Daily activity level?

jocember

So, I'm really not sure whether to choose sedentary or lightly active for my daily activity level. I work at a desk job, so 8 hours of the day I am sitting, though as part of my job I do get up frequently to grab things from the printer across the room. I usually spend about 30 minutes of my hour lunch walking around outside and also get a 15-20 minute walk on the 3 weekday mornings a week when I take the bus to work.

My average week day schedule is up at 6 to get ready, out of the house by 7 then at work until about 6-7pm or later. I go to bed anywhere between 10-11pm. I do have a tendency to just chill out when I get home on weeknights and on weekends but the weekends usually see me walking to friends' houses or around shopping centers or parks and stuff.

I'm just not sure if my walking and stuff would qualify as lightly active or not, because they describe it as spending a good part of the day on your feet, yet I don't really feel sedentary either (maybe I'm just reacting poorly to that word?) Thanks for the help!

sashaverlene

That sounds like you're lightly active! The walking at lunch and the walking in the mornings are still mini workouts!

foxxybrown

Sedentary. Count the walking as exercise.

kao708

You should choose sedentary as your base activity level and then log any extra walking that you do over lunch as extra activity.

The descriptions in your settings explain it all (desk job)

Sedentary: Spend most of the day sitting (e.g. bank teller, desk job)
Lightly Active: Spend a good part of the day on your feet (e.g. nurse, salesman)
Active: Spend a good part of the day doing some physical activity (e.g. waitress, mailman)
Very Active: Spend most of the day doing heavy physical activity (e.g. bike messenger, carpenter)

ladyhawk00

You should choose sedentary as your base activity level and then log any extra walking that you do over lunch as extra activity.

The descriptions in your settings explain it all (desk job)

Sedentary: Spend most of the day sitting (e.g. bank teller, desk job)
Lightly Active: Spend a good part of the day on your feet (e.g. nurse, salesman)
Active: Spend a good part of the day doing some physical activity (e.g. waitress, mailman)
Very Active: Spend most of the day doing heavy physical activity (e.g. bike messenger, carpenter)

Agree

tompetty

Sedentary. Count the walking as exercise.

This would be more accurate; especially if some of the walking is only done half the days. Plus then if you go out of your way one day, you can log it. It might motivate you to get up and move around every lunch hour if you knew you got to write it in as excercise!

arbragg

So a typical day you are Sedentary, which just gives you the base calories for the day. When you do your walking, add it to your diary as exercise, so that will give you the extra calories that you burned towards your amount for that day. Hope that makes sense.

cbirdso

Pick 'sedentary' to start with and see how you do. If you lose weight on a continous basis over what MFP has calculated for you, or if you are not seeing any weight loss results at all, you can change to it to 'lightly active'. This is what I did. I had picked a deficit to lose only half a pound a week but for 10 weeks I averaged 1 lb a week. I recently upped my activity level because I have been feeling hungry lately and it only upped my calorie count by 100 cals a day, but that has made me feel better. However, I am continuing to lose at the same rate.

jocember

I've been using the guidelines for sedentary for a while and liked the results, so I just wanted to make sure. Thanks everyone for confirming what I thought

And you're right, it is a huge motivation to walk more when I know I can log it ^_^