Activity Level?

honeylissabee

How do I determine my activity level?

One website I found has a list of different activity level descriptions:

Desk job with little exercise
1-3 hrs/wk of light exercise
3-5 hrs/wk of moderate exercise
5-6 hrs/wk of strenuous exercise
7-21 hrs/wk of strenuous exercise/work

What if I do 4 hours per week of light exercise, or 7 hours a week of moderate exercise? What if I do moderate exercise for 3 hours per week, but work a job where I'm on my feet all day walking around (ie: working in a preschool/daycare).

I hate these kinds of descriptions when it comes to determining activity levels. How do I know how active I am?

fatfudgery

Trial and error.

EszterNZ

I find this one tough too.. I exercise every day, even if its just a brisk walk, or something more intense, but I've left my activity level at the lowest one (desk job).. I figure that's probably the safer option than over estimating my activity levels.

honeylissabee

I find this one tough too.. I exercise every day, even if its just a brisk walk, or something more intense, but I've left my activity level at the lowest one (desk job).. I figure that's probably the safer option than over estimating my activity levels.

I guess that's what I'm probably going to do. Right now, the only workout I'm planning is 30 minutes of Leslie Sansone walking/strength training 6 days per week. Although, I am considering increasing to a workout plan that involves 30-90 minutes of walking 6 days per week (2-5 miles of walking per day) after next month. I'm also looking for employment- preferably in a daycare. If I work in a preschool/daycare full-time that's 7-8+ hours a day spent on my feet PLUS working out for 30 minutes or more 6 days per week.

It seems that most activity calculators either focus on purposeful exercise or work/general activities. What if you're lightly active in the day, but do a moderate level of additional activity? What if you're do a small quantity of heavy exercise or a lot of light activity? It seems to either say a few hours of light activity, or several hours or heavy exercise. What if you like going on a couple hour-long walks a day? What if you only work out for 30 minutes a day, but you feel like you're going to die at the end?

Mokey41

Are you trying to figure out your TDEE?

honeylissabee

Yes, but I also don't want to figure out the absolute minimum I should be eating so I don't eat too little.

indigoigloo

I found it was easiest to set mine to sedentary and then just add in how much i exercise per day. has been working OK for the past month or so.

Mokey41

Yes, but I also don't want to figure out the absolute minimum I should be eating so I don't eat too little.

Honestly, doing 30 minutes of Leslie Sansone isn't a huge calorie burner and from where you have your budget set now I wouldn't be concerned about under eating.

honeylissabee

I guess that makes sense. While I'm unemployed, I can keep my activity at sedentary, and just manually calculate my workouts.

But what if I start another 10,000 step a day streak? Some of that will be done doing workouts where I wear an HRM, but other activity will be done through just normal activity. Work, walking around stores, etc. What should my activity level be then?

I just wish there was an easy way to figure out my TDEE so my goal is stable, but I suppose that's just not possible. I am still concerned about undereating if it turns out I'm lightly active, but I set myself up as being sedentary- or overeating if I set myself up to be lightly active, but I end up being sedentary. I just don't know what's worse. It seems that overeating and undereating are both incredibly bad. I know that the "best" thing to do would be to just set my Fitbit up to calculate the differences and follow that, but I also get stressed out about the constantly changing numbers throughout the day.

My best friend explains it rather well here: "I have also noticed that my Fitbit adjustment is not very stable. For example, it could say that I burned 300 calories in the afternoon but if I don't keep that same level of activity throughout the rest of the day, that number will drop. I get nervous about the number changing because I don't want to dip into my exercise calories to only have the number change and wind up being over my goal for the day."

kdeaux1959

I personally prefer setting it to "sedentary" and applying our activity level on a daily basis. If I have unusual movement on the job, I count it; otherwise, I consider it sedentary even though technically, it is "lightly active" according to the descriptor in MFP. Seems to be relatively accurate that way.