What does MFP mean by Sedentery/Lightly Active/etc.

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kaytbognar
kaytbognar Posts: 249
in Health and Weight Loss
Hello! I am here to add to the seemingly endless stream of noobish questions I keep asking. I keep trying to figure it out on my own, and either I'm looking in the wrong places, am just not that hip to the scene, or am just a little stupid (all entirely possible, this light bulb can be a little dim!)

What does MFP mean by each activity level? When doing the guided goalsetting, I never know what to pick. While I currently live life in paradise, swinging in a hammock and reading for a large majority of the day, I also am a massage therapist and can spend up to 4 or 5 hours in treatment which, especially if I'm doing deep tissue or facilitated stretching, can be pretty hard work. But work is variable, inconsistent; I can go for days with only a half hour of work each and then suddenly get slammed with four or five hours of work each day of a weekend. It's confusing, especially becuase i'm still working to get a handle on how many calories I ought to be eating (it's coming along, I think I have my brain around the math of it all, and am playing the waiting game to see how the adjustments I've made turn out.)

Are there guidelines to what each activity level might entail? Or are we left to guesswork? Should I set myself at sedentary and try and find something at a site like calorielab and just LOG the hours of work I do as well as my other exercise? Or should I basecamp myself at lightly active? Does it really make that much of a difference?

thanks in advance for any sage wisdom and help!

Replies

  • Arienna
    Arienna Posts: 913
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    I personally just set mine to sedentary and figure anything extra I burn from day to day activities is a bonus. Its not like I lost weight before doing those things.
  • Arienna
    Arienna Posts: 913
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    I just adjusted my level to see how much a difference it made, I changed it to lightly active and it added 200 extra calories a day, so I changed it back lol. Doing 4-5 hrs of massage therapy I can imagine would take a bit out of a person, I guess I'd put in what your average day would be. Or you could put in sedentary and if you have a HRM, track your calories of giving massages then and add it to your exercise for the day.
  • Jennwith2ns
    Jennwith2ns Posts: 296 Member
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    I set mine to sedentary, but I sit down for 8 hrs a day, lol. In your case if you did massage therapy consistently every day, definitely would be lightly active. But as it is, I would say to set it for sedentary and see how you feel.
  • mlove1307
    mlove1307 Posts: 151
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    If I were you, and that was my life, I would set myself to sedentary. If I didn't have or didn't want to wear a heart rate monitor while doing intense massages and stretching thennn I would guess how many calories I burned (based on how I felt) and maybe add 300 calories of "excercise" to my daily totals. I haven't checked, but maybe the exercise section has massage and you can use the calories it gives you there! After a few weeks, if I wasn't seeing any weight come off, I would probably reduce that 300 calories or add a 30 minute walk to compensate for the difference.

    Really though, its all a learning process. While on a weight loss journey, you will learn a LOT of new things about yourself. I am in college and I sit in class a lot, sit in my room a lot doing homework but I also go to the gym and walk up hills to get everywhere. I set myself at sedentary because of all the sitting, but I also log every workout and eat all of my exercise calories. :]

    And despite the trickery of my profile picture and the tracker below that shows I haven't lost anything.. I am in fact 102 pounds down as of this morning. :]

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