What activity level am I?

lj_rubia18

So, I'm currently stuck on what Activity Level to pick. I was going to pick sedentary, but I go to the gym 1 hour a day 4 days a week. 30 Minutes of Weight lifting and 30 Minutes of cardio. It's summer vacation so I mostly spend most of my time on the computer, or just relaxing in my room. Am I sedentary or lightly active?

mebepiglet123

pick lightly active or the next one up, as MFP tends to not give enough calories. The other option is to work out TDEE just google it.

ILiftHeavyAcrylics

Are you trying to use MFP's method or are you trying to do TDEE-20%?

SLLRunner

So, I'm currently stuck on what Activity Level to pick. I was going to pick sedentary, but I go to the gym 1 hour a day 4 days a week. 30 Minutes of Weight lifting and 30 Minutes of cardio. It's summer vacation so I mostly spend most of my time on the computer, or just relaxing in my room. Am I sedentary or lightly active?

It really depends.

I've been in maintenance since about January and I have my activity level set to active. When I was losing weight, I lost weight too quickly when put on sedentary and lightly active, but active has proven to be just fine.

By the way, i work in an office sitting on my butt all day, but other than this I lift heavy weight three days a week, and then run four to six and a half miles the other remaining days (usually just three of them, and do something like spinning on the other day),and I walk a lot and am pretty busy generally. I also eat my cardio exercise calories back, but not my weight lifting or general cardio calories.

I think you just have to figure out what works for you.

SnuggleSmacks

MFP's sedentary basically means you're laying in bed all day doing nothing.

I keep mine on sedentary, but I use a BodyMedia Fit band to track calories burned, and it adjusts up on days that I'm more active. I just finished school and have a desk job, so certain days I was very physically inactive due to lack of time. Even now I have a lazy day once every couple of weeks and stay in bed watching Netflix marathons most of the day, and MFP still lowballs the cals.

nxd10

I would put in sedentary and log my exercise. When you do it, you get credit. When you don't, you don't.

nxd10

Snugglesmacks is wrong. MFP assumes that people who are sedentary are walking around 4000 steps a day. Walking to work, running up and down stairs, etc., that's all I do. I have to actually make an effort to take an hours walk (or go shopping) to hit 10,000 steps. In the summer or on weekends, if I sit and work at home I have pathetically few steps - even if I'm gardening or mucking out the chickens, like I did today.

But she is absolute right that using something that measures your activity is a fantastic idea. I use a basic fitbit zip. Works great for me.

If you need more calories than MFP gives you, you are blessed with a faster metabolism than average or you exercise more than average.

SnuggleSmacks

Snugglesmacks is wrong. MFP assumes that people who are sedentary are walking around 4000 steps a day. Walking to work, running up and down stairs, etc., that's all I do. I have to actually make an effort to take an hours walk (or go shopping) to hit 10,000 steps. In the summer or on weekends, if I sit and work at home I have pathetically few steps - even if I'm gardening or mucking out the chickens, like I did today.

But she is absolute right that using something that measures your activity is a fantastic idea. I use a basic fitbit zip. Works great for me.

If you need more calories than MFP gives you, you are blessed with a faster metabolism than average or you exercise more than average.

Then I wonder why today, when I've been very sedentary and have walked exactly 3,553 steps, MFP still had to add calories to match the burn from Bodymedia. If MFP assumes 4000 steps, then it's lowballing the calorie burn for those steps.

lewoldt

I have mine set on sedentary. My job is for the most part a desk gig. I do try to get at least 10,000 steps a day and an hour of some sort of work out, but that's a small part of my over all day.

auntsammy88

I just set mine to sedentary and log exercise. It's worked so far for me.

hearthwood

I bought a Jawbone UP that syncs with MFP, and it's does the calories burnt for me. It tracks the steps you take during the day, and you can add in workouts that will give you a choice of easy, moderate or hard and it takes all the guesswork out.

I wear it all the time, except every 10 days it needs to be charged for an hour or so. It cost about $140.00--very well worth it. Of course if you get one you only enter your workouts on Jawbone UP and not on MFP as they sync.

SLLRunner

Snugglesmacks is wrong. MFP assumes that people who are sedentary are walking around 4000 steps a day. Walking to work, running up and down stairs, etc., that's all I do. I have to actually make an effort to take an hours walk (or go shopping) to hit 10,000 steps. In the summer or on weekends, if I sit and work at home I have pathetically few steps - even if I'm gardening or mucking out the chickens, like I did today.

But she is absolute right that using something that measures your activity is a fantastic idea. I use a basic fitbit zip. Works great for me.

If you need more calories than MFP gives you, you are blessed with a faster metabolism than average or you exercise more than average.

Actually, she's not wrong and neither are you. My situation as i shared above is a perfect example. I'm on sedentary or lightly active and my calories are too low and I lose weight. I actually lost on 1800 plus exercise calories, and now I maintain on close to 2000 plus exercise calories. I really depends on the person and what their lifestyle is.

Janette3x4

I use lightly active because it's easy for me to put in 10k steps per day, even though I am at a desk a lot. I am also up and down all day. Then, I add my power walks as exercise. Is this the correct way? My net calories are a bit over 1200, then the exercise gives me an addition 200-300 .

kdeaux1959

I would put sedentary and then add the workout data separately. This would be the more accurate way.. Your general lifestyle during this time frame is sedentary with workouts in between. IF you put "Lightly active" down, do not add in your workout data as it would be "double dipping" the system and give you too much credit for the activity... IF you are moving around (like working as a Nurse or something) on a regular basis, THEN I would put lightly active. Of course if you were a ranch hand roping dogies all day 5 days per week, you would be very active... of course, then you probably would not need this site to control your fitness goals.

Janette3x4

I would put sedentary and then add the workout data separately. This would be the more accurate way.. Your general lifestyle during this time frame is sedentary with workouts in between. IF you put "Lightly active" down, do not add in your workout data as it would be "double dipping" the system and give you too much credit for the activity... IF you are moving around (like working as a Nurse or something) on a regular basis, THEN I would put lightly active. Of course if you were a ranch hand roping dogies all day 5 days per week, you would be very active... of course, then you probably would not need this site to control your fitness goals.

Well, my exercise is not counted in my daily 10k steps, but I will change that. All it can do is help me lose more weight! Thank you so much!

SLLRunner

I would put sedentary and then add the workout data separately. This would be the more accurate way.. Your general lifestyle during this time frame is sedentary with workouts in between. IF you put "Lightly active" down, do not add in your workout data as it would be "double dipping" the system and give you too much credit for the activity... IF you are moving around (like working as a Nurse or something) on a regular basis, THEN I would put lightly active. Of course if you were a ranch hand roping dogies all day 5 days per week, you would be very active... of course, then you probably would not need this site to control your fitness goals.

SLLRunner

I would put sedentary and then add the workout data separately. This would be the more accurate way.. Your general lifestyle during this time frame is sedentary with workouts in between. IF you put "Lightly active" down, do not add in your workout data as it would be "double dipping" the system and give you too much credit for the activity... IF you are moving around (like working as a Nurse or something) on a regular basis, THEN I would put lightly active. Of course if you were a ranch hand roping dogies all day 5 days per week, you would be very active... of course, then you probably would not need this site to control your fitness goals.

Really, there is no more or less accurate way. As I wrote above, I have a desk job but am active because at even lightly active I lose weight even counting my exercise calories back. Sedentary is the place to start, but many people don't stay there.

nxd10

Snugglesmacks is wrong. MFP assumes that people who are sedentary are walking around 4000 steps a day. Walking to work, running up and down stairs, etc., that's all I do. I have to actually make an effort to take an hours walk (or go shopping) to hit 10,000 steps. In the summer or on weekends, if I sit and work at home I have pathetically few steps - even if I'm gardening or mucking out the chickens, like I did today.

But she is absolute right that using something that measures your activity is a fantastic idea. I use a basic fitbit zip. Works great for me.

If you need more calories than MFP gives you, you are blessed with a faster metabolism than average or you exercise more than average.

Actually, she's not wrong and neither are you. My situation as i shared above is a perfect example. I'm on sedentary or lightly active and my calories are too low and I lose weight. I actually lost on 1800 plus exercise calories, and now I maintain on close to 2000 plus exercise calories. I really depends on the person and what their lifestyle is.

You are absolutely right that different people burn different amounts of calories doing the same thing. And no question different programs use different algorithms for how many calories people burn. It's just an algorithm - it is a good average starting place and everyone has to adjust it to fit what they do.

What I guess I was reacting to is that a lot of people have said (and maybe I misread Snugglesmack's intent) is that sedentary basically doesn't include anyone because it's what you'd be in if you were in a coma or just got out of bed and moved to the couch and back. That's basal metabolism. It isn't sedentary.

From what she said to my post, it sounds like Snugglesmacks is one of the lucky ones who burn more calories in her activities than MFP estimates she does. She must, because she loses weight going on MFP's estimates of maintenance. I, on the other hand, am not. I use fitbit's measure and it seems to capture me pretty well, because when MFP uses those numbers, I maintain.

We're all different. And we change with age.

SnuggleSmacks

Snugglesmacks is wrong. MFP assumes that people who are sedentary are walking around 4000 steps a day. Walking to work, running up and down stairs, etc., that's all I do. I have to actually make an effort to take an hours walk (or go shopping) to hit 10,000 steps. In the summer or on weekends, if I sit and work at home I have pathetically few steps - even if I'm gardening or mucking out the chickens, like I did today.

But she is absolute right that using something that measures your activity is a fantastic idea. I use a basic fitbit zip. Works great for me.

If you need more calories than MFP gives you, you are blessed with a faster metabolism than average or you exercise more than average.

Actually, she's not wrong and neither are you. My situation as i shared above is a perfect example. I'm on sedentary or lightly active and my calories are too low and I lose weight. I actually lost on 1800 plus exercise calories, and now I maintain on close to 2000 plus exercise calories. I really depends on the person and what their lifestyle is.

You are absolutely right that different people burn different amounts of calories doing the same thing. And no question different programs use different algorithms for how many calories people burn. It's just an algorithm - it is a good average starting place and everyone has to adjust it to fit what they do.

What I guess I was reacting to is that a lot of people have said (and maybe I misread Snugglesmack's intent) is that sedentary basically doesn't include anyone because it's what you'd be in if you were in a coma or just got out of bed and moved to the couch and back. That's basal metabolism. It isn't sedentary.

From what she said to my post, it sounds like Snugglesmacks is one of the lucky ones who burn more calories in her activities than MFP estimates she does. She must, because she loses weight going on MFP's estimates of maintenance. I, on the other hand, am not. I use fitbit's measure and it seems to capture me pretty well, because when MFP uses those numbers, I maintain.

We're all different. And we change with age.

Actually, if I went strictly by MFP I would be undereating. I go by my Bodymedia, and end up usually with around 200-600 added to MFP's numbers.

But my point was that even on days when I am not active at all, and accumulate far less than 4000 steps, the Bodymedia still has to add calories because MFP's estimation is low. If I'm an outlier, I'm happy to accept that, but I doubt it.

That being said, I and many others still find that using "sedentary" and then adding in activities is helpful. But, I think if you do that, you should be very careful to add in as many activities as you can to ensure that you aren't undereating.

dalguard

I use sedentary and add exercise calories because other than exercise and basic walking around, I am sedentary (wish I weren't but that's the job). I'm one of those lucky people whose metabolism seems to be higher than what MFP estimates. When I was losing, I stuck to their recommendation and lost faster than expected. Once I was on maintenance, I found I had to add calories to their suggested goal, which means that now it predicts every day that I'm going to gain weight. Oh well.

_lyndseybrooke_

I would put in sedentary and log my exercise. When you do it, you get credit. When you don't, you don't.

Wrong. MFP is designed to log exercise burns and eat back those calories, regardless of the activity level you enter.

sijomial

If you follow the MFP method then exercise is not part of your activity level settings - that's why you get extra calories credited to your daily goal when you exercise and log your workouts.
As you sit down for the majority of the time you are sedentary (sedentary means seated).

SLLRunner

Snugglesmacks is wrong. MFP assumes that people who are sedentary are walking around 4000 steps a day. Walking to work, running up and down stairs, etc., that's all I do. I have to actually make an effort to take an hours walk (or go shopping) to hit 10,000 steps. In the summer or on weekends, if I sit and work at home I have pathetically few steps - even if I'm gardening or mucking out the chickens, like I did today.

But she is absolute right that using something that measures your activity is a fantastic idea. I use a basic fitbit zip. Works great for me.

If you need more calories than MFP gives you, you are blessed with a faster metabolism than average or you exercise more than average.

Actually, she's not wrong and neither are you. My situation as i shared above is a perfect example. I'm on sedentary or lightly active and my calories are too low and I lose weight. I actually lost on 1800 plus exercise calories, and now I maintain on close to 2000 plus exercise calories. I really depends on the person and what their lifestyle is.

You are absolutely right that different people burn different amounts of calories doing the same thing. And no question different programs use different algorithms for how many calories people burn. It's just an algorithm - it is a good average starting place and everyone has to adjust it to fit what they do.

What I guess I was reacting to is that a lot of people have said (and maybe I misread Snugglesmack's intent) is that sedentary basically doesn't include anyone because it's what you'd be in if you were in a coma or just got out of bed and moved to the couch and back. That's basal metabolism. It isn't sedentary.

From what she said to my post, it sounds like Snugglesmacks is one of the lucky ones who burn more calories in her activities than MFP estimates she does. She must, because she loses weight going on MFP's estimates of maintenance. I, on the other hand, am not. I use fitbit's measure and it seems to capture me pretty well, because when MFP uses those numbers, I maintain.

We're all different. And we change with age.

Thank you. Now I see where you are coming from.

SLLRunner

I would put in sedentary and log my exercise. When you do it, you get credit. When you don't, you don't.

Wrong. MFP is designed to log exercise burns and eat back those calories, regardless of the activity level you enter.

Yep.