Adding Sedentary Activities to Activity Log - cheating?

On MYPyramid.gov there is an activity tracker that you have to fill out for the 24-hr period of your entire day. So you have to add Sleep, eating, sitting and even good old toilet-going so you account for everything you did in your day.

Now CC already seems to do this for you with the burn meter if it's set on sedentary, the lowest possible level. But I did notice that I can add "studying" as an activity. The description sounds extremely sedentary so I wonder if I add this, am I just fluffing up my burn meter with something that is already accounted for? Or is it a valid addition?

I have also wondered this.... awaiting an answer with you :)

It's fluff.

Think about it. If studying and sitting on the poopoo hole burned a huge amount of calories, people wouldn't be at the gym. XD I think they also have sitting on this site.

I wouldn't bother.

I think it's already accounted for and so fine to add in if you want, but a waste of time ie. if you add in something that's quite sedentary the burn total won't just add an hours worth of calories to your day. It will divide what it already had by 24, take 1/24th away and add in what you did...which if it's similarly sedentary will be the same and therefore give you the same/similar total burn.

Theoretically studying (which means your brain is active and needs more energy) is not included in the sedentary calorie amount.  

But still I would suggest not loging it as it will only attempt you to eat more.... (I earned 500 cal for studying so this burger is just fine)...

You might want to consider upping your calorie intake with a healthy granola bar though if you feel that your brain needs food.

That's what I remember from university and sometimes it just had to be some fruit sugar to keep me going! 

Good luck! B.

Original Post by mermaid3011:

Theoretically studying (which means your brain is active and needs more energy) is not included in the sedentary calorie amount. 

 

I think it is included. The sedentary setting on here assumes you do sedentary activities, of which studying/reading/watching TV/eating/sleeping/washing are some. The sedentary count is not equal to actually being completely sedentary/in a coma. It factors in some activity!

OK I had to know so...

Taking into account what ducklinger said, I decided to try logging in everything that I do or would do through out the day for 24 hrs. I included studying, sleeping, eating, showering, walking, exercise etc and skewed it toward the lazier side. So I put down more "sitting doing nothing" then I actually plan to do. The calorie expenditure is about 500-350 calories MORE than if I left the non-exercise activities out.

I also noticed that sleeping for 1 hour supposedly burns 1 more calorie per hour than my sedentary setting. That doesn't really make much sense since sleeping is the absolutely most sedentary activity I can do. What does CC's burn meter think I'm doing all day that's MORE sedentary than sleeping??

Another question is if the activity list is overestimating or the sedentary setting is really underestimating. For comparison, I did the same thing on Mypyramid, the CDC's website. It's not as pretty a site as CC, but it has some similar functions. The number I got from there is 400 calories more (estimated energy expenditure). I think that is the  equivalent measure to the burn rate...which means that the sedentary classification on CC is pretty low. When I removed my planned exercise for the day, the calorie expenditure was still higher than CC's. Note: I think both sites calculated my exercise as burning the same amount of calories.

Now I have a better idea of how things work. This might imply that I should switch to lightly active and still log my exercise. I don't know. Hopefully this helps clear up questions for others.

i would say yes, work=distance by force, and since studying doesnt equate to many joules by this standard

I always wondered when I would get to share my knowledge of biopsychology : )

The brain uses up to 30% of your daily calories, which relative to it's weight, is quite a lot. I'm sure any college student here can tell you that 4 or 5 hours of class in a row is exhausting.

During 'peak thinking' the brain's energy consumption can go up 50%, so yes, studying can be 'exercise.' Peak performance is related to learning new material and such.

The reason you probably shouldn't add it in every time you study is that it's impossible to judge how many calories you're using or how 'hard' you're thinking while studying.

But yes, it does burn calories.

ya - I also wonder what's included in the base calculations.  I'm a pretty active person, but I really like to log my work outs in the activity meter to see how much I've burned.  Then I compare what I've burnt against what I've eaten...I don't stick to the caloric intake that CC recommends, but instead I try to keep my caloric intake about 500 calories under my expenditures for the day... so far this seems to be a really effective method of controlling my eating (my tendency is to over-eat so this has helped me keep that in check), but I've only been around for a few weeks and I do wonder whether you could tick "active" and then log all of your work outs.  My solution thus far has been to tick off sedentary and add my work outs in separately...  whatever works, I guess!