What's My Activity Level?

saltorian

Okay, I'd like some help figuring out what my activity level should probably be described as.

Not counting the exercise that I log, here's my life: I work four days a week (about 34 hours), and while I'm at work I tend to keep pretty busy. I'm on my feet a lot because I work at a group home, so I have to cook, clean, help the residents with showers, do laundry, go shopping, etc. Sometimes I have a while to sit down and watch TV with them, and I always have some paperwork and some driving to do. The other three days a week, I'm basically completely sedentary. Taking my morning exercise out of the picture, I basically just sit around (watching DVDs, playing video games, reading, playing board games with friends, etc).

Where does that leave me when trying to determine my calorie goal with MFP? I suppose I could just keep it on sedentary and see how it works out over time (I've been using the site for less than two weeks), but sometimes I'm worried that I'm not eating enough. MFP puts my calorie goal at 1210, so it's really easy to end up below 1200 if I'm a little under. On days that I'm really busy at work, I might be eating too little.

I'm learning to be pretty comfortable at this calorie count, especially when I get an extra hundred or two from exercise, but I know how important it is not to over-deprive.

Thanks in advance for your help, everyone!

fitterpam

You might want to look at a HRM - since it's not most days (but around half the time) that you are lightly active, I would set to sedentary and then log whatever the HRM says for the days you do work (remember that you'll be double counting the sedentary calories.)

I.e. 1210 @ sedentary works out to around 50 calories an hour. So if your HRM shows another 1100 calories over 10 hours, that's 110 calories an hour - I'd subtract 50 from that (since you would have burned those anyways) and the leftover 60 calories an hour is what you burned extra, which is what I would log (so you'd log 600 calories from additional exercise that day). I'm not sure on the numbers, just trying to use round, easy to calculate numbers :flowerforyou: to make the point...

It's a tough call though. Interested to see what others would do.

sarah44254

Are you feeling hungry or irritated when you end your day at goal set as sedentary? If you are feeling fine, continue on with that activity level. If you are not feeling top shape, try changing your level to lightly active. It sounds like you do a good bit of work at your job (taking care of people is always tiring, even if you have time to sit down). With your activity level as lightly active, you are still welcome to log your exercise in.

1200 can get rough sometimes! Keep asking questions, it's great that you came to use this site Also I just read you are only about 2 weeks in, so either activity level you choose, should work out fine. Your body is still trying to understand what you are doing (more exercise... healthy food.. smaller portions?? this 'shocks' your body and it takes some time to adjust)

sarah44254

For some reason I feel rather against wearing an HRM and logging the count achieved during work hours. I feel against this because when I wear mine during work I burn an immense and obscene amount (3,500 or more). I am very much in agreement with eating all calories earned from exercise, and if work is logged as exercise, I eat an extra 3,500 each day... It seems very strange to me and that is the reason I don't log my work days, personally.

jakejacobsen

I have a similar situation, as I am a carpenter, and some days I run from morning to night, then others I am staining, doing paper work ext… I just trust my body and if I am having a busier then average day I have a little extra food, a piece of lunch meat, or a small amount of nuts. I watch my calories more on my sanitary days then my active days. It’s not all that important if you losing weight your doing it correctly don’t starve your self on days your busy days or your body will start to store fat for use at a later day, eat a small snack when you’re hungry. I also like apples as they are portable and high in fiber and give you a little natural sugar and if I don’t eat it that day its still good the next..

saltorian

Thanks for the help, everyone. It's hard when you have to estimate all the time, but wearing a HRM all day at work would be really weird.