the exercise mode, which will do the same thing: add those extra calories onto my daily total so I can eat more that day.
I really hope that's clear, I'm not always good at explanations! ^_^;0 -
Your steps are part of NEAT and not EAT.. Steps are just steps and not exercise inclined unless you put your activity tracker (non HR) in activity mode (turn on the start/stop watch) to count those steps for a calorie buring (steady state) cardio burn.
I never count steps from the tracker as calories to eat back, but I do for the actual calorie burning (steady state, heart rate increase type.. I have an HR to help with calorie burning for cardio) activity/exercising.
edited to add: if you eat back calorie burns leave MFP setting to sedentary. If you do not eat them back and consider all the stuff you do during the day as TDEE then you can set an activity level.
There is a sticky at the beginning of the forums that explains all of the NEAT, EAT, TDEE stuff.
Here a link to the "stickies" .. read up on these, they are a huge help to those setting up MFP settings and their deficit the way they need to set it up.
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10300331/most-helpful-posts-getting-started-must-reads#latest0 -
I've always taken that setting to mean how active are you outside of exercise. For example, if you wait tables for a living, then you'd set it above sedentary. But basically, if you don't work on your feet, you should set it to sedentary.
See that is where I get confused. I work on my feet but sometimes only work 4 hours and most of it spent chit chatting because I work until midnight at a grocery store. But other times I'm all over the place and want to just apply bengay to my entire body when I get home. I bought a vivofit to encourage me to put more overstock away instead of standing around and talking late at night. Or at least look at work like a challenge instead of some tedium I need to get through
If you want to play it safe, set it to sedentary. Especially if you're using a fitness tracker to add back calories for steps. But if you're not adding back those step calories, it's probably fair to call yourself lightly active.
I'm not sure what I'm gonna do. Not sure if I'm gonna link it up or just use it for the useful data and motivate myself to earn the lightly active setting. And as for what I meant about double adding I mean it won't count my exercise bike as steps if I leave it on right?
It might, that's one of the things trackers can have trouble with. I personally wouldn't worry about steps, just the estimate of calories burned with the HRM, but that's just me. I also don't ride any kind of bike, so I haven't had that issue!
True but, anything to motivate me to move a bit more when there really is no reason to is a good thing. Maybe I'll have it count steps but, not count them as calories. And then depending on how many steps i did during the course of the shift decide whether to count it as a sedentary or lightly active day. I usually stop short of the goal anyway after dinner just so i can fit a snack or two in.0 -
I prefer setting mine sedentary and adding exercise in as I do it. It helps to have an activity tracker, but even before that, that's what I'd do. That way, if I have an off day or a sick day, I don't have to manually adjust my calorie intake.
I do this too. Have a desk job so 4 days a week, 10 - 12 hours a day sitting on my backside.
I realize with some jobs one is chained to one's desk, but in every office job I ever had I was able to get water and go to the bathroom freely. If you do this regularly, the steps will add up, especially if you use a bathroom farther away, and, even better, on another floor.0 -
I just realized I never changed my activity level from light to sedentary due to my new job.
good bye 200 calories I thought I had. 0 -
idipyoudipwedip wrote: »However, if I'm tracking these workouts and MyFitnessPal then increases the calories I'm allowed to eat (anywhere from 200-300 more calories), shouldn't I have it set as Sedentary instead? Or as an alternative, Lightly Active without tracking my exercise?
Yes.
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As others have said, I prefer to have mine at Sedentary (8 hour desk job 5 days a week) and log exercise separately. I don't count the 10 min to/from work or general chores as I just think of that as a buffer for any inaccuracies in food logging.0
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I have mine as sedentary even though I am in my feet for 11-12hrs each shift (3 days a week). I get a huge adjustment at the end of the day.
I've tried my activity at different levels but going to stick to sedentary for now as some days I can burn as low as 1600, I try to stick to 1800-2000 regardless as a average a bit of 2400.0
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