Determining activity level

stormieweather

I'm tweaking my diet, and wondering about my initial choice of activity level. I picked sedentary, but after researching it around the web, I'm not sure that is applicable.

I work two desk jobs, one in an office and one at home in the evening/weekends. I have three children, ages 4-21. Although I sit at the desk a lot, I am also up walking to other offices or up and down at home taking care of my children. I routinely do pretty heavy housework and now and then do outdoor yardwork (in 90+ degree heat :grumble: ). A couple of times a week I go for a walk at dusk with the 4 yr old and 60 lb dog.

In reading the sedentary activity level descriptions, they say a sedentary person stays within 1-2 rooms of the house, is seated most of the time, and does not exercise. I'm not exactly moderate either, because I don't stand for my job(s), or lift/exert myself the majority of the day.

I just changed my settings to Lightly Active. Does that seem to fit my description above more than Sedentary? I'm afraid I'm starving myself (a years-long habit, unfortunately).

debnu1

I have mine set at lightly active and we seem pretty comparable.

stormieweather

I checked a couple of different calculators online, including one that allows you to allocate actual hours spent sleeping, sitting, walking, cleaning, etc. and they all come up with a higher calorie maximum than I've been allowing myself (by using the sedentary option here). Several hundred calories a day, actually. So, I'm going to try bumping up my calories to see if that has a positive effect on my efforts here.

I don't think I'd mind the scale not moving so much if the inches were changing. But dang, when nothing changes at all...it's disheartening :grumble: .

PS: I'm betting my initial weight loss (of approx 5 lbs) was mostly water weight. Not even 1/2 inch has budged on any body parts since I started logging calories and working out. Nada. Zip. :sad:

MTGirl

For the purposes of MFP, your activity level you choose to set here does not include exercise. Because you enter your exercise separately on the Exercise log and you get extra calories added for that exercise.

That said, it sounds to me like lightly active would be a better choice for you than sedentary. Make sure you log your actual exercise and good luck!! :flowerforyou:

stormieweather

I do log my exercises and have recently begun eating most of my exercise calories. But when I read the description of sedentary elsewhere, I was like...wha??? That's not me! I walk and move around one heck of a lot more than THAT on a normal basis!!

So, I'm going to try increasing calories. If nothing has happened in two weeks, I'll reassess. :bigsmile:

neenaleigh

i have the same problem, i may work a desk job but i feel pretty active ( except on weekends sometimes) I keep mine at Sedentary, but i am going to get a HRM so i can be exact soon!

ivykivy

My activity level was lazy but since they didn't have that I chose sedentary.:laugh:

The light activity may work. Sometimes you have to experiment and see what the calorie difference is.:flowerforyou:

Lookgreat

I had a peek at your food dairy - I feel it may be the sodium content - you are over the limit most of the times - try controlling that and see the effect.
All the best.