Activity Levels

Hi,

I am 5' 5 and currently 138 lbs with 18% body fat. using the Katch-McArdle formula I calculated my BMR to be 1469.

- I have a desk job

- I do weight training 3 times a week for an hour at least.

- Walking at 3-3.5 mph 4-5 days a week for at least 30 min - 1 hr

- on the weekend I do at least one 10 mile walk and 4 mph

My question is what activity level would this put me at?

I'm guessing light or moderate?

At least moderate - but probably closer to very active.

Thanks for that. Does that mean if I substitute 3 hours of the walking for cardio - would that be considered very active?

I do about the same exercise as you and I put myself as sedentary because that way I just log all my exercise as I didn't want to overstate and would rather understate and then add in the exercise.  My concern was putting myself at active, if I don't do a big walk for the day then I have over estimated the burn I do.

I think its just personal choice as to what works for you.

The sedentary is working for me at the moment as regularly losing.

Definitely not very active, between sedentary and moderate.

Really ibez? I think not. You are definately between moderate and very active. But I do what lisajb74 does for the same reasons as she. I figure that way I don't overestimate my activities. After several months at this I have come to be a pretty good judge --through consistant logging -- of how much I am burning every day. Loggin everything manually is probably the safest route, and the best way to judge things over time. Perhaps one day I'll be able to just set the thing at "moderate" and let that be, but until I really get a handle on things I just do the above.

cheers!

As far as setting your level to sedentary and just adding in exercise I think you will have to play with it a bit.  Sedentary is doing NOTHING so it will not account for regular chores and general life stuff.  That all burns calories too.

But I also think CC estimates too low of a burn for most people at any setting. 

I'm actually a bit lost on the same thing right now. I've been hitting the gym every day, doing 20-30 minutes of cardio on the eliptical, then circling the weight room and doing 2-3 sets on each machine in addition to free weights. Not sure how long that takes..probably 20-30 more minutes.

But..the rest of the day, I'm typically at a desk, with the usual running around to feed the dogs, clean up a bit, etc.

I used to use sedentary but now I'm not sure if I'm lightly or moderately active. Is 1 hour of actual exercise a day enough to count as moderate? No idea.

It's a bit confusing, because it can be sort of vague..when it says under each activity level..such and such 2-3 times a week..how long are they talking each day? an hour? several?

I just don't know.

Thanks to everyone so far but i'm still lost at the moment, this all seems very subjective and vague. Is there any objective information we can base our selection on?

time. that's about it. i have had to log my calories and my activities for months to get a semi-accurate estimate. i have a desk job, but i also have two young kids. i move around a lot at home and work out every day.

i have my activity level at sedentary, and i log my work outs and about 1 hour of housework at day. that says i burn about 2500 calores. i may be burning closer to 2800 'cause my work out is pretty intense. now that i am maintaining i'll be able to find the right mix of calories in and out.

so... time. trial and error. that's about the only way. just keep logging and weighing in. oh yeah... and learn to use the trend line...it's really the best tool on the site...