Sedentary vs Lightly Active

stackhead

Hello,

Just looking for a little advice here. I use the TDEE - 20% to set my calorie goal and was wondering what you lovely lot would class as sedentary and lightly active.

I'm currently set on sedentary as I have desk job and don't do much in the way of dedicated exercise (yet!). But I do walk everywhere but only in little spurts i.e. my daily walking looks like:
15 mins to the station, sit on the train, 15 mins to the office
10-40 minutes during lunch
15 mins to the station, sit on the train, 15 mins to home

So I set myself up as sedentary as it's not really a whole lot of activity to me. What would you do? I'm toying with the idea of a range i.e. between my current calorie level 1900 and the TDEE -20% of a lightly active me. rather than a set fixed goal?

Stats: I'm 24, female, 259lbs and 5ft11.

Mokey41

What you describe is sedentary, not even close to lightly active.


Sleeping - 8 hours
Personal care (dressing, showering) - 1 hour
Eating - 1 hour
Cooking - 1 hour
Sitting (office work, selling produce, tending shop) - 8 hours
Driving car to/from work - 1 hour
General household work - 1 hour
Light leisure activities (watching TV, chatting) - 3 hours

If that describes your life then you are sedentary. People on here get hung up that sedentary means laying on the couch like a sloth all day when it actually means a large portion of the population who don't do anything beyond regular life.

mathjulz

What you describe is sedentary, not even close to lightly active.


Sleeping - 8 hours
Personal care (dressing, showering) - 1 hour
Eating - 1 hour
Cooking - 1 hour
Sitting (office work, selling produce, tending shop) - 8 hours
Driving car to/from work - 1 hour
General household work - 1 hour
Light leisure activities (watching TV, chatting) - 3 hours

If that describes your life then you are sedentary. People on here get hung up that sedentary means laying on the couch like a sloth all day when it actually means a large portion of the population who don't do anything beyond regular life.

Although the OP did include and hour of walking (or so) in her daily activity … would you still count that at sedentary?

By the Scooby calculators, light exercise of an hour a day would generally fall into the lightly active, I thought. But I'm still trying to figure the whole thing out, too

FerretBuellerr

I've always wondered this too.

I also have an office job (currently - will be unemployed in January so I have no clue what my next job will entail) and spend much of my time sitting when I am at home.

I do Zumba 3 times a week for an hour, take at least one 20 minute walk 5 days of the week, but have recently started to walk the 6.5 km home on the days when it's not too hot/humid or rainy. I also bike 10 km to work and the same back on occasion.

When I started using the TDEE method, I used the iifym.com calculator and set it to "work out 3 times a week" for my activity level, and I've lost 10 pounds so far. So calculating "lightly active" has worked for me so far, but I don't know if it would work for you considering the only exercise you get is walking. I agree with the other post that you are sedentary. I try to think of it as this (but I don't know if it is a proper definition at all, so don't quote me on it): if you work a desk job and don't go to the gym or do any kind of activity outside of work that gets your heart rate up for at least a half hour, you're more than likely sedentary. If you have a job that has you on your feet all day and/or you work out and get your heart pumping at least 3 times a week, you're lightly active.

Francl27

Scooby overestimates activity bit a lot. I exercise every day (walking 5 miles a day in average) and still have to use the lightly active setting for it to be close to what my fitbit tells me.

OP is definitely sedentary.

Mokey41

The little bit of walking the OP does would be considered part of life. Maybe, maybe the lunch walk could be logged as exercise if it's an intentional brisk walk for the sake of exercise not a stroll to the deli with friends to grab lunch.

mathjulz

Thanks for clarifications!!

stackhead

Thank you for the advice peeps. I never log my walking as exercise anywho I was just making sure I was right

LunaAmour

I was wondering this for myself as well. I have mine set to Lightly Active. I honestly don't move around a whole lot on average, but there are small chunks of the day (33 min - 1 hr) every day where I'll do a very intense cardio elliptical workout. And there's hardly an exception to this happening every day.

Mokey41

I was wondering this for myself as well. I have mine set to Lightly Active. I honestly don't move around a whole lot on average, but there are small chunks of the day (33 min - 1 hr) every day where I'll do a very intense cardio elliptical workout. And there's hardly an exception to this happening every day.

If you're using MFP then set yourself to sedentary and then log your exercise separately. I've never really trusted using TDEE unless it is set to sedentary and adding exercise because it assumes you do the exercise you listed religiously and my life is too crazy for me to definitely say I'm going to get that done.

contingencyplan

Back when I cared about the difference:

The difference between sedentary and lightly active for me was 180 calories. I burned more than that walking to and from the bus stop to catch the bus to work every mon-fri. Unless you LITERALLY spend your entire day not moving, stuck in a chair or in a bed, you are lightly active (by MFP's numbers anyway)

Bekahmardis

I thought I was sedentary as well, until I got my FitBit which proved me to be Lightly Active instead. If you aren't seeing results, that's when I would switch it up. As soon as I added more calories to my intake, I started to drop the last few pounds.