Activity Level

Mikect1980
Mikect1980 Posts: 6 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I am curious if somebody who works in an office all day, but has a standup desk and stand like 7 out of the 8 hours should put lightly active or sedentary or active for their mfp activity level?

Replies

  • exhilen
    exhilen Posts: 43 Member
    edited January 2021
    Honestly, I am working from home, and I put my level to sedentary with negative calorie adjustments for my fitness tracker. That way, I’m not trying to guess my activity level. Many suggest of doing it that way because it’s removing the guessing work. I definitely wouldn’t put active. Lightly active at best.

    If you do not have a fitness tracker, I would still lean towards sedentary. A standing desk is great, but unless you’re really moving about, the calories burned isn’t going to have an extreme difference. Then, after a couple weeks, evaluate and adjust as needed if you’re losing too quickly.
  • tinkerbellang83
    tinkerbellang83 Posts: 9,130 Member
    I find when I am at my standing desk all day I do around 5-6000 steps per day, so that would be in line with Lightly Active. Do you know roughly how many non-exercise steps you get in total across the whole day.

    Basically your activity level is how active you are in life (work, homelife, school, etc) without exercise.

    Although it mentions desk job as sedentary, that only accounts for around 3000 steps max, so that would for most people mean that they drive to/from work, sit at the desk all day, then go home and sit on the sofa.

    So if you're on your feet a good bit of the day Lightly Active or higher would be suitable.

  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
    Well as sedentary means "mostly seated" and you aren't then I'd go with Lightly Active as a start point from which you can adjust later if necessary.
    What you do outside of your working hours also counts.

    (When I had a sit down IT desk job I easily got into Lightly Active due to the amount of movement I built into my normal working and social life.)

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