Activity Level

kendrak06
kendrak06 Posts: 14 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi everyone,

I have a question about my activity level on my profile. I currently have sedentary checked, because I have a full time desk job. But for months now, I have been working out 40-60 minutes each day. I go to the gym twice a week to focus on weights, and the other days I simply go for a walk/job/run. However, I have a fitbit flex (have since the end of May), and strive to get 10k steps in each day. Typically, I have no problem achieving this with my daily exercise, along with just all my steps taken during the day. On my gym days, I usually go for a walk sometime after so I can still get my 10k steps in. Based on this, do you think I should keep my activity level at sedentary on here? Or move it up to lightly active?

Replies

  • La5Vega5Girl
    La5Vega5Girl Posts: 709 Member
    if you have a desk job 8-12 hours per day, I would be inactive or light active. I don't count my work-outs as my activity. what I consider activity is what I do when i'm NOT at the gym. :smile:
  • kendrak06
    kendrak06 Posts: 14 Member
    if you have a desk job 8-12 hours per day, I would be inactive or light active. I don't count my work-outs as my activity. what I consider activity is what I do when i'm NOT at the gym. :smile:

    Is that what you're supposed to do when you pick your activity level on here? Just focus on your job/what you do besides working out?
  • kendrak06
    kendrak06 Posts: 14 Member
    Bump!

    I'd like to see what others think too.
  • Denisebar
    Denisebar Posts: 36 Member
    If you are achieving 10,000 steps a day I would consider you lightly active even without gym workouts!
  • KarenJanine
    KarenJanine Posts: 3,497 Member
    Assuming you're logging exercise, then your activity level should be what you're doing with the other 23 hrs per day. As another poster said, if you're getting 10000 steps then I would consider that lightly active.
  • MinnieInMaine
    MinnieInMaine Posts: 6,400 Member
    Yup, activity level is supposed to reflect your day without exercise. As long as you continue to get 10k steps daily, I think lightly active would be a safe bet. If you do other intential exercise (like going for a run), that should be logged in the exercise diary and you should plan to eat back at least half of the earned calories.
  • Kalikel
    Kalikel Posts: 9,603 Member
    Since workouts are separate and they add calories on for workouts, I'd say you should base it on what you do when you aren't working out.

    If your job is fixing railroad ties all the live-long day, I'd go with active. If you walk around a lot and move things at work, lightly active. If you sit in a chair, inactive.

    I didn't create the program and don't know for sure, but that's how I viewed it. :)
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    MFP adds calories to your daily goal when you log exercise precisely because dedicated exercise isn't part of your activity setting.
  • kendrak06
    kendrak06 Posts: 14 Member
    I don't specifically add my workouts on here, because my fitbit syncs up to MFP. It calculates how many calories I've earned back from all of my movement/steps taken throughout the day. I feel like if I added my work outs, then it might be double booking it? I'm not sure - I just let fitbit do all the work.

    While I have a desk job, I do make an attempt to get up and walk around throughout the work day. I purposely take the longest way possible to get to anywhere (bathroom/break room/etc). And I make each task as many steps as possible (for instance, if I have mail to pass out, I leave the mail at my desk and only take one person's mail at a time, so that I have to walk back to my desk to grab the next person's stuff). According to my fitbit, I get between 3000-4000 steps a day at work alone.
  • aneary1980
    aneary1980 Posts: 461 Member
    I don't specifically add my workouts on here, because my fitbit syncs up to MFP. It calculates how many calories I've earned back from all of my movement/steps taken throughout the day. I feel like if I added my work outs, then it might be double booking it? I'm not sure - I just let fitbit do all the work.

    While I have a desk job, I do make an attempt to get up and walk around throughout the work day. I purposely take the longest way possible to get to anywhere (bathroom/break room/etc). And I make each task as many steps as possible (for instance, if I have mail to pass out, I leave the mail at my desk and only take one person's mail at a time, so that I have to walk back to my desk to grab the next person's stuff). According to my fitbit, I get between 3000-4000 steps a day at work alone.

    Well if your fitbit is sync to mfp then no you won't need to change your activity level as the fitbit is logging every step you take. I'm assuming that if the fitbit sync is like my runkeeper sync you get extra calories for your activity?
  • kendrak06
    kendrak06 Posts: 14 Member
    Also, I just made my food/workout diary open so if anyone wants to see, they can. If you look back a few days beyond today, you can see that any calories it says I earned from exercise is all from my fitbit adjustment.
  • kendrak06
    kendrak06 Posts: 14 Member
    I don't specifically add my workouts on here, because my fitbit syncs up to MFP. It calculates how many calories I've earned back from all of my movement/steps taken throughout the day. I feel like if I added my work outs, then it might be double booking it? I'm not sure - I just let fitbit do all the work.

    While I have a desk job, I do make an attempt to get up and walk around throughout the work day. I purposely take the longest way possible to get to anywhere (bathroom/break room/etc). And I make each task as many steps as possible (for instance, if I have mail to pass out, I leave the mail at my desk and only take one person's mail at a time, so that I have to walk back to my desk to grab the next person's stuff). According to my fitbit, I get between 3000-4000 steps a day at work alone.

    Well if your fitbit is sync to mfp then no you won't need to change your activity level as the fitbit is logging every step you take. I'm assuming that if the fitbit sync is like my runkeeper sync you get extra calories for your activity?

    Correct - When my fitbit syncs to MFP, it tells it how many calories I've earned back :)
  • kendrak06
    kendrak06 Posts: 14 Member
    Bump!

    Just curious what others think as well :)
  • _runnerbean_
    _runnerbean_ Posts: 640 Member
    When you log your workout on MFP it gives you an option to put in a start time . It then disregards any fitbit steps taken during that time period so you don't account for the same exercise twice. For example- I wore my fitbit on a 5k run this morning. When I finished the run fitbit had allowed me 300 exercise calories for that period. I logged my run under exercise on MFP. It then deleted the 300 cals from the fitbit and added the 270 cals I told it I had burned during that period. If you are using the MFP app you need to come out of the app and go back in again to see the change. Hope this makes sense!

Categories