Steps/Activity Level

Sunshine_And_Sand
Sunshine_And_Sand Posts: 1,320 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Does anyone know the steps breakdown per activity level?
I have a desk job, so I've always used sedentary and then ate back around 50% of exercise calories but have recently started counting and trying to increase overall steps per day and was curious about how many steps for each activity level. Thanks in advance!

Replies

  • savithny
    savithny Posts: 1,200 Member
    In studies I've read -- the ones where they give pedometers to people and rate their activity levels - anything less than 5,000 steps a day is "sedentary."

    That's the number that all the science articles about steps and their effect on health are using.
  • Kate_UK
    Kate_UK Posts: 1,300 Member
    If you google there are lots of step/equivalent activity charts on the web
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 33,939 Member
    If you're tracking with a fitbit or similar device, set MFP to Sedentary and eat the calories suggested.

    This thread below gives a general discussion about devices and exercise. Devices adjust for ALL of your movement...they don't care if it's something you do every day - that's why you don't want to set your Activity Level here on this site as anything other than Sedentary, otherwise you'd be double dipping.

    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10098937/faq-syncing-logging-food-amp-exercise-calorie-adjustments-activity-levels-accuracy/p1

    If you're keeping track of steps in some other way? Then you would set your Activity Level to your daily normal activity level here on this site and then you would add in more calories for extra purposeful exercise.
  • Sunshine_And_Sand
    Sunshine_And_Sand Posts: 1,320 Member
    edited February 2019
    cmriverside wrote: »
    If you're tracking with a fitbit or similar device, set MFP to Sedentary and eat the calories suggested.

    This thread below gives a general discussion about devices and exercise. Devices adjust for ALL of your movement...they don't care if it's something you do every day - that's why you don't want to set your Activity Level here on this site as anything other than Sedentary, otherwise you'd be double dipping.

    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10098937/faq-syncing-logging-food-amp-exercise-calorie-adjustments-activity-levels-accuracy/p1

    If you're keeping track of steps in some other way? Then you would set your Activity Level to your daily normal activity level here on this site and then you would add in more calories for extra purposeful exercise.

    I don't have a device, it's just a pedometer that doesn't sync with anything. I'm not sure I'd up my activity level because of the extra steps unless I was losing too quickly consistently for several weeks, but was just curious about how many steps per activity level.
    Thanks for the reply
  • Sunshine_And_Sand
    Sunshine_And_Sand Posts: 1,320 Member
    Kate_UK wrote: »
    If you google there are lots of step/equivalent activity charts on the web

    The ones I've seen are:
    Sedentary = less than 5000
    Low activity = 5000-7499
    Somewhat active = 7500-9999
    Active = more than 10000
    Highly active = more than 12500

    Do we know if this is the same guideline MFP uses?

    Thanks for replying!
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 33,939 Member
    Oh. I just enter my Activity Level according to the descriptor in MFP then add back exercise from the pedometer when I do purposeful exercise. This is from Livestrong:
    Search Results
    Featured snippet from the web
    People who take fewer than 5,000 steps are considered to be sedentary or inactive. Those who take 5,000 to 7,499 steps daily have a low active lifestyle. Somewhat active people usually take 7,500 to 9,999 steps per day. People considered to be active take 10,000 or more steps per day.

    https://www.livestrong.com/article/171629-how-many-steps-per-day-to-lose-weight/
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 33,939 Member
    edited February 2019
    Sunshine_And_Sand wrote: »
    Kate_UK wrote: »
    If you google there are lots of step/equivalent activity charts on the web

    The ones I've seen are:
    Sedentary = less than 5000
    Low activity = 5000-7499
    Somewhat active = 7500-9999
    Active = more than 10000
    Highly active = more than 12500

    Do we know if this is the same guideline MFP uses?

    Thanks for replying!

    That is the recommendation. Try it and see. It's all a big ole science experiment. You can only make your best guess and then adjust with results. It's what we all had to do.

    The recommendations are WAY off for me but I only found that out by consistent logging over time.
  • lx1x
    lx1x Posts: 38,310 Member
    Ive been doing 10k steps a day and still considered sedentary..

    I use mfp for food in.. rest is on Fitbit (steps/cal burn/exercise).. fairly accurate/close on calories wise.
  • Sunshine_And_Sand
    Sunshine_And_Sand Posts: 1,320 Member
    Thanks for replies everyone. I wouldn't plan to change the activity level based on extra steps unless I was losing too much consistently. I also don't have much to lose so expect it to be slow.
    Also, I find the calorie burns they give me seem ridiculously high on a lot of things and wonder if using activity level instead would be more accurate than the exercise calories they give. 🤷🏼‍♀️
    I was just curious about the step breakdown since I haven't ever found a clear description of activity levels on the sites guidelines, and I've been here a while. If someone else has found this on MFPs guidelines (not in forums but MFPs actual guideline), let me know where to look.
    Thanks
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 33,939 Member
    edited February 2019
    https://myfitnesspal.desk.com/customer/portal/articles/1375583-a-message-about-myfitnesspal-s-updated-nutrition-goals

    ^^Article includes physical activity goals and links to sources for those goals.
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 33,939 Member
    https://myfitnesspal.desk.com/customer/en/portal/articles/410332-how-does-myfitnesspal-calculate-my-initial-goals-
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 33,939 Member
    I got those from "Help" at the top of every page.
  • Duck_Puddle
    Duck_Puddle Posts: 3,224 Member
    Even if you had the specific numbers that mfp uses (to roughly translate step counts to activity levels), it’s still an estimate and the waters get incredibly muddy when any of your steps come from purposeful activity (exercise that you log).

    Your mfp activity setting is supposed to be your activity level not including exercise (that you log separately).

    As an example, I average 12k steps a day. So...super duper active, right?

    Nope. 8k of those are from exercise that I log.

    My non-exercise step count (and activity level) is sedentary (about 4K steps a day). So that’s what my activity setting is on mfp.

    So it’s a muddy estimate at best. If you’re losing faster than expected (which it sounds like you are?) then raise your activity setting and/or eat more of your exercise calories.

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