Choosing the correct activity level
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tinkerbellang83 wrote: »mjtaylor87 wrote: »honkytonks85 wrote: »Found this and thought it was actually useful:
When you have to find out how many calories you burn in a day, you put your info in a calculator and it undoubtedly asks for your activity level. So what do you choose? Here are the meaning of the activity levels:
Sedentary
If you’re sedentary, your daily activities include:
Activities of daily living only, such as shopping, cleaning, watering plants, taking out the trash, walking the dog, mowing the lawn and gardening.
No moderate of vigorous activities.
Unless you do at least 30 minutes per day of intentional exercise, you are considered sedentary.
Spending most of the day sitting (e.g. bank teller, desk job)
The majority of people will be considered sedentary.
Lightly Active
If you’re lightly active, your daily activities include:
Activities of daily living only, such as shopping, cleaning, watering plants, taking out the trash, walking the dog, mowing the lawn and gardening.
Daily exercise that is equal to walking for 30 minutes at 4mph. For an adult of average weight, this amount of exercise will burn about 130-160 additional calories.
More intense exercise can be performed for less time to achieve the same goal. For example, 15-20 minutes of vigorous activity, such as aerobics, skiing or jogging on a daily basis would put you in this category.
Spending a good part of the day on your feet (e.g. teacher, salesman)
Active
If you’re active, your daily activities include:
Activities of daily living only, such as shopping, cleaning, watering plants, taking out the trash, walking the dog, mowing the lawn and gardening.
Daily exercise that is equal to walking for 1 hour and 45 minutes at 4mph. For an adult of average weight, this amount of exercise will burn about 470-580 additional calories.
More intense exercise can be performed for less time. For example, jogging for 50 minutes per day.
Spending a good part of the day doing some physical activity (e.g. waitress, mailman)
Very Active
If you’re very active, your daily activities include:
Activities of daily living only, such as shopping, cleaning, watering plants, taking out the trash, walking the dog, mowing the lawn and gardening.
Daily exercise that is equal to walking for 4 hours and 15 minutes at 4mph. For an adult of average weight, this amount of exercise will burn about 1,150-1400 additional calories.
More intense exercise can be performed for less time. For example, jogging for 2 hours minutes per day.
Spending most of the day doing heavy physical activity (e.g. bike messenger, carpenter)
SOURCE: http://antranik.org/proper-activity-level-for-calorie-intake/
Ok i dont remember what i chose when i set up but i think i need to lower it. how do i do that?
Change your settings in goals (guided set up)
thank you so much this has been beyond helpful to me.1 -
OrionEridanus wrote: »honkytonks85 wrote: »To be fair, weight lifting itself doesn't burn a lot of calories, not enough to justify an active level. . . I wouldn't add any calories in for weight lifting but if you think you should, I'd be adding 200 calories for a session at the most. I prefer to go with sedentary then just add in my cardio calories.
I find this statement interesting because according to my Fitbit I burn 600-700calories an hour on the treadmill. And when I lift I burn between 350-400 an hour. Now, while they are not equal, and the treadmill work certainly burns more, in no, way, shape, or form is 350-400 calories "not a lot"
Log your weights. It makes a difference.0 -
ThePopcornMaker wrote: »I go to the gym 5-6 times a week for 45 mins to do weightlifting but MFP doesn't let you calculate calories for anything other than cardio. I am also in college so I have to walk around campus daily. I set my activity level to 'Active' to compensate for the lack of calorie estimates for weights. I want to know if I'm justified in doing this. Also if I do cardio I add the extra calories in with the app.
Any reply would be great
There is a general weighlifting entry under cardio. You do burn a bit extra (but not remotely near the same amount as cardio). MFP gives me about 100 calories for a typical session.
ETA: correction... it's ~120 for my typical session (the last session estimated as 100 calories was shorter than typical, although that had more to do with fast availability of equipment and not having to re-rack a ton of @sshats' weights).
(it is proportional to weight.. quick data taken from 1posted study:
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ThePopcornMaker wrote: »I go to the gym 5-6 times a week for 45 mins to do weightlifting but MFP doesn't let you calculate calories for anything other than cardio. I am also in college so I have to walk around campus daily. I set my activity level to 'Active' to compensate for the lack of calorie estimates for weights. I want to know if I'm justified in doing this. Also if I do cardio I add the extra calories in with the app.
Any reply would be great
There is a general weighlifting entry under cardio. You do burn a bit extra (but not remotely near the same amount as cardio). MFP gives me about 100 calories for a typical session.
ETA: correction... it's ~120 for my typical session (the last session estimated as 100 calories was shorter than typical, although that had more to do with fast availability of equipment and not having to re-rack a ton of @sshats' weights).
(it is proportional to weight.. quick data taken from 1posted study (weight is in pounds below):
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ThePopcornMaker wrote: »I go to the gym 5-6 times a week for 45 mins to do weightlifting but MFP doesn't let you calculate calories for anything other than cardio. I am also in college so I have to walk around campus daily. I set my activity level to 'Active' to compensate for the lack of calorie estimates for weights. I want to know if I'm justified in doing this. Also if I do cardio I add the extra calories in with the app.
Any reply would be great
Look for a strength training entry under cardio to get a burn estimate. Though it isn't much, so I would say active is probably too high for you.
Co-signed. Weight lifting in and of itself does not burn that many calories. It does have many other benefits. Log it in separately and don't include it in your activity level. You can use other sites like Sparkpeople to get a comparative burn and see how the numbers compare.1 -
SusanMFindlay wrote: »heathervallon wrote: »Is a nurse (senior's residence) sedentary, lightly active or active? I.e. I log on average 10kms a shift - will that count as exercise or lifestyle?
Definitely not "sedentary" or "lightly active". Probably "active". And I'd call that "lifestyle" rather than "exercise".
I'm set to "active" with FitBit tweaking my calories. If I only get 10,000 steps in a day (8 km for me), I break even and "active" is the correct setting. Usually, I get between 15,000 and 25,000 steps and "very active" isn't high enough.
IMO, the easiest way to estimate your activity level is to find a cheap pedometer and wear it for a week or two, recording your total number of steps every day.
"Sedentary" is less than 4,000 steps/day
"Lightly active" is about 4,000-10,000 steps/day
"Active" is about 10,000-16,000 steps/day
"Very active" is more than 16,000 steps/day
If you're right at the bottom of a range, you might want to choose the range below to allow for a few inaccuracies in logging.
i d say that active is 10000-12000 and very active is over 120001 -
SusanMFindlay wrote: »IMO, the easiest way to estimate your activity level is to find a cheap pedometer and wear it for a week or two, recording your total number of steps every day.
"Sedentary" is less than 4,000 steps/day
"Lightly active" is about 4,000-10,000 steps/day
"Active" is about 10,000-16,000 steps/day
"Very active" is more than 16,000 steps/day
If you're right at the bottom of a range, you might want to choose the range below to allow for a few inaccuracies in logging.
MFP defines
sedentary = BMR x 1.25
ligtly active = BMR x 1.4
active = BMR x 1.6
very active = BMR x 1.8
Most people get "positive adjustments" i.e. extra calories, when their activity levels exceed:
sedentary ~ 3500 steps
lightly active ~ 7500 steps
active ~ 12,500 steps
very active ~15500 steps
MFP expects you to log any "exercise" that is not part of your base activity.
While in many respects it makes sense to split things into "base activity of daily living" and "deliberate exercise" there is nothing magical about how the calories got burned.
The only thing that matters is that you don't under or over count.
Note that sedentary means... sedentary. It represents an activity level that involves less than 35 minutes of movement in a day. MOST people on MFP who think of themselves as sedentary... AREN'T. (and, of course, some people who DON'T, ARE. but that's another story).
sedentary up to 5000
lightly active up to 7500
active 10000
very active 125003 -
This definition hinges on whether you are logging and eating your exercise calories back or not. If you aren't this works if you are this does not work.0
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The activity level throws me off as well. I work in office sit down for 6 hours a days so I set mfp to sedentary. In a day i usually get anywhere for 10,000-15,000. I go to the gym 3 days a week. I consider myself sedentary because i sit 6 hours a day 5 days a week. Is this correct?*
edited for typo*0 -
The activity level throws me off as well. I work in office sit down for 6 hours a days so I set mfp to sedentary. In a day i usually get anywhere for 10,000-15,000. I go to the gym 3 days a week. I consider myself sedentary because i sit 6 hours a day 5 days a week. Is this correct?*
edited for typo*
What are you using to track your steps? Easiest thing to do is set your activity level to Sedentary, let your fitbit or whatever send calorie adjustments to MFP, and log your gym separately if your fitbit isn't doing that.
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I stopped reading at the definition of sedentary because that's wrongIf you can walk the dog, mow the lawn, and garden, and remain sedentary, I think you must have a very small dog, a lawn of astroturf, and a window garden.
Other than that, it looks pretty right to me. Thanks for the post!
Agree with the critique of Sedentary.
Are they defining "walking the dog" like my former landlord did - walk the dog out to the back yard and stop there? My mom and brother's dog gets several miles per day. Two miles = 4,400 steps for me, and my Fitbit One starts giving me calories at under 3,000 steps.
What kind of gardening are they talking about? My mom struggles to stay above Underweight because of all the gardening she does. "Gardening" is just too vague. This weekend, I beat the heck out of my body putting in a circle garden under a tree, and no way was this "sedentary".
Also, as others have covered, this is just not how MFP works.2 -
kshama2001 wrote: »The activity level throws me off as well. I work in office sit down for 6 hours a days so I set mfp to sedentary. In a day i usually get anywhere for 10,000-15,000. I go to the gym 3 days a week. I consider myself sedentary because i sit 6 hours a day 5 days a week. Is this correct?*
edited for typo*
What are you using to track your steps? Easiest thing to do is set your activity level to Sedentary, let your fitbit or whatever send calorie adjustments to MFP, and log your gym separately if your fitbit isn't doing that.
I'm tracking my steps w/ the Samsung fit watch so I did set at sedentary and mfp adjust calories burned from my watch0 -
I do construction, work with bricking... i spend the whole day from 8-6 lifting up bricks and wlking the wheeler, should i consider being very active?2
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I would say active or very active and add any separate exercises you do as well.0
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If I go twice a week to play football (on mondays and fridays) for like 1 hour, shoud I choose lightly active or sedentary?
The rest of the days I am pretty much sedentary and that category suits me for 5 out of 7 days. I also have to mention that in those days when I play football I don't go to the gym, they are like rest days but not really 😂0 -
I know this is on old thread but this is something I've bee trying to figure out for a while as I don't believe setting active and allowing my Apple Watch to interface exercise is accurate. I'd effectively be allowing myself way to many calories to eat due to recording the activity twice.
I've set my activity to 'Not very Active (the lowest setting)' as I sit a desk for a large part of my day, I then allow Under Armour Record for weight training workouts and Strava for runs to sync to MFP. I know I'm not going to far wrong using the goal based on low activity plus the red ring on my apple watch.
For me this makes the most sense as currently I'm set at lose 2lbs a week so goal is 1500 plus whatever I burn which I feel is more accurate.
On average with my goal set at lose 2lbs per week and the lowest activity level combined with syncing I've averaged 1.92lbs per week. Had I used say moderate and still synced my activities i'd have gone over my true macro targets by double counting exercise.0 -
Darrensmith_ wrote: »I know this is on old thread but this is something I've bee trying to figure out for a while as I don't believe setting active and allowing my Apple Watch to interface exercise is accurate. I'd effectively be allowing myself way to many calories to eat due to recording the activity twice.
I've set my activity to 'Not very Active (the lowest setting)' as I sit a desk for a large part of my day, I then allow Under Armour Record for weight training workouts and Strava for runs to sync to MFP. I know I'm not going to far wrong using the goal based on low activity plus the red ring on my apple watch.
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As long as you enable Negative adjustments, it should take back anything that would be double counted.2 -
Sedentary would still probably be the best for you since all your activity is coming from tracked purposeful exercise. (You'll get more calories rewarded to you after the run when you are hungry, versus having it yank calories away throughout the day if you skip your run)2 -
I am also having trouble figuring out what my activity level is. I have a Fitbit synced with MFP. Right now I have MFP set as lightly active and I do have custom calorie goals. I'm 5'2, female, weighing 152 setting my weight loss goals to lose 2lbs/wk and slim down to 130. I've had a hard time getting into a rhythm in the past several months because of family health problems. I eat when I stress and don't do what I know I need to do to lose weight.
I'm getting back on track this week and want to make sure I have my activity level set correctly. I have a somewhat active job (cashier at a small grocery store) where I stock drinks, change prices, get carriages, etc. I'm on my feet for 38 hours a week here for 5 days (8 hours a day during the typical workweek for 4 days and 6 hours on Sundays), sitting down just for my 20-minute lunch break.
For 5 days a week (usually 4 of my work days and 1 of my days off), I also workout, usually either doing the gym (2 days/week with weights) and walking the other days. Those days I'm getting 45-60 minutes in the gym alone, in addition to any stray minutes I get at work. Most days during the week I get at least 12K steps/day between my job and workouts (sometimes even hitting close to 10K steps before my shift is over, making me get closer to 14-16KK steps post workout) but the rest of the time I'm lazy 😂
So is my estimate of my activity level accurate or am I underestimating myself? Thanks in advance for any responses!0 -
vasilica22 wrote: »If I go twice a week to play football (on mondays and fridays) for like 1 hour, shoud I choose lightly active or sedentary?
The rest of the days I am pretty much sedentary and that category suits me for 5 out of 7 days. I also have to mention that in those days when I play football I don't go to the gym, they are like rest days but not really 😂
Activity level is based on daily activity. I’d choose sedentary and log your 2x a week football games as purposeful exercise.2 -
Darrensmith_ wrote: »I know this is on old thread but this is something I've bee trying to figure out for a while as I don't believe setting active and allowing my Apple Watch to interface exercise is accurate. I'd effectively be allowing myself way to many calories to eat due to recording the activity twice.
I've set my activity to 'Not very Active (the lowest setting)' as I sit a desk for a large part of my day, I then allow Under Armour Record for weight training workouts and Strava for runs to sync to MFP. I know I'm not going to far wrong using the goal based on low activity plus the red ring on my apple watch.
For me this makes the most sense as currently I'm set at lose 2lbs a week so goal is 1500 plus whatever I burn which I feel is more accurate.
On average with my goal set at lose 2lbs per week and the lowest activity level combined with syncing I've averaged 1.92lbs per week. Had I used say moderate and still synced my activities i'd have gone over my true macro targets by double counting exercise.
I’ve played with my activity level settings and with the adjustments from my Garmin, they end up being the same. Higher activity level = smaller adjustments from the activity logged in my Garmin. Less activity = larger adjustments from the same level of activity logged through Garmin. I do have negative calorie adjustments enabled regardless.0 -
bruinsgirl3319 wrote: »I am also having trouble figuring out what my activity level is. I have a Fitbit synced with MFP. Right now I have MFP set as lightly active and I do have custom calorie goals. I'm 5'2, female, weighing 152 setting my weight loss goals to lose 2lbs/wk and slim down to 130. I've had a hard time getting into a rhythm in the past several months because of family health problems. I eat when I stress and don't do what I know I need to do to lose weight.
I'm getting back on track this week and want to make sure I have my activity level set correctly. I have a somewhat active job (cashier at a small grocery store) where I stock drinks, change prices, get carriages, etc. I'm on my feet for 38 hours a week here for 5 days (8 hours a day during the typical workweek for 4 days and 6 hours on Sundays), sitting down just for my 20-minute lunch break.
For 5 days a week (usually 4 of my work days and 1 of my days off), I also workout, usually either doing the gym (2 days/week with weights) and walking the other days. Those days I'm getting 45-60 minutes in the gym alone, in addition to any stray minutes I get at work. Most days during the week I get at least 12K steps/day between my job and workouts (sometimes even hitting close to 10K steps before my shift is over, making me get closer to 14-16KK steps post workout) but the rest of the time I'm lazy 😂
So is my estimate of my activity level accurate or am I underestimating myself? Thanks in advance for any responses!
If your Fitbit is synched and you have negative calorie adjustments enabled, it shouldn’t really matter what your activity level is is set to. Your Fitbit will estimate how many calories you’ve burned based on steps and movement throughout the day, compare it to MFP’s goal, and give you an adjustment number that eliminates the discrepancy.
Imagine there’s a 300-calorie difference between lightly active and active. If you burn exactly the “active” number of calories one day but have MFP set to “lightly active,” your Fitbit will add 300 calories to your total. If, on the other hand, you’re set to active and have a lightly active day, your Fitbit will deduct 300 from your goal. Whatever your setting is, your Fitbit will true it up throughout the day (again: IF you have negative adjustments enabled).
If you’re getting consistent adjustments daily you might want to change your activity level just for simplicity’s sake—I did that earlier this year when I was ALWAYS getting at least 250 extra calories. Obviously I was more active than I’d told MFP, so I changed it. Now my adjustments vary between -100 all the way up to +700, which is why I’m glad I have the Fitbit and am not relying solely on my MFP activity level!
Fitbits aren't totally accurate, and depending on what kind of activity you do they can be significantly off. But they will allow you to adjust for varied activity levels day to day without having to worry about whether your MFP level is set properly. You’ll get a calorie goal based on your actual movement, regardless of setting.0 -
So I synched my garmin vivofit but can't figure out how to enable adjustments to my calorie allotment.1
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Lol I'm a server...by definition I would be in Active status...buuuut sometimes its not as busy, so I put my activity level as lightly active, and I track whatever exercise outside of work That's actually exercise1
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nicsflyingcircus wrote: »So I synched my garmin vivofit but can't figure out how to enable adjustments to my calorie allotment.
The only MFP option you have to enable adjustments is Negative - under food settings for MFP.
The mere act of syncing MFP to another account that gives daily calorie burn updates, automatically sets up getting positive adjustments.
The idea being MFP is going to correct itself to a more accurate estimate if it's higher.
If you are seeing no positive adjustment in the Exercise Diary (even though it's not just exercise calories burned, could be none), it means your selected MFP Activity level is high enough that Garmin isn't reporting higher than that. And you have negative disabled.
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hobbitses333 wrote: »I dont have sedentary as an option. I think "not very active" is an underestimate for me, I am set to .5 lb per week, doing almost no exercise, going over from time to time, and am losing 2 lbs per week. Not complaining heh heh..just finding it weird, especially since all my life I have been so crappy at losing weight....
Those options mentioned are on MFP, not Garmin's site.
If you see no Sedentary option - you are on the wrong site's setting page.
You should be concerned about losing 2 lbs weekly if set to 1/2 lb - because one could be very reasonable, and the other very unreasonable.
Guess which one the body will adapt negatively too?
Faster is not always better for fat loss - because then it becomes just weight loss, fat and other you'd rather not lose.
If you have over 50 lbs to lose, then 2lbs weekly could be reasonable if no other body health issues.0 -
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