What is my activity level?

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honeylissabee
honeylissabee Posts: 217 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Desk job with little exercise Little to no exercise
1-3 hrs/wk of light exercise Light exercise (1–3 days per week)
3-5 hrs/wk of moderate exercise Moderate exercise (3–5 days per week)
5-6 hrs/wk of strenuous exercise Heavy exercise (6–7 days per week)
7-21 hrs/wk of strenuous exercise/work Very heavy exercise (twice per day, extra heavy workouts)


I have a goal to get at least 11,000 steps per day, mostly done through leisurely walks around the neighborhood or local stores. Outside of those walks, I'm pretty sedentary unless I have plans to go out. However, those walks would indicate that I am not sedentary. If I don't have plans to go out, I can easily go on a couple hour-long purposeful walks during the day.

I'm also planning on starting a new workout program with Leslie Sansone where I'll be doing a 30-60 minute workout 6 days a week. However, I wouldn't consider that to be very intense exercise. I tend to just do longer hours of lower intensity, so I'm not sure where I fit in. Sometimes, my exercise is purposeful, but other times, I'm simply getting the steps in while doing my everyday activities, so I'm a bit confused.

Replies

  • ChrisLindsay9
    ChrisLindsay9 Posts: 837 Member
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    Activity level has me confused as well. My initial understanding is that it's not relevant to the exercise you do, only by the non-workout activity you otherwise have during a given day. I'm not so sure that's the case though.

    Hopefully, someone can correct me if I'm wrong. So this is sort of a BUMP, in case others' have more helpful comments.

    In my experience, my activity level setting has had to change during the course of improving my overall fitness. I had it on sedentary for a long time (since I have a deskjob) and that worked out well for me in terms of knowing where my caloric intake had to be for losing/maintaining/gaining weight. Now that my fitness has improved through regular exercise these past couple of years, I've had to increase my activity level (even though I still work at my desk). I'm burning more calories in a state of non-activity than I had a few years ago. So my activity level is now on "active" which has given me more calories to consume in order to maintain weight. This is just anecdote, but I wanted to explain this so I could give my reasoning why the activity level is probably a subjective thing and might be more tied to overall fitness level than just an assessment of one's lifestyle.
  • cmacphee3
    cmacphee3 Posts: 278 Member
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    I know how you feel! I don't know my activity level either. I work on my feet (though not a huge amount of actual walking) but I am mostly sedentary otherwise. It is too ambiguous, there should be a way to input many variables and have it tell you where you fit.
  • SezxyStef
    SezxyStef Posts: 15,268 Member
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    for me it is what I know I do most of the day. Sit at a desk.

    I can't guarantee I will exercise....but I can guarantee I am sitting for about 7hours a day.
  • Janice2Shakira
    Janice2Shakira Posts: 257
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    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14715035

    I've been using this as a guideline, using my FitBit. Get your average steps after about a week of using a pedometer (not your goal, your average) and use that number and compare it to the ranges in the article. So far, its been very helpful for me.
  • willow_rb
    willow_rb Posts: 69 Member
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    That was very helpful. Thank you!
  • MinnieInMaine
    MinnieInMaine Posts: 6,400 Member
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    First, a little clarification - I'm assuming from the activity level descriptions that you're trying to figure this out in order to follow the TDEE-% method, as these aren't the MFP activity level descriptors. Based on the answers so far, that wasn't clear.

    It's a little annoying that there are no in-between ranges, like 5-6 hours of light activity, as that sounds like it would be more applicable to your situation - and I know for me it would probably be more accurate some weeks as well. I try to do more "moderate" activity but sometimes it's mostly walks and the like.

    How about take an average of the 1st and 2nd calorie goals and try that out for a few weeks. If you gain, you'll know it's too high, if you lose, you know it's about right.

    FYI, I did 35 minutes of a Leslie Sansome DVD the other night and burned almost 200 calories and even got a little sweaty. Sure it's no P90X or even 30DS but it's still a pretty good workout.
  • jhgreer
    jhgreer Posts: 145
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    How about take an average of the 1st and 2nd calorie goals and try that out for a few weeks. If you gain, you'll know it's too high, if you lose, you know it's about right.

    ^^this

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