Activity level?

leann8806417417

I have a desk job but I'm doing insanity 6 days a week. Am I lightly active or active?

JeromeBarry1

You're sedentary. Log your exercise.

Spliner1969

You are sedentary. Log your exercise separately. Just my opinion.

leann8806417417

Makes sense. Thanks!

leann8806417417

Would that be circuit training, or something else?

Spliner1969

The reason is that if you use your exercise to increase your activity level MFP, and other calculators, will give you more calories per day. Then when you miss a day of exercise it'll adversely impact your weight loss over time. If you add calories as you exercise then you don't have that problem. If you take a day off, you simply eat less that day. That worked the best for me during my cutting weight stage. Once I hit maintenance I went over to iifym.com, added in my weekly exercise and allowed it to average it over 7 days. Now I work out the same every week, and if I miss a day I do my best to make it up. But when I was losing my original weight, it was better if I only ate above my sedentary calories on days I exercised. It motivated me to exercise more often.

JeromeBarry1

It doesn't even have to be an opinion. When peer-reviewed research into the topic of NEAT and BMR and physical activity and work activity are done, they define 'sedentary' as having a job in which you experience bouts of sitting of greater than one hour interrupted by activity of less than 15 minutes. Basically, if you get paid to sit for an hour and then go to the bathroom and resume sitting, you're sedentary. A person whose job involves standing and moving around most of the day with no bout of sitting for one hour is lightly active. Someone who gets paid to stand, move, and frequently lift objects is active.

Spliner1969

JeromeBarry1 wrote: »

It doesn't even have to be an opinion. When peer-reviewed research into the topic of NEAT and BMR and physical activity and work activity are done, they define 'sedentary' as having a job in which you experience bouts of sitting of greater than one hour interrupted by activity of less than 15 minutes. Basically, if you get paid to sit for an hour and then go to the bathroom and resume sitting, you're sedentary. A person whose job involves standing and moving around most of the day with no bout of sitting for one hour is lightly active. Someone who gets paid to stand, move, and frequently lift objects is active.

Agreed. Active = physical labor consistently. Sedentary = desk job.

JeromeBarry1

I'll add, as more and more desk job people are getting standing desks such as this Varidesk in front of me, they are still sedentary if they experience a single bout of sitting for one hour during the workday.

JeromeBarry1

leann8806417417 wrote: »

Would that be circuit training, or something else?

It can be whatever you like.

If you want to build muscle or at least preserve muscle during weight loss, you'll need to consume 1 gram of protein per lb of your body weight per day and do progressive heavy lifting.

I even log my standing at my desk as cardio exercise. in 7 hours 15 minutes of standing yesterday, I logged 324 calories. That's about .744 calories per minute. I also logged 30 minutes of steady state walking for about 150 calories and 30 minutes of high intensity sprinting intervals for 210 calories. So you see, standing around posting on mfp all day burns more calories than 30 minutes of cardio exercise.

Spliner1969

JeromeBarry1 wrote: »

If you want to build muscle or at least preserve muscle during weight loss, you'll need to consume 1 gram of protein per lb of your body weight per day and do progressive heavy lifting.

Be careful with that recommendation, too many new people take that as it's written, start out at 300+ lbs and try to get 300g or more of protein a day. You should set yourself for 1g/lb of lean body mass, or if you don't know your lean body mass, go for 1g per pound of your target weight max. Even that may be overkill for people trying to lose weight.

leann8806417417

Thank you! I appreciate your responses.