Lightly active or sedentary?

kcow83
kcow83 Posts: 3 Member
edited November 2024 in Fitness and Exercise
Hi there

I'm not sure whether I should choose lightly active or sedentary for my profile, can anyone help?

I spend most of my working day sitting at a desk, so there's not a lot of activity there. But I usually do HIIT training 4 times a week where I burn around 400 cals a time (I wear a heart rate monitor so the calorie count is quite accurate). I also walk to work a couple of times a week- approx 35mins.

So I'm thinking it should be lightly active, but that's 200 extra cals a day which seems a lot?

If anyone can help it'd be massively appreciated?

Katie

Replies

  • cajuntank
    cajuntank Posts: 924 Member
    I'd probably go sedentary since you have a deskjob as you are going to log your exercise anyway to gain calories back. You can adjust up to lightly active if you find yourself losing too fast (on average).
  • jkwolly
    jkwolly Posts: 3,049 Member
    edited March 2015
    I'd go with lightly active.

    Desk job yes, but you're active enough to not be classified as sedentary.


    ETA: If you add more exercise, I'd say go with moderately active. AND sorry, this is for the TDEE method.
  • Dragn77
    Dragn77 Posts: 808 Member
    edited March 2015
    I have sedentary, and then track any activity I do on top of that since I dont to anything on a regular enough basis to say its part of my everyday lifestyle...

    but..if you do, without fail walk to work and do HIIT training on a regular basis, then yeah go with lightly active. But then, because they are a part of your everyday life, you then would not track those as exercises (or, log them with a calories burned of 1 so that they dont count), since its already factored in as part of your lifestyle calories...otherwise, youd be counting those calories burned twice.

    Personally, I find it easier to just go with sedentary, then track calories burned from fitness and one off extra stuff like when I do walk to work and such, on my own.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,808 Member
    Don't include exercise, it's not part of your activity setting.
    That's why you log it and get extra calories added to your daily allowance.

    Desk job = sedentary.

    More bad news - your HRM will give inflated numbers for HIIT (or any interval training).

    Your settings only give you a start point, track for a few weeks and adjust your calorie goal depending on results.
  • kcow83
    kcow83 Posts: 3 Member
    Thanks for the advice, looks like sedentary it is!

    Re the HRM- I've had a VO2 Max assessment & my results are based on that so it's pretty accurate :)

  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,808 Member
    kcow83 wrote: »
    Thanks for the advice, looks like sedentary it is!

    Re the HRM- I've had a VO2 Max assessment & my results are based on that so it's pretty accurate :)

    Not for intervals.
    Your HR will be elevated during the easy/recovery phases and it will count that as exertion.

    I've also customised VO2 max (and tested min/max HR) settings and the counts are inflated by about 20% for intervals.

    HRMs can only be accurate for steady state cardio.
  • AllanMisner
    AllanMisner Posts: 4,136 Member
    Calorie burn and calories in food are all estimates. Yes, even with a heart rate monitor. So, don’t lose too much sleep on the formula. Just plug in a reasonable estimate and after a few weeks, if you’re not getting the results you expect, tweak it.
  • kcow83
    kcow83 Posts: 3 Member
    Ok thanks. Getting weighed for the first time in three months on Wednesday so we shall see!
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