Lightly Active or Sedentary?

I used to be extremely active and miss it terribly. I used to power walk 8 miles a day (divided between AM and PM.) I looked great and felt wonderful. Thought I was being good to my body. Ended up with a stress fracture to my pelvis (horrible, horrible pain) which went undignosed for 10 months. Ended up in a pain clinic with nerve blocks and narcotics for pain. My gate was very off which started low back/hip/leg pain for years. My life was changed forever....spinal cord stimulator, unable to exercise at all, just a miserable time in my life. I did water aerobics for about 6 years but no longer want to wear a bathing suit so I don't go. Tried the illeptical machine but really hurt my knees.....My orthopedic doctor told me to stick with basic walking, which I do about 40-45 minutes daily and I use 3 lb. free weights for my arms. I will "never" over exercise again or do an exercise that could potentially hurt my body. IT IS NOT WORTH IT! My body responds better to "hard exercise" but I seem to always make something hurt. So I've learned to live with what little I can do to "move" my body but I really, really miss my power walking and jogging.

I used to be extremely active and miss it terribly. I used to power walk 8 miles a day (divided between AM and PM.) I looked great and felt wonderful. Thought I was being good to my body. Ended up with a stress fracture to my pelvis (horrible, horrible pain) which went undignosed for 10 months. Ended up in a pain clinic with nerve blocks and narcotics for pain. My gate was very off which started low back/hip/leg pain for years. My life was changed forever....spinal cord stimulator, unable to exercise at all, just a miserable time in my life. I did water aerobics for about 6 years but no longer want to wear a bathing suit so I don't go. Tried the illeptical machine but really hurt my knees.....My orthopedic doctor told me to stick with basic walking, which I do about 40-45 minutes daily and I use 3 lb. free weights for my arms. I will "never" over exercise again or do an exercise that could potentially hurt my body. IT IS NOT WORTH IT! My body responds better to "hard exercise" but I seem to always make something hurt. So I've learned to live with what little I can do to "move" my body but I really, really miss my power walking and jogging.

I'm sorry that you're in pain and not able to do what you ideally want to do - but did you reply in the right place? a very strange response to "should I use sedentary or lightly active" in my settings. (just in case you were wanting this to go somewhere else)

It's good to see that you've been able to adapt and do your best to overcome your obstacles. Whenever you get down just remember everything you've been through, and they choosing to do what you can is a success in itself over doing nothing!

OP - I would list Lightly active I also walk as a part of my daily commute (not as much stair action as you though!) and use lightly active in my calculations.

Sounds like lightly active to me.

Sedentary.

If you're left being hungry a lot, do lightly active. I walk around a college campus all day and at my practicum site I walk 5 blocks to my car about 3 times in a day ( i move my car behind the building after 5). I have mine set to sedentary so it gives me that freedom when MFP over estimates my calorie intake or whatnot. It benefits me to leave it at sedentary, so I just pretend I don't have those calories.

I think I would consider that to be lightly active. Another calculator I use refers to lightly active as 1-3 hours of something that could be considered aerobic exercise per week as lightly active. It's actually worked much better for me since I changed my profile to lightly active to account for my 30-45 minute walks and jogs 5 days per week. It's just built into my daily goal and I don't have to worry about logging and eating back exercise calories. I would think it would be the same for you...just remember that your activity is already included in your goal then so you wouldn't log it unless it was some exercise outside of the course of your normal day.

At anyrate, it's worth starting there and re-evaluating a month or so down the road depending on your progress. I found that when I was set as sedentary and logging exercise and eating those back, it came out roughly the same as being lightly active and not logging that exercise...within about 10 calories of what I was doing before.

I set mine on the highest setting and worked my way down to find that perfect zone.
It's all guess work anyway.
You need to experiment.
Good Luck

I use sedentary and would manually enter in long walks and the like. Now I have a fitbit so that adjusts my lifestyle walking for me.

I just today changed my setting from active to sedentary. I had it on active to avoid having to enter all the little things I do like walking the dogs, yardwork, etc. But I decided to just play it by the book. I'll enter those activities back in manually.

I think some of it has to do with your ultimate weight loss goals and also, how active you are on the weekends. The setting you choose will then have a bearing on your daily calorie goal, your fitness goal, and your projected weight loss.

I have a desk job but I'm a working mother though, so my time in the morning and in the evening is actually spent running around quite a bit. On the weekends I am very active--housekeeping, gardening, yard work, skiing in the winter, etc. (which I don't usually count as exercise). My daily calorie goal (without exercise) is 1200, which is low, but it's enough food for me. I tend to work out hard in the gym 4 or 5 days every week.

I have my level set to sedentary. I see the difference between lightly active and sedentary to be a bonus, and I think this is what has helped me lose my weight as efficiently as I have. It also gives me a bit more buffer space so if I want to have a snack or a treat, then I don't freak out about it.