What does sedentary actually mean?

AMC110

I have a desk job so I set my activity level to sedentary and I log exercise separately, but what does a sedentary lifestyle typically involve? Does it include walking or should I log that too?

janejellyroll

In MFP terms, sedentary typically means someone who works a desk job. It does include some walking because virtually everyone does some in a day.

The best check will be your results over time. If you find yourself losing faster than expected, this could be a sign that your activity level is set too low.

toxikon

I like to double check my TDEE with this tool, as it gives you more options for activity levels: http://www.sailrabbit.com/bmr/

Keep in mind it's all just estimations. It's up to you to go through the trial and error of finding a caloric deficit that results in a good weight of loss for you and sticking to it.

As for me - I consider myself sedentary (desk job) and I only log intentional, prolonged activity. For example, I won't log my various walks to the washroom or break room throughout the day, but if I use my lunch break to go on a brisk 45 minute walk outside, I will log that. It's personal preference.

suerlewis2

I struggle with this, much of my day is spent sitting but some also walking and heavy lifting. I know I am burning calories but don't know how much.

hesn92

I think the best way to know is from your results. I found that for me, personally, to be classified as sedentary on mfp, you have to be REALLY sedentary. I wore a Fitbit for a while and I always got extra calories, with no exercise. That was just me working my desk job and walking around and stuff. (I pretty much never got 10,000 steps)

Duck_Puddle

This suggests that less than 5k steps/day is sedentary.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/14715035/

I wear a Fitbit which is tied to my Mfp. My MFP is set as sedentary. I work at home and outside of purposeful exercise, I routinely get fewer than 4K steps a day. If I do a lot of housework, or run errands (like 2 stores), I can get 6-7k, sometimes 7-8k if I do both. If I exercise, I can have as many as 30-40k steps (I run).

The Fitbit calorie adjustments I get seem to correlate to the activity levels that go along with the approximate step counts.

HoneyBadger302

Rather than using the MFP goals I set my own using the iifym calculator. My M-F job is sedentary (desk job) and while I do things like take the stairs to the train, those little things don't add up to enough to make a big difference. My weekend job, however, is another story, where I am on my feet pretty much all day, carrying around leather jackets and race suits, moving boxes, etc with almost no sitting. So, I calculated my rates (with my workouts) using both sedentary and light activity, then the difference between the two, divided that by 7, and added two days of the difference and averaged that over my week (no idea if all of that makes any sense LOL).

Basically I was feeling the need to account for those days, but I prefer to keep my daily calories pretty much the same day to day....

PAV8888

MFP sedentary is a BMR multiplier of 1.25

That's all it means

You can outdo the level of activity this encompasses by moving around more than 35 **or so** minutes in a day.

The first 35 minutes/3500 steps in a day are included in the activity level.

Alatariel75

Noel_57 wrote: »

I consider myself sedimentary. I think it's due to the high mineral content of our well water.

You rock.

apullum

I run regularly but have a pretty sedentary job. I set my activity level as sedentary, with my workouts logged separately. It's worked for me in both weight loss and maintenance.