Activity Level

Catherine_UK

Hello,

I'm a bit confused to what my activity level should be set to on my fitness pal.

I do a desk job 2-3 times most weeks (I'm part time) but I walk to and from the station everyday so that's 20mins there then 20mins back every day (fast walking)

When I'm not from work I walk my Son to school every day so it's a 10min slow walk there (he's only 3) and a 10min fast walk back and this is done twice a day for pick up too.

On non work days I spend about an hour cleaning the house and then all the usual laundry, washing up, cooking gets done during the week.

I do do exercise but not regularly, if I have a free hour I might stick an exercise DVD in or jump on the bike so would prefer to add this separately to my diary.

So my question is does all the other stuff mean I'm Not active or Lightly active?

My thinking was to do not active then add the walks to station and school separately but not sure if this is the right thing to do??

Tia Catherine x

andyzee69

I would say one up from lightly active. All that walking and housework counts as exercise. I'm UK too if you want to add me as a friend.

malibu927

Stick with sedentary. Look at your losses over the next 4-6 weeks. If you lose faster than intended or find yourself hungrier, bump it up to lightly active.

sijomial

First you exclude your purposeful exercise (DVD, bikng) as that's logged separately and has no bearing on your activity setting.

Personally for simplicity I would count your walking to/from the station and school etc as part of your regular activity. There will be weeks you do more or do less but it evens out. That's what the activity setting is trying to achieve - an average over time.

The myfitnesspal way of accounting for exercise (log after the event, get credited with an estimate which gets added to that day's goal) is perfect for an occasional or irregular exerciser.

I would start at Active and after a month review your actual results and then make a manual adjustment to your daily calorie goal to fine tune. Especially if you have selected an aggressive rate of weight loss.
You could of course do the same from the Lightly Active setting as a start point but I always like to eat the maximum amount of food while still hitting my goals.

hopleyjana2049

Do you have activity tracker like fitbit, Apple Watch..........? If so sync it with your MFP and set your MFP as sedentary. If you don’t have any wearables, add your walks and other activity into your MFP, but still keep your level as sedentary. It’s the easiest way to keep on track with your calories.

malibu927

hopleyjana2049 wrote: »

Do you have activity tracker like fitbit, Apple Watch..........? If so sync it with your MFP and set your MFP as sedentary. If you don’t have any wearables, add your walks and other activity into your MFP, but still keep your level as sedentary. It’s the easiest way to keep on track with your calories.

If she does these walks every day though it’s already in her activity level. Even sedentary accounts for 3000-5000 steps. Which does make me rescind my original advice and say the OP should go for lightly active instead.