attention data junkies: what is your activity level set to?

taso42_DELETED
taso42_DELETED Posts: 3,394 Member
edited September 24 in Fitness and Exercise
My Home -> Settings -> Update diet/fitness profile

The choices are:
* 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)

When you change this, it affects what MFP considers your "Calories burned From Normal Daily Activity", which you can view under My Home -> Goals

I started mine out as sedentary since I spend most of my day in a cubicle. After a couple of weeks bumped it up to Lightly Active because things weren't adding up. Tonight I just bumped it to Very Active because I'm taking a leap of faith and trusting the BodyMedia fit device that I just got recently.

I averaged the past few days of data that the BMF collected and came up with a conservative average of 2800 calories/day. I say conservative because I didn't account for the weekend which shows me as burning 3000+. On the Very Active setting, MFP still only thinks I burn 2450. That's quite a big difference (and unfortunate we can't plug in this number ourselves). In some sense it's a good thing because it can cancel out some of the human error that comes form underlogging food and overlogging calories burned.

Just curious what others who have been at this a while have theirs set to (and what your real life activity level really is), and whether your results so far have been better, worse, or the same as what the program is predicting.

Replies

  • carrieloveshk
    carrieloveshk Posts: 128 Member
    Well, I've been "dieting" for about a month and a half already. But only using MFP for a week, and in that week I lost the weight that would've taken me three weeks to lose before using MFP.

    So maybe it does underestimate the amount of calories I burn. I have it set on "sedentary" because I don't do much but school and work in an office.

    We'll see for next week!
  • eillamarie
    eillamarie Posts: 862 Member
    I don't agree with their settings: nursing can involve even more work than waitressing and I think it should be included under the same category-"Active".
  • spacecase76
    spacecase76 Posts: 673 Member
    I also sit at a desk in a cubicle all day. I have my activity level set to 'Sedentary'....Lately I have been so busy, I am lucky to stand up 3 times a day...but it's busy on the computer / phone...not busy in an active way...
  • Dmonique85
    Dmonique85 Posts: 112
    Possible...I sit at a desk so IDK, but I think as long as you are meeting your goals you should be okay? You can change the numbers manually if it seems they're not adequate, but it's not too bad for a free app...not sure though...I know that a lot of their estimates can be a bit off.
  • tokenana
    tokenana Posts: 16
    well i dont get why you bumped it up it wont help you ? i mean you may see less red numbers but isent this what its for ? im prity sure i have mine at lightly well because i am lightly active and your post kinda has me confused maybe im just tierd??
    so are you burning more that it says you are? cuz you can put in your daily activity the options you talk about are just what they base off what your body burns in a day with out working out... but i guess if thats what ur gitting at i assume that this thing is not the most accurate because i never eat enough calories and i work out alot it says i should be losing weight ... but im maintainng :( idk
  • corey_e
    corey_e Posts: 162
    I just moved up to lightly active. My job will be at a desk so I won't become more active, but even at home I tend to walk around a lot, walk up and down the stairs to the basement at least twice a day, take the dogs out, pick up their poop, laundry, dishes, housework....stuff like that. Basically, I sit around a lot less now. :bigsmile:
  • pyroxian
    pyroxian Posts: 99
    I use lightly active - despite being a fellow desk-jockey. I've always used the Harris Benedict equation in my pre-MFP days which is basically just a constant you multiply your BMR by to get your daily normal activity burns but is usually described as including the metabolic increase from regular exercise/workouts but not including the workout calories themselves... so a person who works out 6x a week would use the very active category but would still add in the actual per-session burned calories. It doesn't appear that MFP uses the same equation, but it's not far off from those numbers and since as you know I've got a pretty large dataset which (for me) supports using that equation, I use lightly active here too.

    (20 months of religiously logged calories in versus burned while exercising w/ an HRM and daily weigh-ins all of which confirm the numbers as being "close enough" if not "spot on" - during the time I logged pre-MFP I managed to drop 71lbs at a rate of just under 1lb per week and maintained an average calorie deficit of right at 3500 per week according to the harris benedict estimates v. my logged consumption and exercise burns)

    For anyone curious, here's the Harris Benedict formula:
    Harris Benedict Formula
    To determine your total daily calorie needs, multiply your BMR by the appropriate activity factor, as follows:

    If you are sedentary (little or no exercise) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.2
    If you are lightly active (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/week) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.375
    If you are moderatetely active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/week) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.55
    If you are very active (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days a week) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.725
    If you are extra active (very hard exercise/sports & physical job or 2x training) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.9

    I think bottom line is that you have a choice - either take the estimates and roll with them, or put on your scientist hat and measure and observe until you have enough data to know what YOUR body burns - even if it takes some trial and error.
  • taso42_DELETED
    taso42_DELETED Posts: 3,394 Member
    bumping in case any east coast data junkies missed this overnight
This discussion has been closed.

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