Activity level?

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srecupid
srecupid Posts: 660 Member
in Goal: Maintaining Weight
On a slow day I'll get 8k steps. Today I walked 13k for fun. I'm set to sedentary. What would be a realistic activity level?

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  • mitch16
    mitch16 Posts: 2,113 Member
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    I'd say lightly active, but it's kind of irrelevant. You can be set to sedentary, have a fairly low base calorie count, and "eat back" most of your calories earned through exercise, or you can be lightly active (with more base calories every day) and have to figure out what is included in your activity level and what is above and beyond to eat back the calories. The right question is more along the lines of--is what you are doing currently manageable and is it helping you meet your weight loss goals?
  • srecupid
    srecupid Posts: 660 Member
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    MeganMoroz89 wrote: »
    I work in an office so I have mine set to sedentary because five days a week I'm on my *kitten* a lot of the time, despite exercising.

    Do your work in an office like me or are you on your feet all day?

    I work on my feet between 4-7 hours about 4-5 times a week. I was off today
  • zyxst
    zyxst Posts: 9,136 Member
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    If you prefer to use MFP method, then stay sedentary + exercise cals. If you're looking to move to TDEE or testing out something else, I'd say you're at least lightly active.
  • srecupid
    srecupid Posts: 660 Member
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    Well I'm using a Mii band 2 to measure steps so I'm not exactly sure how many calories I'm burning. Right now it's says I burned 616 for 14000 steps. Not sure how accurate that is though I'm 5"10 160. MFP doesn't have integration with the band yet
  • JeromeBarry1
    JeromeBarry1 Posts: 10,182 Member
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    Sounds like at least lightly active. Depending on the intensity and variety of your exercising it could be highly active. It's definitely not sedentary.
  • melodysing
    melodysing Posts: 4 Member
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    I was exercising at the start of my weight loss journey, but tried to do to much on the treadmill one day and pulled something in the back of my left leg. I have tried to get back to walking, but my knees and left hip just "scream" when I try walking 5 minutes on the treadmill. Is there some low impact areobic exercise I can do so I don't just sit? Help!
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    srecupid wrote: »
    MeganMoroz89 wrote: »
    I work in an office so I have mine set to sedentary because five days a week I'm on my *kitten* a lot of the time, despite exercising.

    Do your work in an office like me or are you on your feet all day?

    I work on my feet between 4-7 hours about 4-5 times a week. I was off today

    So clearly you aren't sedentary as that means seated, not on your feet.
  • ltaikit
    ltaikit Posts: 1 Member
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    @tomteboda that was a very helpful post to break down the activity level based on steps. Oddly the iphone 6s with ios10.1 iHealth app tracks in miles! So after looking up the conversion, 1m is approximately 2112 steps depending on your stride length.

    MFP's "activity level" setting is a bit confusing. While I do work a desk job but I use a standing desk so I end up standing (and shifting around because you can't stand in one position all day) the majority of the work day anyway, but none of that counts as "steps" - at least I'm not sitting! For now based on @tomteboda's guideline I have set my MFP to "lightly active" and I'll see how things go.
  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,342 Member
    edited November 2016
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    It doesn't matter what level you set MFP to if you add in your exercise you'll see calories being added for your activity. Its a matter of preference - I personally like to see more calories available so I set mine to active, which I am despite having a desk job. When we do from 7 to 10k steps per day we are considered active. I see an adjustment up in my total calories every day as I average 15k.
  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
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    RunRutheeRun wrote: »
    It doesn't matter what level you set MFP to if you add in your exercise you'll see calories being added for your activity. Its a matter of preference - I personally like to see more calories available so I set mine to active, which I am despite having a desk job. When we do from 7 to 10k steps per day we are considered active. I see an adjustment up in my total calories every day as I average 15k.

    @RunRutheeRun Do you lose many calories overnight? I average 20k steps a day, but still have to set myself to sedentary on here because i get most of those steps in before 4pm and I'm usually in bed by 7:30 every night. So i lose a couple hundred calories usually from bedtime to midnight..
  • Seffell
    Seffell Posts: 2,222 Member
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    If you don't add the steps calories manually you should set to lightly active for 8k steps.
  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,342 Member
    edited November 2016
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    Christine_72 wrote: »
    RunRutheeRun wrote: »
    It doesn't matter what level you set MFP to if you add in your exercise you'll see calories being added for your activity. Its a matter of preference - I personally like to see more calories available so I set mine to active, which I am despite having a desk job. When we do from 7 to 10k steps per day we are considered active. I see an adjustment up in my total calories every day as I average 15k.

    @RunRutheeRun Do you lose many calories overnight? I average 20k steps a day, but still have to set myself to sedentary on here because i get most of those steps in before 4pm and I'm usually in bed by 7:30 every night. So i lose a couple hundred calories usually from bedtime to midnight..

    I lose around 50 cals @Christine_72, I stop being active from 8pm onwards so I notice at bedtime I lose some.
    I'm short so for a 15k day my average TDEE is 2100. Likely in your case its because you go to bed early - at least you know to account for it and adjust your intake. Losing a few hundred sucks though :/

    Ref the adjustment up I was meaning MFP gives me 1880 cals at 'active' - the adjustment goes above that when I do more than 10k.
  • tahxirez
    tahxirez Posts: 270 Member
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    Why don't you just manually add (all or a portion) of the calories that the fitness band gives you and adjust your intake based on that. If you start with a portion and lose, add more. When I got a fitbit I set my level to sedentary and let the fitbit do the rest. It's worked perfectly for over 2 years now.

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