Sedentary vs. Lightly Active

ChickenKillerPuppy
ChickenKillerPuppy Posts: 297 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I am new to MFP and selected "Lightly Active" as my activity level. Although I do sit at a desk for work, I don't have a car so I walk to and from work (although it's just a 15 minute walk each way), I travel a lot for work so aside from flights I'm often on the go, and even at my desk I have to get up and move a moderate amount (to go to the printer, see someone in their office down the hall, etc.). I also have a dog that I walk every day.

Can someone help me understand how my choice of "Lightly Active" factors in to my weight loss goals set by MFP? I have seen a lot of posts that urge people not to chose "Sedentary" just to chose it, so I really tried to be accurate. Ideally, if you reply, please try to use minimal acronyms (or at least explain what they are) as I am still really trying to learn this stuff (and yes, I have seen the link that is very helpful).

FWIW, I am 46 years old, 5'4", 158 pounds with a goal weight of 130. I am currently supposed to eat 1200 calories and walking/exercise has been giving me an additional 600-700 calories a day to eat (I have been eating back about 200-300 of those). Aside from the activity built into my daily life, I try to run about 4 times a week for about 40 minutes a pop. I wear a fitbit and don't record my runs as activity because my fitbit counts those steps and I don't want them to count twice.

Thanks in advance! I am really enjoying getting into the weeds of MFP. I did WW for years with success but went off it and gained weight and it just wasn't exciting me anymore so MFP and the forums have been terrific.

Replies

  • NovusDies
    NovusDies Posts: 8,940 Member
    Have you selected more than 1 pound per week? I don't think you are supposed to be at the min calorie level.

    The difference between sedentary and lightly active for you is about 200 calories. Since you are eating back only a portion of your exercise calories you should stay with lightly active for about 6 weeks and then determine your rate of loss and then adjust your calories if needed. You need to be losing no more than 1 pound per week.
  • robthephotog
    robthephotog Posts: 81 Member
    I think lightly active for you will be fine. But i cannot fathom youre burning 600-700 calories in a workout at your body weight. Thatd be like sprinting for 2 hours.

    Whats ur typical workout look like?
  • AmyC2288
    AmyC2288 Posts: 386 Member
    I'm confused about how it gave you 1200 cals for lightly active with your stats. Even if you selected loss of 2lbs/week that still seems a little low. If that is the case (you selected -2lbs/week), I as well as many others here will suggest to lower that to 1 since you only have 25 lbs to lose. The higher loss rates are intended for people with much much more to lose.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    robthephotog wrote: »
    I think lightly active for you will be fine. But i cannot fathom youre burning 600-700 calories in a workout at your body weight. Thatd be like sprinting for 2 hours.

    Whats ur typical workout look like?

    Holy exaggeration Batman!
  • robthephotog
    robthephotog Posts: 81 Member
    sijomial wrote: »
    robthephotog wrote: »
    I think lightly active for you will be fine. But i cannot fathom youre burning 600-700 calories in a workout at your body weight. Thatd be like sprinting for 2 hours.

    Whats ur typical workout look like?

    Holy exaggeration Batman!

    People over estimate calories burned. With a basic calories burned calculator, 5 miles in an hour at 150lb is around 550 calories. Are we running 8-9 minute miles for an hour consistantly every day? Thats not even the estimated 700 lol.

    Just eat healthy, watch the cals in, and get 30 to an hr of cardio couple times and week and youll see results
  • Evamutt
    Evamutt Posts: 2,700 Member
    AmyC2288 wrote: »
    I'm confused about how it gave you 1200 cals for lightly active with your stats. Even if you selected loss of 2lbs/week that still seems a little low. If that is the case (you selected -2lbs/week), I as well as many others here will suggest to lower that to 1 since you only have 25 lbs to lose. The higher loss rates are intended for people with much much more to lose.
    I lost 50lbs &was down to 148, gained when I quit smoking to 157 & now mfp gives me 1200/day to lose 1 lbs/wk. I set mine to .5/week. I am also 5'4"
  • Evamutt
    Evamutt Posts: 2,700 Member
    Also want to add I'm at lightly active & only record actual workouts, like at the gym & have always eaten back 90% calories & lost weight
  • Cassandraw3
    Cassandraw3 Posts: 1,214 Member
    Evamutt wrote: »
    AmyC2288 wrote: »
    I'm confused about how it gave you 1200 cals for lightly active with your stats. Even if you selected loss of 2lbs/week that still seems a little low. If that is the case (you selected -2lbs/week), I as well as many others here will suggest to lower that to 1 since you only have 25 lbs to lose. The higher loss rates are intended for people with much much more to lose.
    I lost 50lbs &was down to 148, gained when I quit smoking to 157 & now mfp gives me 1200/day to lose 1 lbs/wk. I set mine to .5/week. I am also 5'4"

    That is strange since at 5'4" and 148, MFP gives me 1220 for 1 lb/week and sedentary.
  • AmyC2288
    AmyC2288 Posts: 386 Member
    Evamutt wrote: »
    AmyC2288 wrote: »
    I'm confused about how it gave you 1200 cals for lightly active with your stats. Even if you selected loss of 2lbs/week that still seems a little low. If that is the case (you selected -2lbs/week), I as well as many others here will suggest to lower that to 1 since you only have 25 lbs to lose. The higher loss rates are intended for people with much much more to lose.
    I lost 50lbs &was down to 148, gained when I quit smoking to 157 & now mfp gives me 1200/day to lose 1 lbs/wk. I set mine to .5/week. I am also 5'4"

    Wow! Very interesting- thank you for sharing! When comparing to my own stats 1200 just seems low but I'm glad it works for you! FWIW I'm at 160, 5'5'', and sedentary. MFP gives me 1320 for -1lb/week. I also decided to do -.5lbs/week.

  • AmyC2288
    AmyC2288 Posts: 386 Member
    Cassandraw3 wrote: »
    Evamutt wrote: »
    AmyC2288 wrote: »
    I'm confused about how it gave you 1200 cals for lightly active with your stats. Even if you selected loss of 2lbs/week that still seems a little low. If that is the case (you selected -2lbs/week), I as well as many others here will suggest to lower that to 1 since you only have 25 lbs to lose. The higher loss rates are intended for people with much much more to lose.
    I lost 50lbs &was down to 148, gained when I quit smoking to 157 & now mfp gives me 1200/day to lose 1 lbs/wk. I set mine to .5/week. I am also 5'4"

    That is strange since at 5'4" and 148, MFP gives me 1220 for 1 lb/week and sedentary.

    OK, so I'm not crazy? :smile:
  • Cassandraw3
    Cassandraw3 Posts: 1,214 Member
    AmyC2288 wrote: »
    Cassandraw3 wrote: »
    Evamutt wrote: »
    AmyC2288 wrote: »
    I'm confused about how it gave you 1200 cals for lightly active with your stats. Even if you selected loss of 2lbs/week that still seems a little low. If that is the case (you selected -2lbs/week), I as well as many others here will suggest to lower that to 1 since you only have 25 lbs to lose. The higher loss rates are intended for people with much much more to lose.
    I lost 50lbs &was down to 148, gained when I quit smoking to 157 & now mfp gives me 1200/day to lose 1 lbs/wk. I set mine to .5/week. I am also 5'4"

    That is strange since at 5'4" and 148, MFP gives me 1220 for 1 lb/week and sedentary.

    OK, so I'm not crazy? :smile:

    Not at all! Once my goal got below 1400 was when it became too difficult for me to stay at that deficit and I switched to 0.5 lb/week. Which for me, that is 1470.
  • ChickenKillerPuppy
    ChickenKillerPuppy Posts: 297 Member
    Thank you all for your replies! I actually set it at 1.5 per week and it gave me 1200. I switched it to 2lbs/week to see if it would change and obviously it didn’t.

    So I feel like 600-700 exercise calories a day is A LOT and it feels inaccurate, but I don’t even enter my exercise, that is literally just what it gives me for synching with my Fitbit. I worry if I separately log my excercise it will give me “double” calories, but considering my Fitbit records all my normal non-workout movement, now I am worried it is giving me “double” calories anyway.

    My Fitbit usually records 15,000-20,000 steps a day, which will include running on the treadmill for the days I go to the gym. I try to run about 3.5-4 miles on the treadmill 4x a week. Plus because no car, I walk everywhere and live in a big city. On days I don’t go to the gym I try to compensate with extra walking.

    So does it sound like I’m getting more exercise calories than I should? I could, instead, not have it sync with my Fitbit and just record when I work out. I think that would be more like 400 extra calories a day.

    Thoughts?
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,209 Member
    edited April 2019
    A Fitbit is usually quite capable of capturing exercise activity that is step based.

    A Fitbit adjustment does not refer to a particular exercise but is a full day TDEE adjustment.

    In mfp speak a person who moves for 15000 to 20000 steps in a day exceeds the MFP very active level. At 20k steps by a full category (i.e. would be "very very" active if such existed)

    Just because a goal can be selected does not make it the right call for every person.

    How would your day look if you were set up as very active end and trying to lose 1 pound a week?
  • MikePTY
    MikePTY Posts: 3,814 Member
    edited April 2019
    Here is how MFP calculates your calorie goal, and how Sedentary vs. Lightly active changes it. MFP takes your BMR (basil metabolic rate, basically what you would burn in a coma), and then multiplies it by an activity multiplier to get your maintenance calories. Your BMR according to MFP is 1342. If you put sedentary, it would use a multiplier of 1.25 to calculate your maintenance calories (before exercise). That is 1678. With lightly active, it multiples your BMR by 1.4. So your maintenance calories are 1879.

    MFP then deducts your desired deficit from your maintenance calories, to get your goal calories. But it caps it at 1200. Because of this, you don't see any different between sedentary and lightly active based on the goal you chose. Since a 1.5 pound a week loss calculates out to a 750 calorie per day deficit, it winds up at less than 1200 whether you choose sedentary or lightly active, so it sets it to 1200. However if you choose 1 pound a week (which at your stats I think is probably a better weight of loss), you would get a goal of 1380 by choosing lightly active (1879-500 and rounded), but would still get a goal of 1200 if you had chosen sedentary.

    I think 1380 would be a good goal for you, plus eating back calories from extra exercise (at least half to start). Extra exercise would be when you run, or any walking you do in excess of 10,000 steps (generally considered the top of the lightly active range).
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,209 Member
    edited April 2019
    MikePTY wrote: »
    Here is how MFP calculates your calorie goal, and how Sedentary vs. Lightly active changes it. MFP takes your BMR (basil metabolic rate, basically what you would burn in a coma), and then multiplies it by an activity multiplier to get your maintenance calories. Your BMR according to MFP is 1342. If you put sedentary, it would use a multiplier of 1.25 to calculate your maintenance calories (before exercise). That is 1678. With lightly active, it multiples your BMR by 1.4. So your maintenance calories are 1879.

    MFP then deducts your desired deficit from your maintenance calories, to get your goal calories. But it caps it at 1200. Because of this, you don't see any different between sedentary and lightly active based on the goal you chose. Since a 1.5 pound a week loss calculates out to a 750 calorie per day deficit, it winds up at less than 1200 whether you choose sedentary or lightly active, so it sets it to 1200. However if you choose 1 pound a week (which at your stats I think is probably a better weight of loss), you would get a goal of 1380 by choosing lightly active (1879-500 and rounded), but would still get a goal of 1200 if you had chosen sedentary.

    I think 1380 would be a good goal for you, plus eating back calories from extra exercise (at least half to start). Extra exercise would be when you run, or any walking you do in excess of 10,000 steps (generally considered the top of the lightly active range).

    All in. Except: 10k is smack dab in the middle of active esp when Active is defined at an AF = 1.6 as MFP does.
  • MikePTY
    MikePTY Posts: 3,814 Member
    PAV8888 wrote: »
    MikePTY wrote: »
    Here is how MFP calculates your calorie goal, and how Sedentary vs. Lightly active changes it. MFP takes your BMR (basil metabolic rate, basically what you would burn in a coma), and then multiplies it by an activity multiplier to get your maintenance calories. Your BMR according to MFP is 1342. If you put sedentary, it would use a multiplier of 1.25 to calculate your maintenance calories (before exercise). That is 1678. With lightly active, it multiples your BMR by 1.4. So your maintenance calories are 1879.

    MFP then deducts your desired deficit from your maintenance calories, to get your goal calories. But it caps it at 1200. Because of this, you don't see any different between sedentary and lightly active based on the goal you chose. Since a 1.5 pound a week loss calculates out to a 750 calorie per day deficit, it winds up at less than 1200 whether you choose sedentary or lightly active, so it sets it to 1200. However if you choose 1 pound a week (which at your stats I think is probably a better weight of loss), you would get a goal of 1380 by choosing lightly active (1879-500 and rounded), but would still get a goal of 1200 if you had chosen sedentary.

    I think 1380 would be a good goal for you, plus eating back calories from extra exercise (at least half to start). Extra exercise would be when you run, or any walking you do in excess of 10,000 steps (generally considered the top of the lightly active range).

    All in. Except: 10k is smack dab in the middle of active esp when Active is defined at an AF = 1.6 as MFP does

    What would you define as the cut off between lightly active and active for steps?
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,209 Member
    edited April 2019
    Personal definitions based on various observations and Fitbit data:

    Sub 3,500 often not meeting sedentary calories.

    3500 to 5000 usually sedentary covers it close enough.

    5500 to 8500 classic lightly active.

    8500 to 12500 classic active with the edges a bit iffy and things such as deliberate or indoors or number of bouts of activity coming into play

    12,500 to 15,500 very active.

    Usually above 15500-16,000 you need more than MFP very active.

    Any step generating exercise is already included when using above and not added on top.

    Non step generating would have to be accounted separately remembering that mfp is already giving "BMR x increment" for the time in question. So you would deduct the "x increment" portion to get net activity Calories

  • Strudders67
    Strudders67 Posts: 989 Member
    Surely if the OP's fitbit is tracking ALL activity and then synching with MFP, some of the exercise is double counted if there's an assumption that steps are part of a Lightly Active lifestyle?

    I don't use a tracker, but I set my activity level to Sedentary because I manually enter all my walks (to/from work) and deliberate exercise. Only the walking around the office doesn't get logged but that would be in the 3000-3500 steps that MFP thinks a sedentary person does.
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,209 Member
    Strudders67 wrote: »
    Surely if the OP's fitbit is tracking ALL activity and then synching with MFP, some of the exercise is double counted if there's an assumption that steps are part of a Lightly Active lifestyle?

    The mechanism of the integration adjustment is such that everything is single counted.

    The detected values could be mucked up by entering a manual exercise to override what was detected; but each time interval would still only be counted once and the adjustment would only be for the calories that were above or below MFP's expectations.
  • MaryFloNS
    MaryFloNS Posts: 19 Member
    New to the community and I was wondering, why does one need to eat the calories lost through exercise?
  • asliceofjackie
    asliceofjackie Posts: 112 Member
    MaryFloNS wrote: »
    New to the community and I was wondering, why does one need to eat the calories lost through exercise?

    Think of it this way:

    If your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) is 1500kcal. That means you need that much just to live and breathe, as if you were a vegetable and did nothing all day. Now on top of that you add some kind of activity multiplication, so let's add 300kcal for general livingness (that's totally a word) and thus you need 1800kcal per day just to function.

    If you eat 1800kcal but then proceeed to workout and burn 800 of them, that means you're getting 1000kcal net, which isn't enough to sustain most humans for a longer period of time. Basically, unless your calculator adjusts for it (in which case you won't need to eat them back), working out will only create a larger deficit and when it comes to deficit bigger isn't always better. There's a limit to how large we want our deficits to be, thus we eat some of the calories we've burned back. To end up at a net intake that's reasonable.

    With that said:
    I'm not actually fully sure exactly how MFP specifically does this as I haven't yet looked into the system and equations it uses, but you get the general idea I hope!
  • savithny
    savithny Posts: 1,200 Member
    What are your step counts like on days you don't work out? I'm skeptical that you'd count as "lightly active" since you generally have to be at about 5000 steps a day to get out of "sedentary," and I have a similar job with similar "walking around the building" requirements. Even when I'm walking a mile to work, I have to add some additional consciously-taken steps to get to 6K steps.

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