Activity Level - HELP PLEASE!

Ok so here's a question that I've needed answered for a long time. I think the Activity Levels are relatively unclear. Do you need to qualify for all three factors to be at the said level? For instance I am currently set at Sedentary. I recently took up exercising 6 days a week alternating running with weight lifting every other day. After I get off work I spend most of my afternoon cleaning up, doing dishes, doing laundry, walking the dogs, getting my lunch for the next day packed so I probably am only actively sitting for about an hour as I have to go to bed by 9pm (evenings is also when I squeeze my ~45min exercise in).  Now, my job is EXTREMELY sedentary. I am a dispatcher for a police department so I sit on my butt all day and answer phones, dispatch calls etc etc. So, since I don't qualify for all three in lightly active am I still sedentary? And how do I know that I'm not over estimating my activity at home?

Great question. It's one that I've taken a almost half a year to find and answer to. I too have a sedentary job, but at home I am always on the go. I workout vigorously five days a week for 45 mins a shot, too. At first I set my activity level to "sedentary" and I added my workouts manually. After I reached my goal I set the level to "light" and continued to add my workouts as before.

Basically, if you move at all doing things like chores, etc., you'll burn more calories than sedentary. You may try setting the level at sedentary and then manually add (using CC's activity database) what you normally do in a day (cleaning, dog walking, etc) and see what your burn level is. Then simply choose the activity level that comes closest to the total you got after adding in your average activities.

After that you need to watch your intake of food and continue to weigh yourself at the same time of the day, under the same conditions, and see how things are working.

Much of this is trial and error. CC's burn estimates are based on the average burn for a person of your height, weight, and age. But they are just estimates. It's all about trying things out in the real world and finding what works for you.

Cheers!

Keep us posted :-)

i set mine on sedentary and log all workouts. i have an office job and typically work out 5-6 days a week.

If you're exercising 6 days a week and doing other activities that take you up to or over an hour a day in total you could go with 'moderate' as a good average and then you wouldn't need to add exercises separately

The way to know if you're overestimating is whether your weight comes down at the recommended calorie intake level.   If not, then reduce your intake slightly... 100 or 200 cals only. 

It's always a balancing act rather than an exact science.  But you should be able to work with reasonable averages rather than having to input every movement.  Life's too short, right?

I try not to overthink this stuff.  I mean, you just have to hit the side of the barn, not a single knothole.

What I do is set my activity level at "light" and see what the burn estimate is.  Then I set my calorie target at 500 less than that.  Then I make sure that I really move at least 30 minutes extra every single day, and get pretty close to my calorie target on average every single week.

Doing this, and calculating my calorie deficit every month from the trend line on my weight loss shows that I have a deficit of between 600-800 calories/day, on average, on a monthly basis. This means that my activity level is actually between "light" and "moderate", but close enough for government work.

So, I figure I am gold -- I have a calorie target I can live with, I have an activity level I can live with, and I am in the "safe" weight loss zone of 1-1.5 pounds per week.  All in all, a sustainable lifestyle.  That is the real point of all this, imo.

I too think that they are quite unclear and should probably be updated... I work out but have a desk job. There seems to be no category for me.

Anyway, what folks on here said is what I usually do; just go with sedentary and then log workouts to get your burn.

my workouts vary so much, it just makes sense to log them daily since i alternate cardio and lifting. lifting weights and kickboxing are two very different burns. leaving it set on sedentary is the more conservative error imo.

Thank you . I'm trying to break through a plateau currently so I'm really struggling with what to do with myself. I've lost a little over 10% of my body weight and that weight has not budged since mid-August.  Definantly frustrated.