Stay at Home Mom Questions

I am a stay at home mom to 3 girls, 10, 9, and 3 and I put sedentary. I find when I put lightly active I actually gain weight. It's kind of your own preference and what works best for you.

I set mine to sedentary and then log exercise like walks, or more "intense" house work.

Im a SAHM too amd I put lightly active. I do not log housework or stuff like that but I do log all my workout and exercise and I also eat back atleat 80-90% of those calories.

Hello! I'm a SAHM also and I put myself as lightly active, but here's why:

I prepare at least one meal, most days, from scratch. The only thing that might come from a bag is frozen veggies. But I generally spend some amount of time doing food preparation during the day.

I do at least 1 load of laundry per day, which includes going down a flight of stairs and back up carrying a full laundry basket, and then folding those clothes and putting them away.

I sweep most of the floors in my house at least once per day because we have hard wood/ceramic throughout about 80% of our house.

I pace when I talk on the phone. When I talk to someone for a half hour, that's the equivalent of about a 1-2 mile walk for me. I don't always talk on the phone everyday, but most of the time I do.

I walk my kids about 2 blocks to school in the mornings, and then again in the afternoon when I pick them up from school.

On top of all of that, I exercise 30-60 minutes 3-5 times per week.

I have my calories set to maintenance, and have continued to lose .5-1 pound per week based on that activity level, so I would say that unless you are sitting on your keester all day, eating bon bons, and watching soap operas, lightly active is a good choice. If you find you aren't losing weight after about a month, then you could always try lowering your activity level and then logging everything you do.

Also there seems to be a lot of debate about activity level calories, and exercise level calories. Am I right in the fact that I should not enter any exercise goals even though I work out 3 times a week, so I can eat back the calories? Or should I just put my activity level at sedentary in order to under estimate my calories burned?

The great thing about this site is that you can adapt it to your needs. You can start with "lightly active" - but if you feel you are not seeing any results after a few weeks, then you can change it! As for exercise goals, as far as I can tell, this does not make any difference in the number of calories you are assigned, it merely helps you track whether you have met your goal of number / duration of workouts.

I am at home with my 8 month old. I spend a lot of time sitting as well (playing on the floor, breastfeeding) but I also do light house work. I put myself as "lightly active", though I don't enter activities such as "cleaning" as exercise. I only log it if it is a specific "workout" - i.e. going for a walk, doing an exercise video, riding a bike.

I have found that this works for me - I lose about 1 pound a week, as planned. You will need to figure out what works for you...and when it stops working (i.e. weeks go by with no loss) then change it until it does work! Everything is customizable - as you play around with the site, you will be able to find a setting that works for you!

Good luck and welcome to MFP!!

I am a SAHM too. I consider myself lightly active just because I don't really get to sit for a straight 4 hrs with a short break in between. I also just log things I don't do everyday, like the occasional heavy/complete cleaning but I log it as cleaning with light effort. I don't log food preparation as exercise, but that's just me. I use to log yard work because I don't get to do it everyday. On those days when I don't have any exercise logged it kinda helped me to really look at healthy food choices to be able to stretch my calories so to speak. And to know that it is possible to survive on at least 1200 cals per day since we are not always exposed to fast food short cuts like most working people do.

Oh and i do work on the weekends too and exercise at least 3 times a week for at least 60 mins.

Welcome to MFP

I don't log any of my normal daily activities, either. Those are the things I do that I consider to make me lightly active. The only exercise I log is actual workouts or if I am down on my hands and knees scrubbing the tile grout or something, because it takes a long time and I don't do it often. lol.

Hi All, I'm a SAHM as well but I put sedentary since my baby girl is only 10 months. Plus I find that if I put lightly active that I don't lose as much weight that I'm aiming for. Just like all mom's I clean and cook everyday plus play with my daughter but I don't log those. I only log my exercises and by logging my 30-60min/day 5 days a week I find that It raises my calories intake. So If I was to log everything that I did throughout the day I find that I feel like I'm eating too much. And I just found out that you need to make sure to at least get 1200 calories a day or your body could go into starvation mode and actually prevent you from losing weight. Which is something I have a problem with since I eat really healthy. Eating 1200 calories actually gets pretty hard when your always full of greens.
Anyways...
Good luck all you SAHM's!!!! This Mom's getting her sexy back!!! And I Wish you all Luck with your weight loss Journey.