Nurses how many calories

purple1butterfly

I need some help on working out how many calories I need for a mminimum of 8 hrs as a nursing assistant in a hospital. I have been in this job for 7 months. I have just been diagnosed with non coeliac gluten intolerance by my specialist. I am trying to get fit and healthy again. Thank you in advance for any advice

blankiefinder

You should never log calories for working your regular job. To adjust for increased workload (vs a desk job lets say) you set your activity level in your profile accordingly. You can find this in your 'goals' section.

Sedentary: Spend most of the day sitting (e.g. bank teller, desk job)
Lightly Active: Spend a good part of the day on your feet (e.g. teacher, salesman)
Active: Spend a good part of the day doing some physical activity (e.g. waitress, mailman)
Very Active: Spend most of the day doing heavy physical activity (e.g. bike messenger, carpenter)

purple1butterfly

I have put active but I am unsure if this is correct as the only time I sit down is on my break, I want to get the settings right

AmandaAnne307

Have you thought about a fitbit or something similar? That's how I got a baseline.

Jennifer_Lynn_1982

You could change it to lightly active. Best way to check is to eat at your recommended calories and see if you lose what MFP has been set for you to lose (1 lbs/wk, 2 lbs/wk, whichever setting you chose). If you maintain or gain, then you should change from active to lightly active. If you lose the weight that you specified then you are probably in the correct setting.

purple1butterfly

Thank you for your advice just need to put food in here before I go to work and adjust if it turns out I will have to much on the food side

kittykatty1975

You could just count your steps which will give u extra calories to use should you want to use them ? X

GetSkinnyMindy

Aww so I can't count any of my 12 hour shift as exercise? Boo :-(

Phoenix_Down

GetSkinnyMindy wrote: »

Aww so I can't count any of my 12 hour shift as exercise? Boo :-(

It shouldn't really matter because you would still be consuming the same calories needed to function properly at work and lose weight at a moderate pace. Honestly, it makes it easier to adjust calories as needed rather than guessing at added exercise.

It's actually why I used TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) method over MFP , as I can eat one stagnant amount and make adjustments up and down as needed