What should my activity level be?

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rebprest
rebprest Posts: 149 Member
in Getting Started
I'm a teen and reference librarian, so I do spend a lot of time sitting at a desk. I also shelve books, carry boxes of books, play just dance with the teens and go up and down stairs a few dozen times a day. I get about 30 min-60 min of exercise outside of work from walking my dog and swimming/elliptical. I'm just trying to gauge if I should change my activity level from sedentary to lightly active...

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  • MinnieInMaine
    MinnieInMaine Posts: 6,400 Member
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    I think you'd be at least lightly active. Even with that, consider logging your walks and swimming under the exercise diary but be cautious and only eat back about half of earned calories.

    Since a lot of the calculations are estimates, it can be tough to be precise so this can take some trial and error. Whatever you decide to go with, give it at least 4 weeks to see how it's working until you consider tweaking settings again.
  • TeaBea
    TeaBea Posts: 14,517 Member
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    I'm a teen and reference librarian, so I do spend a lot of time sitting at a desk. I also shelve books, carry boxes of books, play just dance with the teens and go up and down stairs a few dozen times a day. I get about 30 min-60 min of exercise outside of work from walking my dog and swimming/elliptical. I'm just trying to gauge if I should change my activity level from sedentary to lightly active...

    I would go with lightly active (at least). No way is what you described sedentary. MFP won't include anything extra for deliberate exercise, you need to log that separately. So your deficit is calculated before exercise.

    When you log exercise you "earn" more calories....be warned those calories can be inflated. Many MFP users eat back a portion of those calories 50-75% ....that just gets you back to the original deficit.

    If you don't like logging exercise (are consistent anyway)....you could use TDEE less a %......that includes exercise up front.

    http://iifym.com/tdee-calculator/
  • Frood42
    Frood42 Posts: 245 Member
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    Do you fit into one of the descriptions given by MFP?

    Sedentary: Spend most of the day sitting (e.g. bank teller, desk job)
    Lightly Active: Spend a good part of the day on your feet (e.g. teacher, salesman)
    Active: Spend a good part of the day doing some physical activity (e.g. waitress, mailman)
    Very Active: Spend most of the day doing heavy physical activity (e.g. bike messenger, carpenter)

    Sedentary tends to be, get up, shower, drive to work, work at desk, drive home, sit at home, go to bed.

    By the NEAT system that MFP uses even if you say, go running for 30 mins after work, you would still be sedentary as most of the day is spent doing little other activity. The running would be added as additional exercise into the exercise diary, and would give you a little extra to chew on to maintain a steady deficit (if looking to lose weight).



    http://www.sedentarybehaviour.org/what-is-sedentary-behaviour/
    Sedentary behaviour refers to any waking activity characterized by an energy expenditure ≤ 1.5 metabolic equivalents and a sitting or reclining posture. In general this means that any time a person is sitting or lying down, they are engaging in sedentary behaviour. Common sedentary behaviours include TV viewing, video game playing, computer use (collective termed “screen time”), driving automobiles, and reading.
    .
  • rebprest
    rebprest Posts: 149 Member
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    I looked at the descriptions, but I really don't quite fit either of them. I spend a little time being active during the day, but not the majority of it. so I just went with lightly active, and I'll see how it goes. Thanks for the help
    !
  • bwogilvie
    bwogilvie Posts: 2,130 Member
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    I looked at the descriptions, but I really don't quite fit either of them. I spend a little time being active during the day, but not the majority of it. so I just went with lightly active, and I'll see how it goes. Thanks for the help
    !

    I'm a college teacher, which means I spend part of my day walking to and from my classrooms, walking around in class, going to meetings, etc. I still found that "sedentary" gave me the best match between my calorie counting and my results. If you find that you're not losing as much as you want with "lightly active," then try switching to sedentary.
  • jonathandavid_t
    jonathandavid_t Posts: 107 Member
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    I'd suggest setting yourself to be sedentary, but log all your walking/exercise as specific exercises. If you choose lightly active, that's taking into account some uncertain amount of that exercise, but you don't know what it is.

    If you find you're regularly getting the results you desire with weight loss/maintenance/gain, you can then change to "lightly active" and see how many extra calories that gives you, and compare that to what you've been "earning" from your logged exercise to see whether you then need to stop logging it all, or stop just the walking exercise -- or you can just leave yourself as sedentary but be aware that you'll have "low" calorie allowances on the days you don't exercise and high allowances on the days that you do -- changing to "lightly" or even "moderately" active averages out that exercise over the week -- but you can't then log it again as specific exercise sessions.
  • lenarashminraj
    lenarashminraj Posts: 53 Member
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    I will suggest "sedentary". If you are choosing "lightly active", MFP expects that you are following it. But you can choose it as your activity level. Find the calories you burn, and add it as exercise. Hope this helps :flowerforyou:

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