Activity Level and Logging Exercise

There are frequent posts asking what should be logged as “exercise”… And occasional posts condemning those who, some believe, log frivolous activities. I’d like to give a simple overview of activity level settings and how to determine what to log.

What you log as exercise is very dependent on your Activity Level setting. Activity Level is intended to include your normal routine at home (cooking dinner, doing laundry, brushing your teeth, watching TV, etc), and what you do for work. It does not include purposeful exercise, or any significant activity outside norm.

The Activity Level factors MFP uses are based on statistics for average people, not athletes or someone bedridden. The higher your BMR, the more cals Activity Level adds. Also, the higher your LBM (lean body mass – how much muscle you have), the higher Activity Level factor you need, to account for more calories burned even when at rest. This is where many lean, reasonably muscular people err, as they don’t compensate for higher muscle mass. If you choose the wrong Activity Level setting, you may be eating too much or too little.

Sedentary: Adds about 250-500 cals/day for most people. Appropriate for: Those who work at a desk job AND are sedentary at home, with light or no exercise and low LBM; Usually NOT appropriate for stay-at-home moms/dads with young children.

Lightly Active: Adds 450-700. Appropriate for: Most people with young children, who are otherwise sedentary; Many who have a desk job but exercise moderately and have a moderate LBM%; Those who stand a lot at work, but don’t really walk around a lot or lift heavy items, etc.

Active: Adds 700-1000. Appropriate for those who have an active job (some nurses, waitresses, laborers, etc) and exercise moderately-frequently, and especially those who have a high LBM%.

Very Active: Adds 950-1400. Appropriate for those who have a very active job (trainers, some laborers, some athletes, some warehouse workers), and exercise frequently and have a high or very high LBM%.

So, now that you’ve chosen your appropriate Activity Level setting… What should you log as “exercise”?

What you log should be ANYthing that burns significantly (100-200+) more calories than are accounted for in your Activity Level setting. This means logging a 10 minute walk, light cleaning for 30 minutes, cooking for 45 minutes, etc., IS appropriate for a Sedentary Activity Level. Someone set at Active or Very Active, and some Lightly Active, generally shouldn't log them, because those “little” things are already accounted for and a fit person burns far less calories for the same activity. For someone who is very sedentary (often those who are obese or morbidly obese but not always), just walking to the mailbox, doing dishes or laundry, or a trip to the grocery store IS a strenuous activity that burns significant calories – and those calories aren't accounted for at a Sedentary Activity Level.

Which brings us to why this is important. You’ve chosen to use a daily intake/expenditure log as a tool to get healthy or maintain health. This means accurately accounting for ALL of your intake and ALL of your expenditures. MFP does most of this math for you. But you have to determine what to log.

Using a calorie counter successfully means accuracy and accountability. You don’t ignore that handful of Skittles you ate this afternoon. And you don’t ignore an expenditure if it hasn’t been accounted for. You log everything as accurately as possible, because if you don’t, you’ll be in trouble sooner or later. Just because it’s something you’ve always done, but you still “got fat doing it”, doesn’t mean you don’t need to log it now. You didn’t log your intake before either. This is all about accountability, for intake AND expenditure.

Finally, I’ll point out that for a lot of people who have had very little activity for a long time, the motivation to take just a 10 minute walk can be pretty hard to come by. So if they can log that 10 minutes and someone tells them “Good job!”, that can be a pretty good sense of accomplishment and make it happen again tomorrow, and maybe the next day is even longer. So maybe their activities aren’t as intense as yours…yet. But they’re working on it, so don’t belittle their efforts.

Choose the right settings, log accurately and you’ll be successful! Best wishes! :flowerforyou: