Sedentary/Lightly Active/Active?

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icemaiden17_uk
icemaiden17_uk Posts: 463 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hello everyone!!

I am throwing myself at your mercy because I am a little confused as to what to do!

When I joined MFP I was Sedentary but since then I have lost 54lb and become much more active! It is amazing how much easier just doing your normal daily tasks become once you have lost a bit of weight! Even things at work are easier and I find myself standing more and not begrudging geting up and down etc!! Yay!!

However, I am now facing a bit of a conundrum! I am helping a friend of mine with her horse at least twice a week. This means lots of yard work. For example, poo picking, carting about heavy wheel barrows, pulling ton builders bags full of hay down the road to the horses field, leading, grooming and managing the horses and either working them from the ground (harder than it sounds) or riding them. This is all very hard work and means that on days when I am there I burn stupid calories! Esspecially as I still go to the gym as well!!

So, my question to you, the ever wise MFP communitty is this;

Should I change my activity level to Active and simply not logg any of the horse related activity or should I stay Lightly Active and log it in maybe ending up with negative calories on those days?

I never ever thought I would end up asking this question! I thought I would stay Sedentary for ever! I can not begin to tell you how much my life has changed since I started this at the end of September last year!!

Thank you for your replies!! If you give your opinion please explian why you think that is a good idea or why it is what you would do so that I can make an informed decision! Thanks guys!

P.S. I still go to the gym as I am training for runs!

Replies

  • geezer99
    geezer99 Posts: 92
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    Only an opinion -- I'd log it as low level cardio. Why low level? One reasonable rule is you can carry on a conversation while doing it.?
  • Tami113
    Tami113 Posts: 117 Member
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    I am interested in what everyone has to say. Before MFP i was a couch potato but now i am hardly ever sitting unless i am in class. I heard someone say that if you change your activity level to active from sedentary than you don't count your every day activity calories burned.
    I have my activity level set to sedentary. What i do, and it seems to be working for me, is whenever i am actively exercising with prupose, like taking the dog for a walk greater than 10 mins, or going for a hike, or hitting the gym, i log those calories burned. But when i do everyday activities like cleaning, cooking, grocery shopping, i don't log those calories burned and consider them bonus calories burned. If i do more in depth full spring cleaning and laundry where i am sweating going up and down stairs, i count those. It really depends on how hard i work at something, like shopping all day at a fair or farmer's market, i would count that also.

    This may or may not work for you. Everyone else is different.
    Good luck!!
  • icemaiden17_uk
    icemaiden17_uk Posts: 463 Member
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    Ha ha ha ha!! Carry on a conversation while runing about after a horse? And dragging 2 ton bags full of hay!! You are having a laugh!!
  • icemaiden17_uk
    icemaiden17_uk Posts: 463 Member
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    I am interested in what everyone has to say. Before MFP i was a couch potato but now i am hardly ever sitting unless i am in class. I heard someone say that if you change your activity level to active from sedentary than you don't count your every day activity calories burned.
    I have my activity level set to sedentary. What i do, and it seems to be working for me, is whenever i am actively exercising with prupose, like taking the dog for a walk greater than 10 mins, or going for a hike, or hitting the gym, i log those calories burned. But when i do everyday activities like cleaning, cooking, grocery shopping, i don't log those calories burned and consider them bonus calories burned. If i do more in depth full spring cleaning and laundry where i am sweating going up and down stairs, i count those. It really depends on how hard i work at something, like shopping all day at a fair or farmer's market, i would count that also.

    This may or may not work for you. Everyone else is different.
    Good luck!!

    Thanks for this! I changed to Active from Sedentary because I couldn't be bothered to log stuff that I now do that I didn't before, such as all cooking and cleaning, walking to and from the gym and a few other things. Those calories are now included in my daily goal.

    So really what I am asking is should I include the horse stuff in my daily goal rather than log it seperately?
  • 1shauna1
    1shauna1 Posts: 993 Member
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    I believe the activity level is your daily routine i.e. 8 hours a day at work. Activites like helping with the horse, I would add as an activity on the days you do them.
  • katydid25
    katydid25 Posts: 199 Member
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    First of all - congratulations on your progress! I'm glad you're noticing a change!

    If it were me, I'd keep it at 'Sedentary' then log the calories you burn working with the horses. I would just be too worried that MFP would set my calories too high if I move it to 'Slightly Active,' making me think I have a larger leeway than I do. But keeping it at 'Sedentary' shows me much more easily how many calories I can eat back if I feel the need to.
  • icemaiden17_uk
    icemaiden17_uk Posts: 463 Member
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    Sorry guys! Not making myself very clear! I am set to lightly active now as my daily activity is now much greater than it was before! I am still losing and I am pretty much eating the same calories as I was when I started! I'm guessing that that is because my BMR has gone down!

    The issue I have is that a whole day spent with the horses burns like 1000 calories +! There is no way I can eat that back (Yes I eat back my excersise calories and I am not going to stop ever!)

    So I thought that if I didn't log it and included it in my daily goals instead then it would even out and be easier! I am not feeling the love for this idea however!

    Interesting!
  • cutie2b
    cutie2b Posts: 194 Member
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    So you are saying for example (numbers made up) that you are lightly active and eating let's say
    1500 calories per day plus exercise gym calories and horse calories.

    What you want to do is set yourself to active (let's say for example that bumps you to 1700 calories), and count the gym but not the horse stuff.

    Well in generally, this should even out for you for the week.

    1500*7+ 2000 (horse) + 300*7 (gym) =14600 (Current)
    1700*7+300*7(gym) = 14000 (if you switched with hypothetical numbers)

    See what you are average is for the week and what it would be at active. I bet it would be the same, so changing it wouldn't matter.
  • therealangd
    therealangd Posts: 1,861 Member
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    If you up your activity log, you are essentially eating those calories over the course of the week. Basically. So if your issue is that you want to eat those calories, but you can't do it in one day, then for you, you should up your activity level.
  • treetop57
    treetop57 Posts: 1,578 Member
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    If you up your activity log, you are essentially eating those calories over the course of the week. Basically. So if your issue is that you want to eat those calories, but you can't do it in one day, then for you, you should up your activity level.

    Exactly.
  • icemaiden17_uk
    icemaiden17_uk Posts: 463 Member
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    So glad my logic made sense to someone! Or a few people actually in the end!!

    That is exactly what I was driving at! Now that is cleared up I would like a few more opionions before I decided!!

    Thank you to all of you that have posted so far!! :)
  • munichmangler
    munichmangler Posts: 10 Member
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    So you are saying for example (numbers made up) that you are lightly active and eating let's say
    1500 calories per day plus exercise gym calories and horse calories.

    What you want to do is set yourself to active (let's say for example that bumps you to 1700 calories), and count the gym but not the horse stuff.

    Well in generally, this should even out for you for the week.

    1500*7+ 2000 (horse) + 300*7 (gym) =14600 (Current)
    1700*7+300*7(gym) = 14000 (if you switched with hypothetical numbers)

    See what you are average is for the week and what it would be at active. I bet it would be the same, so changing it wouldn't matter.


    This sounds like a very sensible solution. Since you are doing the horsey stuff regularly and for the foreseeable future, incorporating those cals into your daily allowances by upping your activity level instead of logging them on the days you burn them will be a great way of giving you a chance to eat them back.

    This will be a much better way of doing it than keeping your activity level on light and ending up with negative cals on the horse days. If you end up with negative cals you will not feed your body enough cals to sustain its energy need and it may go into starvation mode (ie. hold on to everything you eat and burn protein from your mucles instead). Not good :noway: . If I were you, I would work out how many extra calories the horsey stuff burns in a week, calculate how much that would be spread over 7 days, and choose a new activity level that gets you closest to your current allowance plus the daily horse cals. :flowerforyou:
  • Pebble321
    Pebble321 Posts: 6,554 Member
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    Sorry guys! Not making myself very clear! I am set to lightly active now as my daily activity is now much greater than it was before! I am still losing and I am pretty much eating the same calories as I was when I started! I'm guessing that that is because my BMR has gone down!

    The issue I have is that a whole day spent with the horses burns like 1000 calories +! There is no way I can eat that back (Yes I eat back my excersise calories and I am not going to stop ever!)

    So I thought that if I didn't log it and included it in my daily goals instead then it would even out and be easier! I am not feeling the love for this idea however!

    Interesting!

    Honestly - it doesn't matter.
    As long as you are accounting for those extra calories burnt (and eating some extrato keep your body fueled up) it doesn't matter whether you account for them in your activity level (change to active) or add them in separately each day (stick at lightly active and add a custom exercise - I'd call it "poo moving" myself).
    The key is to count them, but only once. Try it one way and if that isn't working, change things around.

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