Sedentary or Lightly Active?

TaraJx4
TaraJx4 Posts: 89 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I'm not sure which to set my goals to?

My plan is to do strength training for 30 minutes 4 times a week, and cardio for 30 minutes 5-6 days a week. I'm a stay at home mom, I don't drive so I walk my kids back and forth to school each day (only 5-10 minutes each way).

Thanks for any input!

Replies

  • Mokey41
    Mokey41 Posts: 5,769 Member
    Are you talking about MFP settings or TDEE? Big difference. For MFP they want to know about your job (read the descriptions beside each thing) and then they expect you to log and eat back some or all of your exercise calories.

    For TDEE you include your daily job activity and your exercise to come up with an average number of calories burned per day and you don't log or eat back exercise.
  • Tatyanakuster
    Tatyanakuster Posts: 163 Member
    If it is My Fitness I set mine to Sedentary and then the fitbit adjusts my cals burned for the day
  • dawnmcneil10
    dawnmcneil10 Posts: 638 Member
    If you're a stay at home mom I don't you're sedendary. :)
  • MercenaryNoetic26
    MercenaryNoetic26 Posts: 2,747 Member
    I set MFP to lightly active and allow Fitbit to adj the rest. My actual activity is between light - moderate.
  • TaraJx4
    TaraJx4 Posts: 89 Member
    I'm talking about for My Fitness Pal. I'm not sure what it would be, and the job descriptions don't really help :s

    I don't have a fitbit to adjust my calories though, so would I do Sedentary or Lightly Active? This whole thing is a bit confusing to me lol!
  • herblackwings39
    herblackwings39 Posts: 3,930 Member
    I'd suggest lightly active then log and eat back a portion of my exercise calories.
  • rhye
    rhye Posts: 104 Member
    My advice is to wear a pedometer for a couple days. Another website suggested the following:

    sedentary <6000 steps

    light activity 6000-9000 steps

    moderate activity 9000-12000 steps

    very active 12,000+ steps

    I would not include exercise in that though, just everyday activity. You can then add and if you like eat back your exercise calories. If you include exercise in your activity level you should not eat those calories back. I find that seeing exercise calories added to my day encourages me to exercise a lot more.
  • jayjay12345654321
    jayjay12345654321 Posts: 653 Member
    I set mine to sedentary with a goal of no exercise, that way when I do work out (5-7 times a week) I look like a champ. :laugh:
  • lstroth1
    lstroth1 Posts: 80 Member
    My advice is to wear a pedometer for a couple days. Another website suggested the following:

    sedentary <6000 steps

    light activity 6000-9000 steps

    moderate activity 9000-12000 steps

    very active 12,000+ steps

    I would not include exercise in that though, just everyday activity. You can then add and if you like eat back your exercise calories. If you include exercise in your activity level you should not eat those calories back. I find that seeing exercise calories added to my day encourages me to exercise a lot more.


    Wow that is great to know. I set mine as lightly active and I have a fitbit to adjust as needed. Looking at that I fall between lightly active and moderately active. Woohoo.
  • ithina
    ithina Posts: 23
    I set mine to sedentary with a goal of no exercise, that way when I do work out (5-7 times a week) I look like a champ. :laugh:

    Haha me too! I love how we get to eat more if we exercise too. It really encourages me to exercise because I know I can afford to eat more. I set mine on sedentary when I'm proably more like lightly active just to err or the side of calorie deficit and also to know I really can afford to eat those exercise calories.
  • Mokey41
    Mokey41 Posts: 5,769 Member
    I'm talking about for My Fitness Pal. I'm not sure what it would be, and the job descriptions don't really help :s

    I don't have a fitbit to adjust my calories though, so would I do Sedentary or Lightly Active? This whole thing is a bit confusing to me lol!

    Being a SAHM would probably either be sedentary or lightly active. It depends how involved you are with kids and their ages. My daughter in law sits on the couch most of the day and watches TV while the kids play on the floor, that would be definitely sedentary. My daughter has a 6 month old and spends most of her day feeding, changing, playing, etc and rarely sits. You'll have to figure out where your parenting style fits in.

    You can always chose sedentary, log your exercise and it you find that weight is dropping off at an alarming rate then up it to lightly active.
  • Boofuls
    Boofuls Posts: 47 Member
    I have mine set to lightly active. I get a negative adjustment from fitbit when I've done fewer than about 5k steps I think. My normal day was less active than I thought actually! I've seen people on here say "oh I cook and clean and look after a child, I'm definitely not sedentary". I don't think that's right to be honest. I got a small negative adjustment on Saturday - walked to the supermarket and back (about 15 mins each way), made two homecooked meals and a batch of chutney and did some gardening. If you really are running about after a child then maybe but even quite active play is more normally just getting on the floor with them (in my experience - I am quite possibly just a lazy slattern).

    Although, having said this, the answer is really just to let the results speak for themselves!

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