Moderate or Very Active? Which one to choose

WendyFitMomCHANGED
WendyFitMomCHANGED Posts: 311 Member
edited December 2024 in Fitness and Exercise
I look at these calorie calculators online to help determine how many calories I need to lose weight. I mainly want to make sure I'm not under eating or over eating. I know not all of them are accurate so I do compare and just try to pick what's best for me but one question keeps making me 2nd guess. Activity level.

I'm not sure what catagory I fit in. I currenlty work out 5 - 6 times a week. 3 - 45 to 60 min cardio (running or Zumba) and 3 - 45 minute total body strength training.

Is that moderate or ver active? Definitions are confusing so just wondered what the other MFPers thought.

Wendy
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/WendyFitMom

Replies

  • 47Jacqueline
    47Jacqueline Posts: 6,993 Member
    I would say you're very active. I chose the moderate to begin with, but now that I'm ramping up my activity level, I'm going to change it to very active myself. You're doing a lot of exercise. If you look at the calorie burning for your activities you'll see that you are burning a lot of calories.

    I agree with you that the numbers are not always accurate. I use the bicycle and rely on the machine's calorie count rather than the one on MFP. The calorie count on my bike is lower than MFP and I think it's more accurate.
  • prairiewalker
    prairiewalker Posts: 184 Member
    I looked at my day w/ o the exercise and considered how active I was with my work and home life.. Then I added the amount of exercise I planned on doing in my goals settings. How active are you without the scheduled workouts? My previous job was more active than my current one and my current home and garden is smaller than my previous one so my level of activity is actually lower than it used to be even though if I'm successful with my goals, i will end up very active but my setting won't necessarily reflect that. Maybe since you're in a set routine you could reset to a higher level but it's still a matter of math with calculating weight loss.
  • SueInAz
    SueInAz Posts: 6,592 Member
    I think the thing to keep in mind is that you don't want to choose very active and then add in your exercise activities on top of that. I actually have mine set to Sedentary (I do have a desk job) and then I manually enter my exercise whenever I do something above and beyond my day-to-day walking.
  • FatAssBecky
    FatAssBecky Posts: 58 Member
    I'm with Sue - I set mine to sedentary and manually put in my exercise calories. I think the calorie count goes up way too high (at least for me) when I set it at active or anything above sedentary. Plus, I think it already takes into account your calories burned and I like to enter my stuff.

    Hope this helps.
  • WendyFitMomCHANGED
    WendyFitMomCHANGED Posts: 311 Member
    On my MFP profile I put sedentary cause I have a desk job and just see how my cals come in. This site sets calories way to low IMO.

    I'm currently eating around 1500 a day with my exercise. I was wonder if I need 1500 or 1600. I think I'll stick to 1500ish for now. Thanks all.
  • SelkieDiver
    SelkieDiver Posts: 260 Member
    I think the thing to keep in mind is that you don't want to choose very active and then add in your exercise activities on top of that. I actually have mine set to Sedentary (I do have a desk job) and then I manually enter my exercise whenever I do something above and beyond my day-to-day walking.

    I do this too. If you'd rather eat close to the same amount of calories every day and NOT log your exercise, I'd probably go with the higher calories of the 2 choices - but that depends on how much you exercise on average right now.
This discussion has been closed.

Categories