"Sedentary" vs. "Lightly Active" and tracking exercise

dubird

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! ^_^;

RoxieDawn

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#latest

srecupid

dubird wrote: »

srecupid wrote: »

kcm105 wrote: »

srecupid wrote: »

kcm105 wrote: »

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.

kshama2001

laineybz wrote: »

dubird wrote: »

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.

samchez0

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.

tomteboda

@samchez0 Time to use a pedometer and get those daily steps (and calories) back!

Machka9

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.

Becca_250

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.

debrag12

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.