Choosing Lightly Active or Sedentary

Vegetables_are_fun
Vegetables_are_fun Posts: 13
in Health and Weight Loss
Hello,

I'm curious about choosing different levels of activeness. I'm a student and I usually walk at least 2 hours a day in addition to going to the gym and other activities, but I also spend a lot of time behind a computer or sitting in class. Does this mean that I lead a sedentary life style and I should just track my additional exercise and then eat those calories, or does it mean that I'm active enough that I should classify myself as lightly active and then also track my output calories?

Thank you!

Replies

  • LizKurz
    LizKurz Posts: 340 Member
    Hello,

    I'm curious about choosing different levels of activeness. I'm a student and I usually walk at least 2 hours a day in addition to going to the gym and other activities, but I also spend a lot of time behind a computer or sitting in class. Does this mean that I lead a sedentary life style and I should just track my additional exercise and then eat those calories, or does it mean that I'm active enough that I should classify myself as lightly active and then also track my output calories?

    Thank you!

    Lightly active is "spending most of the day on your feet". If you do not meet this I would not use lightly active.


    Eta because it might not be obvious, I would log your walks if you go with sedentary. :)
  • pinkhu13
    pinkhu13 Posts: 133
    I'm a student too and some days I'm sedentary and others I am on my feet a lot so I just chose sedentary.
  • thatsnumberwang
    thatsnumberwang Posts: 398 Member
    I'm in the same situation. I chose lightly active, and it was about right -- on the low side, even. I ended up bumping it up to very active after a few months.
  • KilikiMom
    KilikiMom Posts: 237 Member
    i chose sedentary...i am a sahm who is often on her feet..with the cleaning and cooking and the kids and yard work etc...but for me its a daily thing nothing out of the ordinary so i wouldn't log any of that stuff i do anyways
  • RaeLB
    RaeLB Posts: 1,216 Member
    i had the same conflict -some days i walk around a lot & some days i'm on my butt studying
    i chose lightly active & only log any additional exercise
  • RaeLB
    RaeLB Posts: 1,216 Member
    i chose sedentary...i am a sahm who is often on her feet..with the cleaning and cooking and the kids and yard work etc...but for me its a daily thing nothing out of the ordinary so i wouldn't log any of that stuff i do anyways

    sounds like ordinary is lightly active if you're always on your feet
  • yesthistime
    yesthistime Posts: 2,051 Member
    Same predicament - I chose sedentary because I would rather underestimate calories burned than overestimate and eat too many back.
  • SuffolkSally
    SuffolkSally Posts: 964 Member
    I don't even know how to change it! I choose sedentary and looged regular exercise at first, but then another member said as I also do a part time decorating job and am fairly active during the day, gardening, cleaning that sort of thing, I should proably up it. She also said that this applies if it's a few days a week rather than constant. But now I can't find her advice to repost, and I never work out how to alter my activity level anyway...
  • RaeLB
    RaeLB Posts: 1,216 Member
    I don't even know how to change it! I choose sedentary and looged regular exercise at first, but then another member said as I also do a part time decorating job and am fairly active during the day, gardening, cleaning that sort of thing, I should proably up it. She also said that this applies if it's a few days a week rather than constant. But now I can't find her advice to repost, and I never work out how to alter my activity level anyway...

    settings next to logout at the top
  • LizKurz
    LizKurz Posts: 340 Member
    And on the flip side, I'm a SAHM who chose lightly active. Because the activity level in your profile, should represent what you do most days. I am on my feet with four kids every day. From sun up to sun down.

    I also bike and walk for transportation when the weather is nice, so instead of upping my activity level based on that, I just log those. Because some days, a kid is sick, or I'm running late, or it's raining and I take the car.

    I didnt want to choos sedentary because, well, as a SAHM, I'm NOT sedentary. I would consider a desk job to be sedentary. I would say if your a student, then you most likely have a desk job in which you study and go to class, at least I did when I went to uni. Then I would log any activity after that. Like walking your 2 hours per day, or any workouts, and go from there.
  • LizKurz
    LizKurz Posts: 340 Member
    i chose sedentary...i am a sahm who is often on her feet..with the cleaning and cooking and the kids and yard work etc...but for me its a daily thing nothing out of the ordinary so i wouldn't log any of that stuff i do anyways

    sounds like ordinary is lightly active if you're always on your feet

    Exactly.
  • LilRedRooster
    LilRedRooster Posts: 1,421 Member
    Honestly, the classifications the MFP use end up confusing me, and a lot of other people, with the word choice and examples.

    If you go to other sites, like fat2fitradio.com, and they calculate your BMR, they have the categories of "sedentary", and then the "lightly active" includes "exercise 1-3 times a week, moderate", or something like that. And as you go up, they include "exercise 4-5 times a week, vigorous" (or whatever the wording is, I don't remember exactly), with the category of "moderately active", so it's not just based on your job, it's also based on your workout levels and daily activities.

    Which means that if people aren't counting their workouts that they would do daily anyway (even walking), they're actually not eating enough calories and creating a pretty big deficit that's going to exhaust them in the long run, because they're picking the wrong level.

    I'm a SAHM and student, but I didn't pick "sedentary", because I workout pretty vigorously at least 5 times a week for at least a half hour, and I spend a good part of the day chasing my kiddo around. But according to MFP, someone who is on their feet in a "lightly active" way is a nurse, and I don't spend the day on my feet like that. I really think they need to redo that qualification, because it's seriously lacking some explanation there.
  • LizKurz
    LizKurz Posts: 340 Member
    Here's a chick who wrote a blog post explaining it all

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/ladyhawk00/view/activity-level-and-logging-exercise-125513

    Remember, if you know your RMR aNd TDEE and can guess or estimate your body composition, you can always tweak the site to account for these things while not screwing up the lovely portion of adding back in exercise cals.
  • LilRedRooster
    LilRedRooster Posts: 1,421 Member
    Here's a chick who wrote a blog post explaining it all

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/ladyhawk00/view/activity-level-and-logging-exercise-125513

    Remember, if you know your RMR aNd TDEE and can guess or estimate your body composition, you can always tweak the site to account for these things while not screwing up the lovely portion of adding back in exercise cals.

    That is an excellent blog post.
  • Vegetables_are_fun
    Vegetables_are_fun Posts: 13
    These all incredibly helpful posts. Thank you so much for all the input!
  • lucieholden
    lucieholden Posts: 2 Member
    I'm a SAHM with a part time job - I chose lightly active bc that gave the same daily calories as my BMR, so that made sense to me. I log any additional exercise such as walking and eat back those calories (albeit not many of them!) I've only been doing MFP for a couple of weeks but so far so good.
  • silkandsugar
    silkandsugar Posts: 125
    I was always told to just choose sedentary for these purposes. It's better to underestimate your activity than overestimate it.
  • mfpcopine
    mfpcopine Posts: 3,093 Member
    Hello,

    I'm curious about choosing different levels of activeness. I'm a student and I usually walk at least 2 hours a day in addition to going to the gym and other activities, but I also spend a lot of time behind a computer or sitting in class.


    I imagine that whether your activity level exceeds "Sedentary" depends on the intensity of your workout.
  • mfpcopine
    mfpcopine Posts: 3,093 Member
    I was always told to just choose sedentary for these purposes. It's better to underestimate your activity than overestimate it.

    That's what I do. It seems like a no-brainer. I'm also not in a position to work out hard every day. I'm recovering from an injury. If I later get into a rhythm of vigorous activity that merits a higher activity classification I'm sure I'll know.
  • LizKurz
    LizKurz Posts: 340 Member
    Hello,

    I'm curious about choosing different levels of activeness. I'm a student and I usually walk at least 2 hours a day in addition to going to the gym and other activities, but I also spend a lot of time behind a computer or sitting in class.


    I imagine that whether your activity level exceeds "Sedentary" depends on the intensity of your workout.

    No, see, that's not how the site works. And I think it's why there's a continual *kitten* storm of vehemently nasty posts regarding starvation mode and eating ones calories back.

    The way the site works is you base your activity level off what your normal daily routine looks like with NO exercise. Then you log exercise, and it figures your daily cals on that. Why do it this way when other sites don't?

    Well, this way is more accurate than other sites that base your activity level off of what your workouts look like, because if you are 200lbs, 6' male and have a desk job, your cal needs will not be as much as someone who is the exact same stats, but is a mail carrier, or construction worker, even if they both hit the gym for an hour a day, six days a week, and do the exact same workouts.
  • LizKurz
    LizKurz Posts: 340 Member
    I was always told to just choose sedentary for these purposes. It's better to underestimate your activity than overestimate it.

    If you're actually sedentary, and only do a couple hundred or so cal workouts a few times a week, yes, you can get away with this. Someone not sedentary and who is working out an hour a day for several hundred cals, well, they'd be shooting themselves in the foot if they chose sedentary. They would probably still lose weight, but probably not as much, and it would be more lean mass than it had to be if they'd just be honest with their activity levels.

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