Just How Sedentary is "Sedentary," Anyway?

Thanks, everyone! To answer some questions:

1. I have been "dieting" for about nine weeks now and have lost 19 lbs. That is including two very off-plan weeks where I actually gained. Afterward, I lost the gained weight. I haven't even thought of updating (or for that matter, playing around at all with) my ticker; sorry about that.
2. I do have a very significant amount of weight to lose, and am wondering whether that figures in. People who are closer to goal seem to lose more slowly overall. I am 201 pounds currently I started at 220.
3. I do weigh and measure. I am really quite fanatical about that because I'm not sure I trust simply "eyeballing" anything. I do have a food scale. And I have my liquid measurement cups and spoons as well.
4. I may be underestimating activity calories, because I don't fully trust MFP's calculations on that. For example, I hiked for an hour and a half the other day. MFP had that at something like 700 burned calories. Not sure I believe that, so no, I didn't eat all that back. That hike was a very unusual day. If I get "exercise," it's generally Pilates, which I do count and eat back, or a 20- or 30-minute walk; I also count that. And as I said, the other day I did some serious heavy lifting and carrying for a solid hour cleaning out closets. I counted that as Housework, Light to Moderate Effort. Maybe I'm actually under-counting my activity.
5. Yes. I do have a thyroid condition. I have an underactive thyroid; Hashimoto's Thyroiditis, the most common form of hypothyroidism. I have spoken to others on here who have Hashi's.
6. I agree that I feel my day is sedentary. That is why I had my stats set that way.
7. My calories currently (with no added activity) are 1360. This is generally pretty do-able, though I do have my days where I feel very hungry. It all depends.

Thank you, everyone! I may just keep going with this for a while. Christmas was a real bust and I did gain some weight during that time (have lost that gained weight now but the net result is no loss for the past week). Not such a big deal, have gotten right back on that horse and so on. But I can generally stick to this, my loss may slow down at some point...I guess I'll just roll with it.

yoovie wrote: »

sedentary is closer to nothing than something.

do you have a few months behind you where you are already working out hard at least once a week? put lightly active.

Not doing that much yet?

Stick with sedentary til you are.

Okay, see, now, this is what's confusing me. It shouldn't be. I'm a grownup. I really should be able to figure this out. However, yes, the lightly active and soforth settings include workouts. I figured if I chose one of those, given doing Pilates about every other day (and/or a walk), then I shouldn't also add in exercise when I do it...isn't that correct? Therefore, I opted for sedentary but I add in when I exercise.

Putting in a setting that includes exercise, then also listing the exercise each time I see it seems redundant. It seems as if I'd be counting workouts "twice" on those days, so to speak. That just wouldn't make much sense to me.

If I were to go to Lightly Active, I would then exclude my exercise, and the net result would be (should be) more or less the same.

I really do feel dumb as a stump that that is just not making sense to me.