Lightly active, active?

chrislee1628

As per title

What would you class as lightly active and active?

I.e. 30-40k per day

Someone that is unfit doing 30k would be classed as very active, yet someone that is very fit would be classed as active, maybe even lightly active?

Surely just asking a person's weight and height is not enough? Maybe ask for more data? Waist?

chrislee1628

What I do not understand, might because I am tired or overthinking it

If I set it to lose 2lbs per week and sedentary, my daily calorie is 1500, active 2120

Now, if I exercise and earn 1000 calorie for example

For sedentary I would agree 2500 to lose 2lbs

But surely having set active, it has already added calories so to add that 1k from the exercise would mean my calorie intake would be too much?

Wouldn't it be more correct to say 1500 regardless of my level of activity, but then to add the calories earned from exercising?

So 1500 for sitting on the couch all day, earn 1k and it would be 2500, be very active and earn 3k then it would be 4.5k?

Like I said I am probably overthinking this

PAV8888

There is exactly zero difference between "calling" yourself inactive (1500 Cal base) and adding 1000 Cal of "exercise" = 2500 Cal total TDEE and "calling" yourself very active (2500 Cal base) and adding 0 Cal of "exercise" = 2500 Cal total TDEE.

Note if 30-40K above was a reference to 30-40,000 steps do note that MFP's VERY ACTIVE setting corresponds APPROXIMATELY to 15,000 steps a day.

The classification differences are accounting conventions for us to figure things out... all our body cares for is how many calories it spent and how many it received!

Christine_72

Yes, but what if you set yourself to active, do you also count your exercise calories on top? Or does active already include those exercise calories?

cmriverside

Christine_72 wrote: »

Yes, but what if you set yourself to active, do you also count your exercise calories on top? Or does active already include those exercise calories?

I've always gotten away with both. And if I drop down to the next lower activity level, I lose too quickly and/or I am too hungry. I've tried all the combinations in the past nine years. I can't use sedentary at all, and I don't work nor do I do a lot of daily regular activity.

I'll bet there are equal numbers of people who do one or the other and would argue to the death that I'm wrong.

It's sort of an N=1 experiment.

Christine_72

cmriverside wrote: »

Christine_72 wrote: »

Yes, but what if you set yourself to active, do you also count your exercise calories on top? Or does active already include those exercise calories?

I've always gotten away with both. And if I drop down to the next lower activity level, I lose too quickly and/or I am too hungry. I've tried all the combinations in the past nine years. I can't use sedentary at all, and I don't work nor do I do a lot of daily regular activity.

I'll bet there are equal numbers of people who do one or the other and would argue to the death that I'm wrong.

It's sort of an N=1 experiment.

It just goes to show we're all individuals. No one thing works for the mass population..

firephoenix8

When I first started, I set it to sedentary and lose 1lb per week. I wasn't hungry all the time - I'm actually rarely hungry, my trigger is feeling tired and having no energy, if I'm not planning and scheduling my meals - but after a month I had lost about 10 lbs and felt incredibly awful. I increased it to lightly active and 1 lb per week, and continued losing at about 1lb per week. A few months in I bought a fitbit, and finally just about two months ago I enabled negative calories with my fitbit. I'm extremely busy and rarely get any exercise other than walking (often back and forth from my desk to the shipping department and warehouse, and the half mile from my car to class), but I almost always get at least a few positive calories in.

I continue to lose on average 1 lb per week, set as slightly active, and eating back pretty much all the calories I get from from fitbit (net). Lightly active with a few positive calories is about 6-7k steps, for me.

So yeah, I would say if I made myself "very active" and disabled negative calories and then ate back the calories I got from any exercise I logged, I would not lose. Heck, "very active" is probably maintenance level for me. But like everybody else said, it's more about what's right for you. I learned I'm not sedentary (accusing to MFP anyway) and adjusted.

clark614

Can you please explain enabling negative calories and why you would do that?

firephoenix8

MFP takes your input from how "active" you say you are and makes an estimate of how many calories you will burn. It creates your calorie allotment from this. If you are using a constant tracker like FitBit, that has a more accurate count of your calorie burn on a day to day basis, you can enable 'negative calorie adjustments' under settings in the food menu. What that means is, MFP thinks I'm going to burn like 2300 calories today, and gives me 1800 so I can have a 500 calorie deficit (3500 for a week = 1 lb per week). If I am not as active as I thought, I might burn only 2200, in which case a 500 calorie deficit is 1700, not 1800.

FitBit tells MFP how many calories it thinks I'm burning, and if I'm not on track to burn my 2300, then MFP lowers my allotted calories just for that day. I see that and think, o *kitten*, I need to walk more so I don't have to rethink my day's planned meals, and so I park further away from class or use a break to run the stairs or whatever I have time for.

From what I've read, people think FitBit is better at estimating your calorie burn and MFP is better at handling your recommended intake and managing your logging. So together they are a better tool than either apart. YMMV.

chrislee1628

@pav8888 what I am saying is that the starting calorie amounts are different, and then adds the calories earnt on top of that

so say

sedentary, 1500, earn 1000, total for day 2500
very active, 2500, earn 1000, total for day 3500

just by changing the activity level, you start with a different calorie requirement, and in this case, if you did the same activity and earnt the same amount of calories, just because of the different activity level, your daily requirement is different which does not make sense

KorvapuustiPossu

Sedentary and very active are your base activity levels WITHOUT exercise. So someone who spends a big part of their day on their feet, doing manual labor and such would set as very active and if they worked out on top of that add those calories. But if you sit all day and then exercise and burn 1000 kcal you should set sedentary and add those. If only thing you do is walk I suggest set as sedentary and add your walking calories. If you would put active in that case you would double count the calories... unless you allow negative adjustment which should sort it out by itself.

shadow2soul

Someone who spends the majority of the day on their feet is going to burn more calories before exercise is included than someone who sits at their desk all day.

Machka9

From the Guided Setup under Goals ...

How would you describe your normal daily activities?
Sedentary: Spend most of the day sitting (e.g. bank teller, desk job)
Lightly Active: Spend a good part of the day on your feet (e.g. teacher, salesman)
Active: Spend a good part of the day doing some physical activity (e.g. waitress, mailman)
Very Active: Spend most of the day doing heavy physical activity (e.g. bike messenger, carpenter)


Because I work in an office and spend most of my day sitting, I set myself at Sedentary ... and then add whatever exercise I do at lunch and after work.

If my husband were a member here, he has a physically active job so he would set himself at Active ... and then add whatever exercise he does after work.

PAV8888

wytey wrote: »

@pav8888 what I am saying is that the starting calorie amounts are different, and then adds the calories earnt on top of that

so say

sedentary, 1500, earn 1000, total for day 2500
very active, 2500, earn 1000, total for day 3500

just by changing the activity level, you start with a different calorie requirement, and in this case, if you did the same activity and earnt the same amount of calories, just because of the different activity level, your daily requirement is different which does not make sense

Correct, if you added the same activities to either classification one of the two would be wrong.

So the issue is: are you adding the same activities to either classification?

I don't think it was part of your original question; but, the Fitbit with negative adjustment route means you are NOT adding the same activity calories to either classification. Fitbit-MFP integration is aware of what each other thinks your burn is going to be and they adjust dynamically based on what Fitbit thinks you've actually burned.

But, if you were planning to add your activities manually, yes, you would have to make sure you're not adding in activities that have already been captured by the activity level you've declared.

So: if I call myself highly active... I better not be adding in again the first 15000 steps/2.5 ish hours of light activity I've done during my day. But if i've called myself sedentary, I'd better be adding in anything beyond the first 3500 steps/0.30 minutes of light activity.

So a sedentary person might legitimately record things such as laundry or cooking food as exercise activities. A highly active person would be unlikely to be legitimately recording such as add on exercise activities because they are captured by the base activity level.

Again though... at the end of the day all that matters is the total in and total out and whether you've fully accounted for it without double counting or under counting for that matter.

You can easily go with one or the other convention, and after 30 days or so evaluate what your trending weight app is saying about your weight loss vis a vis the deficit you think you have and adjust from there...