Activity Level

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dujennifer
dujennifer Posts: 162 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
How do you decide what activitely level you are at when setting your profile up? I have been on a while and have set myself up as lightly active since I work out a lot but also sit at a desk all day. I am not sure that is accurate because I work out 6 days a week and am always running around, except when at work. I tried a new diet where I eat 5 meals a day and my calories have been higher than my allowed. However, I lost quite a bit right off the bat and then plateaued. Suggestions on which activity level I should chose?

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. nurse, 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)

Replies

  • dujennifer
    dujennifer Posts: 162 Member
    Options
    How do you decide what activitely level you are at when setting your profile up? I have been on a while and have set myself up as lightly active since I work out a lot but also sit at a desk all day. I am not sure that is accurate because I work out 6 days a week and am always running around, except when at work. I tried a new diet where I eat 5 meals a day and my calories have been higher than my allowed. However, I lost quite a bit right off the bat and then plateaued. Suggestions on which activity level I should chose?

    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. nurse, 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)
  • réalta
    réalta Posts: 895 Member
    Options
    when i had a desk job i used the sedentary because usually 8-12 hours of my day were sitting down, then another 8 sleeping, so to me that seems not very active,

    i walk when i can, but wudnt work out like you 6 days a week :flowerforyou:
  • curlhair
    curlhair Posts: 68
    Options
    choose sedentary because of your job.... your exercise is logged separately in the "exercise" log. :)

    hope this helps!
  • strawberryblonde
    strawberryblonde Posts: 7
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    I am similar to you... I have an 'active lifestyle' except for work.... so I set my profile up as sedentary (because of work, where i am 5 days a week for 10 hours/day)... and I just log all of my activities beyond work (walking to the store, etc...) in the exercise section:smile: hope that help...
  • lessertess
    lessertess Posts: 855 Member
    Options
    My guess is that you would need to count yourself as "Sedentary" and then record your exercise calories or count yourself as "lightly active" or "moderately active" and not record your exercise calories. However, not sure. What do you mean by "always running around"? and for how long in a day.? Depending on what you're doing and for how long you may need to bump up your activity level.

    Most people with office jobs sit at least 8-10 hours a day with brief moments walking around the office. Then they usually have 1 to 2 hours in a night in front of the TV and sleep anywhere from 6-8 hours a day. That's 15 to 20 hours of non-physical activity. If you add in even 30 minutes commute to and from home, you've increased to 16 to 21 hours basically sitting.....

    I worked this out a while ago and was shocked when I added the numbers. No wonder there's an obesity epidemic!
  • arjames82
    arjames82 Posts: 154
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    I have a desk job like you, so I chose the sendetary level on this website. However, my personal trainer has given me a different number of calories to eat than the number that was recommended by this website. According to MFR, I should be eating 1200 calories per day. However, my PT did a bodyfat analysis and based on my lean mass/body fat ratio, the Polar system recommends that i eat 1747 calories per day, which is my BMR. Many people say that you should eat less than you BMR to lose weight, but my PT says that if you are exercising religiously and eating less than your BMR, your body will think that it is starving and slow down your weight loss. I usually burn about 1000-1200 calories per workout, so I'm still creating the calorie debt needed to lose weight.
  • MargieM
    MargieM Posts: 2,248 Member
    Options
    I also marked sedentary because I do sit at my desk alot. However, I got the Polar F6 HRM over the weekend, so I decided to wear it all day yesterday. It told me I burned almost 400 calories more in the day than the "sedentary" setting on MFP. I changed to "active" today and it made up the difference. I didn't do anything above normal yesterday and I subtracted out my exercise minutes from the total as well. So, you may have to play with your numbers a bit until you see what works for you. I am going to give my new numbers a few weeks and see how it goes. Good luck!

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