Am I lightly active or active?

Hi all! Just a question here. I’ve been debating whether to put myself as “lightly active” or “active”.

My job is not active at all (sitting most of the day) but 5 times a week I go on the treadmill at 14 incline and 3 MPH for about 40-45 minutes. Would this be enough to put me in the “active” category??

Replies

  • Depends...are you trying to figure out your BMR or maintenance calories?
  • L1zardQueen
    L1zardQueen Posts: 8,753 Member
    Sitting most of the day means your are sedentary. What do you do the rest of your day? Do you have an activity tracker?

    Your 45 minute treadmill workout is exercise.
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,984 Member
    MFP makes a difference between exercise and everyday activity. The second is accounted for with the activity level. Thus if you sit at work, don't have toddlers to chase up, etc you're likely sedentary. Then you log the exercise in addition to that. As the MPF database for exercise is quite rubbish for many exercises it might be good to only eat back half of those calories to start with and see how things go
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    Exercise is nothing to do with the activity setting, it's logged separately to account for the calories burned.

    What kind of non-exercise movement do you get in your typical daily life?
    That's all your waking hours and not just your job.

    e.g. although I had a desk job which would infer sedentary with the walking involved in my commute, lots of stairs at work, moving between offices and general bimbling aound in the evenings and weekends I easily elevated myself to lightly active.
  • LunaTheFatCat
    LunaTheFatCat Posts: 237 Member
    Sitting most of the day means your are sedentary. What do you do the rest of your day? Do you have an activity tracker?

    Your 45 minute treadmill workout is exercise.

    Yes, that's exactly how I would define it.
  • callsitlikeiseeit
    callsitlikeiseeit Posts: 8,626 Member
    I would consider that as sedentary and then count the exercise as intentional.

    I consider MYSELF as sedentary. And live on a farm LOL. I'm up and down all day, but step wise, it doesn't usually amount to much (fewer than 4000 steps and usually not even that). I do go to the gym generally 3-5 times a week, and that is where I get my exercise (and its logged as such)