How do you determine activity level?

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honeylissabee
honeylissabee Posts: 217 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I've been struggling with trying to figure out my activity level.

I am female, 21 years old, 5'5", and I weigh 189.4 pounds as of Monday.

I work at a preschool, primarily with two-year-olds. I do get an hour-long lunch break, but I spend a good chunk of it walking around- I rarely sit and take a break at work. I am also prone to going on long walks around Target, etc, and my friend and I just joined a gym and we're going to go a few times a week.

I wear a FitBit to monitor my activity.

On Monday, I burned 2,871 calories according to Fitbit. (Didn't wear it Tuesday). Wednesday, I burned 2,975. Thursday I burned 2,551. According to MFP, if I'm very active I burn about 2,520 calories per day doing normal daily activities. Yesterday, I didn't walk around during my lunch break or dance with the kids and I burned 2,551 calories. Does this mean that I'm considered to be "very active"? I don't feel like I'm active at all- even with being on my feet all day.
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Replies

  • honeylissabee
    honeylissabee Posts: 217 Member
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    bump
  • Rickd530
    Rickd530 Posts: 7 Member
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    Very active seems accurate. You are not sedentary. Or even lightly active.
  • kabertrand63
    kabertrand63 Posts: 111 Member
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    Here's a good rule of thumb:

    Activty Level:

    Sedentary: little or no exercise
    Lightly Active: light exercise/sports 1-3 days/week
    Moderately Active: moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/week
    Very Active: hard exercise/sports 6-7 days a week
    Extra Active: very hard exercise/sports and physical job
  • honeylissabee
    honeylissabee Posts: 217 Member
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    But right now, I don't do a single workout, but I do spend most of the day on my feet walking around. I don't do any hard physical labor though.
  • Idabud
    Idabud Posts: 12 Member
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    What is your diet?

    It doesn't matter how much activity you have if you are not eating the right foods. And focus more on food with nutrients that worrying so much about calories. Try to stay away from fast food and processed food. Eat fresh as much as possible.
  • RaeLB
    RaeLB Posts: 1,216 Member
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    lightly active to include your job and errand walks

    then log your exercises
  • SilverLotusGirl
    SilverLotusGirl Posts: 537 Member
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    Doesn't MFP have something to help for this? Sedentary is like office work, spending most of the day on your bum. Lightly active is about 5000-7000 steps and spending a good part of the day up walking like a teacher. Active is 7000-9000 steps and like a waitress as a busy restaurant spending most of the day on your feet, Very active is over 9000 like a bike messenger or something like that.

    ps, don't bash me if the numbers are off a bit but I think that's about what MFP uses for guidelines that don't take workouts or sports into it.
  • honeylissabee
    honeylissabee Posts: 217 Member
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    Ok. I'll put down that I am lightly active then. I burned an estimated 2,800-something calories going to the store and working one day which gave me like 600 exercise calories if I'm "lightly active"- and I did NOT do a single workout that day. But I guess I'm lightly active.
  • ApexLeader
    ApexLeader Posts: 580 Member
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    i work out 2 hours a day and put "sedentary" and then i just record my exercise calories as accurately as possible (using my heart rate monitor) and eat whenever i'm hungry. it has worked well so far.
  • rduhlir
    rduhlir Posts: 3,550 Member
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    If you are doing it for MFP settings, then lightly active because they don't include exercise.

    If you are doing it for TDEE/BMR reasons then I would say you are slightly/moderately active with the amount of calories you burn as per your FitBit.

    But...I could be wrong.
  • FredDoyle
    FredDoyle Posts: 2,273 Member
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    i work out 2 hours a day and put "sedentary" and then i just record my exercise calories as accurately as possible (using my heart rate monitor) and eat whenever i'm hungry. it has worked well so far.
    I agree with this. It's easier to adjust upwards if you are hungry or overly active. Worked for me.
  • Martucha123
    Martucha123 Posts: 1,093 Member
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    Yes. Very active and even more.
    If you use fitbit all the time, you can link your account with mfp and it will adjust your activity level.
    If you dont want to do that, you should go with very active and consider adding exercise manually (walking) when according to fitbit you burn significantly more then 2500
  • LorinaLynn
    LorinaLynn Posts: 13,247 Member
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    Personally, I'm not a very active person - I'd say lightly active for myself - but I would need to set my MFP activity level to very active AND eat my exercise calories to get the right amount. I find it easier to just go by TDEE, and completely ignore the "in five weeks" message.

    Try it for a few weeks and see how it goes.
  • DebbieLyn63
    DebbieLyn63 Posts: 2,650 Member
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    Doesn't MFP have something to help for this? Sedentary is like office work, spending most of the day on your bum. Lightly active is about 5000-7000 steps and spending a good part of the day up walking like a teacher. Active is 7000-9000 steps and like a waitress as a busy restaurant spending most of the day on your feet, Very active is over 9000 like a bike messenger or something like that.

    ps, don't bash me if the numbers are off a bit but I think that's about what MFP uses for guidelines that don't take workouts or sports into it.

    Thank you!! This sounds like a very good explanation. Even tho I usually work out 4-5 days a week, the rest of my day is spent very sedentary. I recently used a pedometer to see how many steps I took a day and was surprised that I barely hit 1000. Even with an hour workout, I struggle to reach 4000 for a day. Therefore, I am still considered Sedentary instead of active or even lightly active.

    To the OP, if your fitbit says you burn around 2500 cals or so, and that seems comparable to the amount of calories you eat when you are maintaining your weight, then that sounds like your TDEE. Labels like active, or lightly active, etc can vary between programs, so like someone else said, just go by your TDEE and see how it goes. If you lose at a rate you like, great, if not, then adjust up or down.
  • honeylissabee
    honeylissabee Posts: 217 Member
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    If you are doing it for MFP settings, then lightly active because they don't include exercise.

    If you are doing it for TDEE/BMR reasons then I would say you are slightly/moderately active with the amount of calories you burn as per your FitBit.

    But...I could be wrong.

    What does TDEE mean anyways?

    I do want to make my MFP settings as accurate as possible so I can go in and pre-track and see what I need to aim for in advance. However, I am also wanting to use my Fitbit to determine my activity level. I don't specificially work out much, but I still spend most of the day walking around and I'm on my feet all day.
  • alasin1derland
    alasin1derland Posts: 575 Member
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    If your fitbit tells you how many calories you burn in a 24 hour period, if you eat 1000 less than that number everyday you will lose 2 lbs a week, if you eat 500 less a day, you will lose 1lb per week.
  • bdamaster60
    bdamaster60 Posts: 595 Member
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    Trial and error. And Watching the scale, tracking your weight.
  • Sunflowergirl1
    Sunflowergirl1 Posts: 33 Member
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    TDEE-Total Daily Energy Expenditure. There are calculators to figure out the total calories you usually expend each day. Then people eat a certain percentage below that to have a specific calorie deficit each day to lose weight. They don't eat back the exercise calories because the TDEE takes that into the equation already.

    MFP, even though they ask you about your daily activity level, don't factor in your daily exercise/activity when setting the calorie deficit, so if you go by MFP's calculations you should eat back most, if not all, of your exercise calories or you could easily be eating below your BMR (basically the calories you burn while in a coma :) and you run the risk of losing muscle and not adequately supporting your basic bodily functioning.
  • ashleab37
    ashleab37 Posts: 575 Member
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    Definitely trial and error. I had myself as sedentary (I have a desk job) which gave me 2400 calories a day for maintenance. With my BodyMedia Fit, I burn around 3,000 - 3,200 calories a day, which would put me at very active.
  • honeylissabee
    honeylissabee Posts: 217 Member
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    TDEE-Total Daily Energy Expenditure. There are calculators to figure out the total calories you usually expend each day. Then people eat a certain percentage below that to have a specific calorie deficit each day to lose weight. They don't eat back the exercise calories because the TDEE takes that into the equation already.

    MFP, even though they ask you about your daily activity level, don't factor in your daily exercise/activity when setting the calorie deficit, so if you go by MFP's calculations you should eat back most, if not all, of your exercise calories or you could easily be eating below your BMR (basically the calories you burn while in a coma :) and you run the risk of losing muscle and not adequately supporting your basic bodily functioning.

    So if I have it set to lose 1 pound per week I can still leave 500 exercise calories if I want to lose 2 pounds a week, right?

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