What is my activity level?

BFitNation
BFitNation Posts: 60 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I'm thinking Secondary since I work retail, usually work between 5-7 hours and usually work 3-4 days a week. I'm always walking around helping customers putting go backs away. So I'm never sitting down unless I'm on my 30 minute break or on a 10 minute break. Thanks for help in advanced :) hoping this is the correct category haha

Replies

  • malibu927
    malibu927 Posts: 17,562 Member
    If you aren't strictly a cashier, I would say at least lightly active. It's easy for me to get 10,000 steps doing retail work.
  • jemhh
    jemhh Posts: 14,261 Member
    edited October 2015
    Sedentary comes from the Latin word "sedere" which means "to sit." If you never sit, you are not sedentary. You are, at a minimum, lightly active. Likely more than that. I work a 40 hour/week desk job but am lightly active based on my life outside of work (normal work around the house, taking care of daughter and dogs, etc.)
  • BFitNation
    BFitNation Posts: 60 Member
    malibu927 wrote: »
    If you aren't strictly a cashier, I would say at least lightly active. It's easy for me to get 10,000 steps doing retail work.

    I do cashier also but it's mainly me just walking around helping and putting clothing back. Yeah I usually get including before work I usually get around 20,000 steps and without work I usually get about 8-10,000 steps. And since I burned 1,115 calories today during my workout should I eat 50% back of that? Because when I do lightly active and 1lb loss it gives me 1,380 calories go
    Eat and if I do .5 it's 1650. Which one should
    I use?
  • peleroja
    peleroja Posts: 3,979 Member
    bethanylynn101 wrote: »
    malibu927 wrote: »
    If you aren't strictly a cashier, I would say at least lightly active. It's easy for me to get 10,000 steps doing retail work.

    I do cashier also but it's mainly me just walking around helping and putting clothing back. Yeah I usually get including before work I usually get around 20,000 steps and without work I usually get about 8-10,000 steps. And since I burned 1,115 calories today during my workout should I eat 50% back of that? Because when I do lightly active and 1lb loss it gives me 1,380 calories go
    Eat and if I do .5 it's 1650. Which one should
    I use?

    I would be very, very wary of claiming that kind of calorie burn. Where did that number come from? If that's you in the photo, burning 1000 calories in a single workout would be a pretty long, intense one - something like running a half-marathon distance in under 2 hours.

    If you're using MFP's estimates or a cardio machine's, it is probably waaaaay too generous and eating it back is going to slow or stall your loss for sure.

    Remember also that when you set your activity level above sedentary, you shouldn't give yourself any additional calories for anything you do as part of your daily activity (working, for example) as the increased calories are built in for you already.

    As far as 1lb loss vs .5 pounds loss, that depends on you. Just remember that the more you want to lose, the less you can eat daily, so if you set it 1lb/week and feel like you're starving all the time or are weak/having trouble with energy, that might be too aggressive for you and it would be better to scale back and aim for .5lb/week.
  • gdyment
    gdyment Posts: 299 Member
    bethanylynn101 wrote: »
    I'm thinking Secondary since I work retail, usually work between 5-7 hours and usually work 3-4 days a week. I'm always walking around helping customers putting go backs away. So I'm never sitting down unless I'm on my 30 minute break or on a 10 minute break. Thanks for help in advanced :) hoping this is the correct category haha

    I'm an office drone and sit on my butt all day. Lucky to get 1500 steps. That's sedentary. You're light or moderate which will give you a few hundred extra as your base. If you are down in the 130,s a pound a week is pretty aggressive. Maybe do 1/2 pound a week but then stick to eating half your workouts which may give you the other 1/2 lb a week. 1000 in a workout is pretty aggressive but should be safe eating back half?
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    bethanylynn101 wrote: »
    I'm thinking Secondary since I work retail, usually work between 5-7 hours and usually work 3-4 days a week. I'm always walking around helping customers putting go backs away. So I'm never sitting down unless I'm on my 30 minute break or on a 10 minute break. Thanks for help in advanced :) hoping this is the correct category haha

    if you're on your feet most of the day, why would you think you're sedentary? I work in an office and even without deliberate exercise I'm light active. Use the descriptors...how could you read the descriptors and think you're sedentary?
  • BFitNation
    BFitNation Posts: 60 Member
    peleroja wrote: »
    bethanylynn101 wrote: »
    malibu927 wrote: »
    If you aren't strictly a cashier, I would say at least lightly active. It's easy for me to get 10,000 steps doing retail work.

    I do cashier also but it's mainly me just walking around helping and putting clothing back. Yeah I usually get including before work I usually get around 20,000 steps and without work I usually get about 8-10,000 steps. And since I burned 1,115 calories today during my workout should I eat 50% back of that? Because when I do lightly active and 1lb loss it gives me 1,380 calories go
    Eat and if I do .5 it's 1650. Which one should
    I use?

    I would be very, very wary of claiming that kind of calorie burn. Where did that number come from? If that's you in the photo, burning 1000 calories in a single workout would be a pretty long, intense one - something like running a half-marathon distance in under 2 hours.

    If you're using MFP's estimates or a cardio machine's, it is probably waaaaay too generous and eating it back is going to slow or stall your loss for sure.

    Remember also that when you set your activity level above sedentary, you shouldn't give yourself any additional calories for anything you do as part of your daily activity (working, for example) as the increased calories are built in for you already.

    As far as 1lb loss vs .5 pounds loss, that depends on you. Just remember that the more you want to lose, the less you can eat daily, so if you set it 1lb/week and feel like you're starving all the time or are weak/having trouble with energy, that might be too aggressive for you and it would be better to scale back and aim for .5lb/week.

    I'm not using MFP calorie burned or the machines. The calorie burned came from my HRM and it was 2 different workouts.
  • BFitNation
    BFitNation Posts: 60 Member
    gdyment wrote: »
    bethanylynn101 wrote: »
    I'm thinking Secondary since I work retail, usually work between 5-7 hours and usually work 3-4 days a week. I'm always walking around helping customers putting go backs away. So I'm never sitting down unless I'm on my 30 minute break or on a 10 minute break. Thanks for help in advanced :) hoping this is the correct category haha

    I'm an office drone and sit on my butt all day. Lucky to get 1500 steps. That's sedentary. You're light or moderate which will give you a few hundred extra as your base. If you are down in the 130,s a pound a week is pretty aggressive. Maybe do 1/2 pound a week but then stick to eating half your workouts which may give you the other 1/2 lb a week. 1000 in a workout is pretty aggressive but should be safe eating back half?

    That's what I was thinking but just wanted to make sure that it was correct :) yeah I'm 136, yeah I agree plus I feel like 1300 calories isn't good for me. So eat 1/2 of the calories I burn back?
  • BFitNation
    BFitNation Posts: 60 Member
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    bethanylynn101 wrote: »
    I'm thinking Secondary since I work retail, usually work between 5-7 hours and usually work 3-4 days a week. I'm always walking around helping customers putting go backs away. So I'm never sitting down unless I'm on my 30 minute break or on a 10 minute break. Thanks for help in advanced :) hoping this is the correct category haha

    if you're on your feet most of the day, why would you think you're sedentary? I work in an office and even without deliberate exercise I'm light active. Use the descriptors...how could you read the descriptors and think you're sedentary?

    The reason why I was asking is to make sure because a lot of ppl have been telling me sedentary that's why I'm asking so I can make sure that I'm doing this right and not messing up.
  • MarlyIc1
    MarlyIc1 Posts: 39 Member
    edited October 2015
    Hi, I used to work in retail and did packing and lifting quite heavy, and once I used a heart rate monitor to measure how many calories I burnt, and on a hard 5 hr shift, I burnt about 500 calories. Unless you're puffed out like crazy, it won't be that much, but still heaps better than sitting. Here is a link you might find useful, under the " activity category " select " occupation " and they have lots of job descriptions there with estimated energy burns. http://www.shapesense.com/fitness-exercise/calculators/activity-based-calorie-burn-calculator.aspx

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