What should my activity level be set to?

Heatherloulou87

Hi,

What would you advise I set my activity level to?

I have a office job so sitting most of the day while working.
I do have 3 children so when not working i am looking after them. So still on my feet.

I workout 5-6 times a week for anything between 30-50 minutes doing weights, cardio etc.

Thanks for your help 😊

KickassAmazon76

I like to use sedentary and then add in my exercise cals. That way if I get sick, or can't workout like I normally do, I don't stress as much. I can also choose what to eat back.

Unless it's a consistent exercise hurn every single day, doing it this way allows easier accounting for the variations of effort and intensity from workout to workout.

nighthawk584

agree with kickass...I've always kept mine at sedentary to offset any discrepancy in calories and exercise. Works for me.

dewd2

Agreed. I use sedentary and let Garmin handle the rest. I get 'credit' for even a few thousand steps. But on days like today when I am a complete couch potato the numbers still work out.

Good luck.

spiriteagle99

I would say sedentary or lightly active, then eat back most of the exercise calories. If your children are quite young, so you're running around after them and picking them up and carrying them around the house, then the lightly active could apply. If they are older and you're just cooking and cleaning, then sedentary or lightly active could still apply. Do you know how many steps you average apart from your deliberate exercise?

sijomial

Your workouts are absolutely NOTHING to do with your activity setting.
With three children I very much doubt you qualify as sedentary which is a very low amount of daily/weekly movement, suggest trying lightly active and see how it goes for a month and adjust if required.
(When I had an office job I easily fitted in Lightly Active despite no young children to look after.)

BTW - there's a lot of people so far suggesting sedentary plus logging and eating back exercise calories so hope you don't get the impression that it's only with the sedentary setting that people should eat back their exercise calories. Eating back exercise calories applies to all activity levels as there's no overlap or correlation between the two things on here.

e.g. My son is a builder so of course would need a high activity setting, but he also exercises and would have to add those calories as they aren't accounted for elsewhere.

CookieUnicornNinja

I’ve had the best results with sedentary. That way I know I’m not risking accidentally factoring in some assumption that may be wrong.

I’ve also found that monitoring closely week over week and adjusting accordingly (maybe 10%?) if Im not getting what I want. This of course assumes that you are tracking accurately.

heybales

I'm going to say be honest since you made no reference to an activity tracker being used that will allow MFP to correct itself.

With kids and household you are absolutely not Sedentary, that is less than 4K steps daily, you average in the weekends and evenings, the desk job alone doesn't make you sedentary overall.
Lightly-Active.

When people started getting trackers you should see how many discovered they were not even sedentary with desk jobs and long commutes. They were NOT sitting all evening and weekends after that, outside of exercise, but very active with household duties.
In fact with exercise even less time to sit at home because getting same stuff done in less time.

And then since MFP doesn't account for any exercise up front, you correctly eat more when you do more. And then less when you do less.
Life lesson on weight management right there. Sadly it seems to be 1 direction is usually the issue.

Dogmom1978

Whichever you choose: sedentary or lightly active, you eat exercise calories back (just want to make sure that was clear) or at least a portion of them.

Also, whichever you choose, give it 4-6 weeks and see how the weight loss is going. If you opt for sedentary and then you are hungry all the time and losing faster than anticipated then switch to lightly active. If you start at lightly active but don’t lose anything or slower than anticipated (and you are sure you are weighing correctly and choosing proper data base entries) then you would try to switch it to sedentary.

For me, I go with sedentary. I have a desk job also. I do take care of 7 dogs after work and almost always go over 6k min steps even when I don’t work out, BUT I still lose only 1 lb a week (which is what I have mfp set to).

Heatherloulou87

Thanks for the advice!

So basically, I should set my activity to sedentary and eat my exercise calories back?

Thanks 😊

heybales

No.

You have 3 kids - you are not sedentary in daily life outside of exercise.

Jthanmyfitnesspal

Heatherloulou87 wrote: »

So basically, I should set my activity to sedentary and eat my exercise calories back?
😊

Well, it pays to be a little conservative in eating them back.

The estimates given in the MFP app are very crude. Estimates from a gym-quality exercise machine (e.g., elliptical trainer) are pretty good. Estimates from a fitness tracker linked to MFP can be OK if most of your exercise is steps, walking, and/or running. (You can add other activities so long as you alert the tracker, e.g., if you ride an indoor bike).

In any case, a little judgement should be applied when eating the calories back. Best of luck!

AnnPT77

Jthanmyfitnesspal wrote: »

Heatherloulou87 wrote: »

So basically, I should set my activity to sedentary and eat my exercise calories back?
😊

Well, it pays to be a little conservative in eating them back.

The estimates given in the MFP app are very crude. Estimates from a gym-quality exercise machine (e.g., elliptical trainer) are pretty good. Estimates from a fitness tracker linked to MFP can be OK if most of your exercise is steps, walking, and/or running. (You can add other activities so long as you alert the tracker, e.g., if you ride an indoor bike).

In any case, a little judgement should be applied when eating the calories back. Best of luck!

You have a lot more confidence in machines and trackers than I do - just saying. If you're close to average, the calculators (MFP, TDEE calculators, etc.) will be close for you. If you're not, they won't. Until you get experience, you don't know. (Yes, they're close for most: Conceptually, tall, narrow bell curve.)

For me, MFP and my good brand/model tracker (one that's accurate for others, per posts here) are off by 25-30%. It happens. (They're low, BTW, so it's not that I'm lowballing food estimates, or overestimating exercise.)

As for MFP exercise estimates, some are better than others; generally they should back out BMR from the METS-based estimate, but don't - in most cases, that's not a huge big deal, arithmetically speaking.)

Machines are pretty much a crapshoot, without knowing details (calibrated? accurately measures watts? knows your weight? knows your actual HR range and fitness level, if using HR to estimate? etc.).

Heather, set your activity level to your best guess, not including exercise. (Heybales has a point. Most moms aren't sedentary.) Log your exercise using the most accurate calorie-estimating method you can identify. (MFP's "strength training" estimate under "cardiovascular" is good for standard rep/set lifting with rests between sets. Say what you're doing as cardio, and folks will suggest the better estimating approaches).

Follow the calorie goal that way for 4-6 weeks (compare the same relative point in successive menstrual cycles). Use the average weekly results on the scale to adjust your calorie goal. Rinse and repeat.

That will work for the overwhelming majority of people. It's like a fun science fair experiment for grown-ups. 😉

sijomial

Heatherloulou87 wrote: »

Thanks for the advice!

So basically, I should set my activity to sedentary and eat my exercise calories back?

Thanks 😊

No - not sedentary.
("I do have 3 children so when not working i am looking after them. So still on my feet.")
The skill of estimating is in making your best estimate and then adjusting if necessary based on results - not in deliberately making a bad estimate to achieve an outcome.

Yes - eat back a sensible/reasonable amount of your exercise calories.