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MyFitnessPal Community

What is sedentary and what is light active lifestyle?

hersheythecat

I ask that becuase I was doing sedentary for calorie figuring and was losing some weight, but changed it to light active because I was being fussed at for adding in all the walking I was doing around work as exercise.

I work for a company that has 5 buildings throughout it's "campus". I'm an assistant but am constantly getting up and running to the copier which is probably a good 30 steps away, running to the next building to drop something off, running upstairs (no elevator) to get a signature, running across the street to drop something off. I feel like there are some days I spend more time running around than I do at my desk sitting/typing.

So, when I put myself at light active, ate just the calories listed, i didn't lose weight even though I only put in a 1 pound a week loss. When I put myself as sedentary but tracked all my running (or at least 1/2 of it), I lost weight.

Help me decide.

Replies

yarwell

how many calories were you eating in the two cases ?

"Sedentary" setting is for spending most of the day sat down. "Light active" would be if you spent most of the day stood up, but not doing anything energetic.

hersheythecat

sedentary gives me 1700~ and lightly active gives me ~1900

so your post confuses me more. I spend probably an hour of my day walking between different places. Some days more.

ahipsher

I would say sedentary.

Lightly active would be a job where you're constantly on your feet. Like a store clerk or a nurse.
An hour of walking back and forth from the copier isn't cutting it as lightly active if you don't work out during the day.

And your weight has stayed the same because of the calorie bump.

Chagama

I would say sedentary.

Lightly active would be a job where you're constantly on your feet. Like a store clerk or a nurse.
An hour of walking back and forth from the copier isn't cutting it as lightly active if you don't work out during the day.

And your weight has stayed the same because of the calorie bump.

Agree. Besides, my philosophy is you are better off underestimating your calories burned than overestimating.

lelaspeaks

I sit at a desk job all day but I do at least 30 minutes of physical activity - walking, spinning, lifting, etc. a day. For that reason I put lightly active.