Sedentary or lightly active?

Evotchka
Evotchka Posts: 144 Member
edited September 29 in Health and Weight Loss
I am working in a lab every day. There's days where I stand up the whole day while doing experiments but then there's days where I only sit at my desk. I do some kind of housework every night and walk to my lunch and also have kind of a far walk to my car when I come and leave. Am I lightly active or sedentary?

Replies

  • CrashD
    CrashD Posts: 14 Member
    I say light. I work in a pharmacy where its either I'm sitting or really busy and standing the whole day and I put light
  • cookiequeen2011
    cookiequeen2011 Posts: 6
    I would go with sedentary and then log the times when you are standing/cleaning etc.
  • RissaDean
    RissaDean Posts: 189 Member
    IMHO I would say lightly active...if you're not losing after about 2 weeks bump it down to sedantary. I'm an admin and literally sit on my rear all. freaking. day. I walk less than 20 yards from my car to the front of my building, and I park at the far end of the parking lot. So I put sedantary for my own....Since I'm trying to lose over 1# per week, MFP only gave me 1200 cal a day. It's taken some adjusting, but I usually stay within that, or pretty close to it.
  • los4825
    los4825 Posts: 6
    I say lightly active. Your normal-daily housework is part of your daily routine, unless, your doing vigorous stuff like windows, etc.
  • Evotchka
    Evotchka Posts: 144 Member
    IMHO I would say lightly active...if you're not losing after about 2 weeks bump it down to sedantary. I'm an admin and literally sit on my rear all. freaking. day. I walk less than 20 yards from my car to the front of my building, and I park at the far end of the parking lot. So I put sedantary for my own....Since I'm trying to lose over 1# per week, MFP only gave me 1200 cal a day. It's taken some adjusting, but I usually stay within that, or pretty close to it.
    Thanks, that helps a lot. I have it as lightly active and lost 4 pounds in 2 weeks so I think it's working :) Just didn't wanna overestimate!
  • nehtaeh
    nehtaeh Posts: 2,849 Member
    Try one and if you are seeing good results go with that, if not change it up. I would either start with lightly active and not log those actitivites or start with sedentary and log the standing.

    I use sedentary. I have a desk job where I sit for the 8 hours. At nights and weekends I am a lot more active and I don't log that. I figure its a lot of estimation anyway so it'll all workout in the end anyway.
  • Evotchka
    Evotchka Posts: 144 Member
    I say lightly active. Your normal-daily housework is part of your daily routine, unless, your doing vigorous stuff like windows, etc.
    thanks :)
  • FitToBeFab
    FitToBeFab Posts: 537 Member
    It's really up to you. Is the difference in daily allowance enough to sway you either way? If you think putting sedentary is cheating yourself out of calories burned, then put light. If you think putting light is exaggerating, then put sedentary. If you don't like it one way or another, change it!

    To make the decision easier, think of the average amount of days that you are on your feet in a week. Is it greater than the ones where you are sitting? If so, then I'd go with light :smile:
  • helenium
    helenium Posts: 546 Member
    Labwork is exhausting. I probably burn more calories worrying whether I've poured the wrong test-tube-that-looks-like-all-the-other-bloody-test-tubes down the sink and undone a month's labour by accident. There's no exercise entry listed for "Mild lab anxiety - light trembling, 10 Hz" though :(
  • LorinaLynn
    LorinaLynn Posts: 13,247 Member
    I'd go with lightly active, and here's another reason why...

    Think how much of this is psychological. If it's easier for you to stay at or under your calories, you're going to stick with it. If it's hard and you feel like you're failing because you go over your calories, you're less likely to stick with it. In reality, a 100 or so calorie up or down each day isn't going to make that much of a difference over the course of a week. But if it's the difference between, "I'm doing great! This isn't even hard!" vs. "I suck at this...." Over the long term, being happy and staying with it will make a more positive change.
  • dls06
    dls06 Posts: 6,774 Member
    Put it in as sedentary if you lose too much then change it. they will give you more calories to eat if you put active. Unless you want the extra calories.
  • Evotchka
    Evotchka Posts: 144 Member
    FittobeFab--thanks that helped me. I think I'm really gonna go with lightly

    helenium--WORD sister!! I wish they had that. Wondering whether the lab will explode because you might've forgotten to really tighten that hydrogen gas bottle is emotionally straining!!

    LorinaLynn-- thanks and that's the way I thought about it too. It's probably not gonna make a big difference anyway and usually leave around 100 cals that I don't eat anyway. But once I see the red numbers for going over I feel discouraged so I think I'm going to stick with the lightly active!
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