If you’re sedentary, your daily activities include:

• Activities of daily living only, such as shopping, cleaning, watering plants, taking out the trash, walking the dog, mowing the lawn and gardening.
• No moderate or vigorous activities.
• Unless you do at least 30 minutes per day of intentional exercise, you are considered sedentary.
• Spending most of the day sitting – examples include being a bank teller or having a desk job.

The majority of people will be considered sedentary.

If you’re lightly active, your daily activities include:

• Activities of daily living only, such as shopping, cleaning, watering plants, taking out the trash, walking the dog, mowing the lawn and gardening.
• Daily exercise that is equal to walking for 30 minutes at 4mph.  For an adult of average weight, this amount of exercise will burn about 130-160 additional calories.
• More intense exercise can be performed for less time to achieve the same goal.  For example, 15-20 minutes of vigorous activity, such as aerobics, skiing or jogging on a daily basis would put you in this category.
• Spending a good part of the day on your feet – examples include being a teacher or salesman.

If you’re moderately active:

• You do intentional exercise every day that is equivalent to briskly walking for at least one hour and 45 minutes – briskly walking is walking at 4mph.
• Alternatively, you can do exercise for a shorter period of time providing the exercise is vigorous. An example of vigorous activity is jogging, i.e. you would need to jog for a minimum of 50 minutes to be considered moderately active.
• You will also probably spend a large part of your day doing something physical – examples include being a mailman or waitress.

If you’re active, your daily activities include:

• Activities of daily living only, such as shopping, cleaning, watering plants, taking out the trash, walking the dog, mowing the lawn and gardening.
• Daily exercise that is equal to walking for 1 hour and 45 minutes at 4mph.  For an adult of average weight, this amount of exercise will burn about 470-580 additional calories.
• More intense exercise can be performed for less time.  For example, jogging for 50 minutes per day.
• Spending a good part of the day doing some physical activity – examples include being a waitress or mailman.

If you’re very active, your daily activities include:

• Activities of daily living only, such as shopping, cleaning, watering plants, taking out the trash, walking the dog, mowing the lawn and gardening.
• Daily exercise that is equal to walking for 4 hours and 15 minutes at 4mph.  For an adult of average weight, this amount of exercise will burn about 1150-1400 additional calories.
• More intense exercise can be performed for less time.  For example, jogging for 2 hours per day.
• Spending most of the day doing heavy physical activity – examples include being a bike messenger or carpenter