Sedentary vs lightly active

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  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 13,674 Member
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    Usually fairly accurate...OVER TIME. You can change the assumptions and delay. During short time periods both the trend and projection can react to "noise". But they do so slower than the weight scale. Which is good when it shows real weight change and the de-emphasizes water weight changes. But it also reacts with a delay to real weight trend changes. They're still evident when you look at them a couple of weeks later; but, at the time, the reaction is a little bit slower.

    However I think we're definitely in over-thinking this territory. Pushing things and cutting to the bone and adding cardio for the extra 60 calories starts sounding.... iffy to me.

    By all means, do you walking or elliptical whichever one of them you feel more capable of embedding into your life and doing long-term. Being more active than 5000 steps a day is of great benefit (as long as you ramp up to it safely)... way more benefit than the calories it confers! And avoiding long periods of inactivity (think 2-300 steps an hour i.e. 3 minutes of moving around every hour) is also worth considering as a goal
  • bmeadows380
    bmeadows380 Posts: 2,981 Member
    edited March 2020
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    @Pav8888 Thanks!

    I seemed to hit the on switch in January, as that's when I was able to really stick to my calorie limits and started seeing much better progress. When I look at my weight on 1/27 and compare it to the 259.5 lbs I except to see tomorrow morning or thereabouts, it looks like I"ve been average 1.73 lbs per week instead of 2 lbs/wk. I double checked several different calculators online and they all were fairly close to each other and all 100 calories under what MFP recommends for sedentary and my stats of 5'8" 259 lbs, and they all are much closer to what I'm actually experiencing than MFP's numbers.

    I know movement has benefits well beyond weight loss, and I"ve been trying to ramp it up over the last month or so now, going from less than 3,000 steps a day at the end of February to at least 5,500 now and trying to get at least 30 minutes of aerobic activity in. I found a beginner's body weight routine though I"m not sure how much help it will actually be.

    But at my weight, if I get in a 45 minutes session and only count 1/4-1/3 of it, I'm still gaining at least 100 extra calories, and that can be a big difference when evening gets around and the snacky drive tries to kick in!

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