Why sedentary?
holderh1
Posts: 41 Member
I have an hr charge Fitbit. I am lightly active when I am not working out or walking for excercise. On a day that I'm not working out I may get 3,000-7,000 steps. If I'm excercising I may have 10,000-14,000 steps. I see that many people set their activity level to sedentary even when they are not. Is this just a personal preference or is their a benefit to weight loss doing this?
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I set mine to sedentary because I know the Fitbit sync make the necessary adjustments. It's not something I have to think about.7
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The idea is to let MFP calculate your base ("sedentary") calorie needs, then adding calories for exercise, which could vary over time.
You can, if you like, up your level of activity (essentially, just adding more daily calories) to cover your average needs, including all activities, and see how that affects your weight, adjusting as necessary. Some people call this the TDEE method, but whatever you call it, it's just another way to control your intake to a level where you lose, maintain, or gain, depending on your goal.2 -
Does it not make those adjustments on any activity level?0
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Because a lot of people don't know what they're doing. Because a lot of people think it's the "safest" way to go regardless of whether they're sedentary or not. Because a lot of people put sedentary and then log deliberate activity that goes beyond that setting and get additional calories for that activity.
If you put sedentary and you're not, you are going to get less calories than if you put light active...that may or may not be a benefit where weight loss is concerned. Too large a deficit isn't a good thing.4 -
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I set mine to sedentary because my activity level varies. Most days I do over 12000 steps but because of medical problems some days it will be under 3000.3
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@janejellyroll hit the nail on the head for my personal choice. I set to sedentary and add my activity level and exercise in through fitness tracker.
It helps me better understand how to hit my net calorie goal for the day, without drastically overestimating my calorie burn from activity and exercise.2 -
Does it not make those adjustments on any activity level?
It does. For people who do their exercise in the evening, this can result (on higher activity levels) in large negative adjustments through most of the day. That doesn't really matter because it all works out in the end, but many people find it disconcerting.
Also, activity levels are based primarily on your job. Many people have sedentary deal jobs even if they're active outside of work. Again, it really doesn't make a difference if you use and sync a tracker.1 -
This is how I was as well.
But here is my story about my fitbit.
My Fitbit Charge HR has betrayed me and GROSSLY over estimated my burns. Not just exercise but my basic daily living.
Ive kept a spreadsheet for 3 weeks with my ins(MFP) my outs (Fitbit) and the deficit - with projected weight loss vs actual weigh in. Totally not understanding WTH is happening!? I leave plenty of green calories as not to eat any over estimations...
And I was NOT about to make a post about my lack of losses knowing all I know, still something wasnt right.
I knew the answer was in the math.
And the only true variable is the output, since I have that kung-fu-grip control over my input. Obsessively so. (I have a food scale at my desk)
So- mildly frustrated and visualizing the flow chart I see posted once a day...
I go all over the inter-webs and calculate my TDEE and FFS, its 1800 with my daily hour walks. Fitbit was giving me WELL over 2200+ cals/ day as my apparent TDEE.
And my average daily intake?
You guessed it, about 1600-1800 calories, aiming for a decent deficit.
So I add some new columns with my TDEE less my intake and low and behold...the tiniest little deficits known to man.
My measly weight loss coincides PERFECTLY with my TDEE less cals in calculations.
So SCREW THE FITBITS! - well for me anyway.
For many letting FitBit determine their TDEE works. But for the sake of not wasting your own time... check the FitBit's math.
<end rant>
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I think negative calorie adjustments are only available with premium membership.cwolfman13 wrote: »0 -
Derf_Smeggle wrote: »
I think negative calorie adjustments are only available with premium membership.cwolfman13 wrote: »
Nope, I'm on a free account and I can see them.4 -
I set mine to Sedentary because I have a desk job. I assume that if I'm sitting at my desk all day, then I go home and sit on the couch all night, that is Sedentary - the baseline of physical effort.
Then I just manually add exercise calories when I do them. If I go for a half hour walk, I input it. That way I don't overeat on "lazy days" and I get more calories the more active I am.6 -
Derf_Smeggle wrote: »
I think negative calorie adjustments are only available with premium membership.cwolfman13 wrote: »
Nope, you just have to go into your diary settings and allow negative adjustments. Personally, I don't like them.2 -
Ahh. I stand corrected.janejellyroll wrote: »Derf_Smeggle wrote: »
I think negative calorie adjustments are only available with premium membership.cwolfman13 wrote: »
Nope, I'm on a free account and I can see them.1 -
I set mine to sedentary at first. I am 5'3" and 172 lbs, and then MFP gave me 1200 calories. I am just a stay at home mom and I try to be up and walking or of course, carrying the baby around. Some days, I'm more inactive though.
I started focusing on eating more protien while making it within my goals and I started loosing about 3 lbs a week! I was feeling so drained and miserable though.
After reading a bunch of these threads I have come to accept that losing weight slower is "better". And a little progress is still progress.
I changed my lever to lightly active, losing 2lbs per week and I'm eating 1350 calories a day. I've been feeling loads better.
What I'm saying is, just listen to your body! See what your body does over a month and a half and then make adjustments! You have to find out what works for you.
*Edit for my spelling2 -
While picking a more accurate MFP activity level so the corrections based on Fitbit are smaller might help planning the day better - how many days does it take to figure out that you are usually 300-400 more easily on adjustments, and plan the day anyway? (or whatever the amount is)
The other reason for Sedentary over a more accurate level, is the end of day math that goes on.
MFP is taking the last Fitbit sync for daily calories up to that point, and then estimating rest of the day based on it's own activity level, so sedentary is 1.25 x BMR, lightly-active is 1.4 x BMR, ect.
Well, if your day of being active ends at say 8pm plopping on couch and then bedtime, and you eat to the goal calories at that point, that's 4 hrs of estimated time at a burn rate higher than what Fitbit is going to report the next morning, which is basically BMR level burn.
So if you met goal at 8pm, by next morning on MFP correction, you'll actually show as over goal calories eaten.
But again, if this is about the same time - that amount of adjustments is always about the same - so you just leave that much in the green uneaten.
Can still plan it decently enough.
Probably the worse reason most do sedentary - is because of the general misguided advice to always start at sedentary anyway, activity tracker or not being used, by people that don't understand what the levels mean.1 -
Because mfp won't do a negative adjustment if your goal is 1200. If I leave myself at sedentary, I have a larger adjustment but sometimes it's 7 or 12 (vs the -200 mfp won't do because it would put me under 1200). This way it all balances out for the week and I can just eat to my calories remaining for the day and don't have to worry about phantom negative adjustments that didn't happen (leading to eating more than I should for the week as a whole). Sounds complicated but really it's not. It's not hurting anything. its giving me a larger adjustment but actually fewer calories (which is more correct).1
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Rebecca0224 wrote: »I set mine to sedentary because my activity level varies. Most days I do over 12000 steps but because of medical problems some days it will be under 3000.
Do you set it this way just because you don't want to see negative adjustments?
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Personal preference.2
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Chef_Barbell wrote: »Personal preference.
This. I have a fairly active job that sometimes gets me 15,000+ steps. I'd rather set myself to lightly active to give me a larger base and smaller adjustment than sedentary would give.1 -
How come if I set to sedentary fitbit gives me more negative calories than at lightly active?0
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I have an hr charge Fitbit. I am lightly active when I am not working out or walking for excercise. On a day that I'm not working out I may get 3,000-7,000 steps. If I'm excercising I may have 10,000-14,000 steps. I see that many people set their activity level to sedentary even when they are not. Is this just a personal preference or is their a benefit to weight loss doing this?
IF using a Fitbit/connected to MFP: it does not really matter a Fitbit communicates your true activity level to MFP.
But in general, I think people are afraid of over estimating and thus eating too much. If you say you are lightly active and you are actually sedentary: you're not burning as much as MFP assumes.0 -
I would rather have extra for dessert on a good day than realize I can't eat half of my dinner.5
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My activity levels vary wildly by day - weekdays I usually hit 12-15k, closer to 20k if I do an exercise class or two.
On weekends I can easily get under 1000 steps if I'm having a really lazy day (often feels necessary after a full on week).
Setting to sedantary gives me a nice healthy bank of exercise calories to use over the whole week and a lazy day doesn't end up reducing my calorie pool - psychologically that works best for me.2 -
I use sedentary because MFP's calorie allowance isn't enough for me as very active. So I let Fitbit work out my exercise calories instead & eat them back.0
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MommyMeggo wrote: ».
So SCREW THE FITBITS! - well for me anyway.
I had the same experience and came to the same conclusion. Fitbit gave too many calories for incidental daily steps. Estimates for walks and runs we're in line with others, but you can use any number of phone apps just as easily.0 -
I have an hr charge Fitbit. I am lightly active when I am not working out or walking for excercise. On a day that I'm not working out I may get 3,000-7,000 steps. If I'm excercising I may have 10,000-14,000 steps. I see that many people set their activity level to sedentary even when they are not. Is this just a personal preference or is their a benefit to weight loss doing this?
Because most of us have desk jobs. We don't have a higher activity level unless we actively go out and do something (which will vary, and can be logged separately, and potentially might not happen at all).2 -
I'm more lightly active/active, but have mfp set to sedentary. Any steps i do above 2,000ish is purposeful exercise.
The reasons I'm set at sedentary:- I have my fitbit synced, so it will adjust my activity level automatically.
- I hate seeing negative adjustments on lazy days.
- Setting my activity level higher puts too much pressure on me to hit that level each and every day. I'm already obsessed with getting my steps in, i don't need more pressure.
- I go to bed early, at sedentary i lose around 60 calories every night. At lightly active that number shot up to around 200. I'd hate to think how far in the negative I'd go if i was set at Active. Losing all of those calories kinda negates upping my activity level in the first place.
- I prelog my day every morning, 9 times out of 10 I'm in the red. It shows me clearly how much exercise i need to do to get back in the green.
- If i do decide to have a sloth day, I can rest at ease eating my sedentary calories and not worry that I'm eating too much. Although negative adjustments handle this, it still bugs me.
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