I don't know if I should consider myself sedentary or lightly active?

BuffMom84

I'm confused about what I should do for setting my goals. I'm currently not working out of the home although I do spend a few hours a day earning money online. I drive my son across town every day to bring him to school and pick him up so that's an hour and a half of sitting in the car. But I walk up and down the stairs a lot, clean, cook, do laundry, chase the kids around, etc. I feel like I'll set myself up for failure by putting lightly active, but sometimes at the end of the day I'm really hungry and my dinner doesn't fill me up. I exercise 6 days a week, 3 strength training (I usually go over my calorie goal somewhat on the weightlifting days) and 3 cardio. What do you all have for your settings?

keodell1966

I put in sedentary even though I walk/ jog at least an hour a day. Works for me anyway.

runningforthetrain

I also put in sedentary- only after trial and error with my calorie intake and energy expenditure. I find the MFP target numbers in calories have been closer to my actual numbers after changing it to sedentary. When I had lightly active or more (which I really consider myself) weight and counts for MFP projections were off considerably.

jo_nz

I have gone for lightly active - includes a couple of short walks to my kids' school each day, but otherwise just general household tasks (no stairs here either) or at my desk.

I seem to be losing about on track and that little bit extra in my calorie goal feels much more achieveable - I did originally have it at sedentary, but was STARVING so I decided I would rather go slowly but with a daily goal I can realistically follow indefinitely.

Meghanebk

I'd put in sedentary. I did that for me even though I work on my feet in retail - because when I honestly looked at it I was not moving a lot or at high intensity. I spent more time at a desk/standing still than I thought.

It's far better to start with a smaller calorie deficit that you can stick to without hardship than a higher one that makes you fall off the wagon. With sedentary and 0.5 lb/week loss rate set in the estimator I've had absolutely no difficulties sticking to my MFP limits since I joined a couple weeks ago. And weight is coming off. I'd rather lose weight slowly and keep it off than fast and gain it back.

tress29

Meghanebk wrote: »

With sedentary and 0.5 lb/week loss rate set in the estimator I've had absolutely no difficulties sticking to my MFP limits since I joined a couple weeks ago. And weight is coming off.

I changed from lightly active at a pound a week, to sedentary at a .5#, and got almost the same calorie count too! But sedentary at 1# loss wasn't enough calories...

TR0berts

Pick one. Either one. Eat to that Calorie goal for about a month. Look to see if you've lost as much weight as you should. Adjust as necessary.

For instance:
If you set your activity to Lightly Active and your goal is to lose 1 lb per week - did you lose 4 lb after 4 weeks? If so, great! Keep on going. If you lost less than 4 lb, then try Sedentary. If, on the other hand, you lost considerably more than 4 lb, then maybe try the next highest activity level.*


* I don't believe your activity level is Active, but it's just an example.

cwolfman13

BuffMom84 wrote: »

I'm confused about what I should do for setting my goals. I'm currently not working out of the home although I do spend a few hours a day earning money online. I drive my son across town every day to bring him to school and pick him up so that's an hour and a half of sitting in the car. But I walk up and down the stairs a lot, clean, cook, do laundry, chase the kids around, etc. I feel like I'll set myself up for failure by putting lightly active, but sometimes at the end of the day I'm really hungry and my dinner doesn't fill me up. I exercise 6 days a week, 3 strength training (I usually go over my calorie goal somewhat on the weightlifting days) and 3 cardio. What do you all have for your settings?

Just pick one and go with it. You're not setting yourself up for failure..none of these calculators are "gospel"...they just provide for reasonably good starting points to work with...from there you watch the trend and make your own adjustments as per your results.