Activity level choices

Farmgirlfit85

I'm hoping someone would be willing to help me check that I'm correct in my calculations for calories. Mainly my activity level.
I work as a gardener part time, which can be quite active some days, and others less. I work around 20 hours a week. I also workout 2-3 times per week. What I do at the gym is not consistent however.
I do a body pump class on Monday for an hour and will do HITT after for 20 min.
Sometimes I will do a spin class on other days, usually some kind of weight training at least one other time.
I just finished NROL supercharged and will begin that program soon.
I'm 29, 160 lbs, and 5'2.
I'm unsure about the activity level I should choose. Any thoughts? Thanks!

MandaLeigh123

Seems kind of hard to estimate from that information.... but I will try.
Body Pump: 60 minutes plus 20 minutes HITT
Spin: 45 minutes (guessing there) but you only do that sometimes
Weightlifting: for how long? circuit training? heavy lifting with rests between sets?
Work: I would start trying to keep track of your activity, even rough estimates through out the day. Just jot down how often your sitting, or hauling things. Do that for a week.

I'm not an expert on activity levels, but I would say you are at least the 3-5 hours level of activity from Scooby. Depending on your work week, you could be even higher if your carrying bags of soil or even just walking around a lot when your there. Also, like they always say, what do you do outside of work? For me it varies a lot. I have no kids and no dog that needs walked. So some days, like today... I plant my butt on the sofa and legit only get up to shower, eat and go to the bathroom. Other days, I'm a busy body running around my house doing house projects, going on walks, going to events in the city where I get a lot of non exercise activity. Even just window shopping if you do it for a couple of hours, counts as activity... just not as much as high intensity activity

If you feel like you are between levels, like between the 3-5hr and 5-6 hour level, you could adjust your calories and eat in between. Sounds like you make an effort to get your body moving, so thats great! The way I figured out my calories for maintenance for a metabolic reset, was just to keep upping and upping until I started to gain a little weight. Once I started gaining a little, I knew I was over my calorie limit and the shaved some calories off.

For maintenance-
If you go with the 3-5 hours, your calories would be: 2325 and a 15% cut is 1976
5-6 hours: 2587 and a 15% cut is 2199

If you think you are between just split the difference between those two.

Farmgirlfit85

Thank you! Hearing this definitely encourages me to work on my consistency. I'm wondering of that's my missing link since I tend to bounce around from one thing to another, maybe my body can't keep up so I stay the same, even gain. I had to stop counting calories for a while for my own mental health, and despite being pretty active I gained weight quickly. I was hoping to be able to 'intuitively' eat. Clearly that's not an option lol. I guess I'm just doomed to count calories for the rest of my life!

MandaLeigh123

I'm not at eating intuitively yet either. It is an eventual goal of mine! I think it takes some time, so don't beat yourself up about that. Something I always hear is to make sure you eat based on your activity. So on more active weeks you can eat more and less active weeks, you eat less. I don't know how people just do this intuitively, I really don't. I'm still at the point where I have to track or I either over eat or under eat.
I bounce around a lot with my activity as well. What I'm trying right now is just to take a reasonable deficit each day based on how active I am. I've decided never to go under maintenance calories though because it doesn't feel like it's enough food.
If you can get yourself on a more regular workout schedule though, then you could more easily figure out an average TDEE and eat the amount every day.

heybales

Some of us are likely doomed to have to count - or at least keep in mind an idea of food eating levels.

But it'll get to the point that you have favorites of many things, you know what the calories are, and around what you can have. May just log the unusual stuff to get an idea of what else you can or cannot have that day.

The harder part is knowing when the activity level changes enough constantly to change the eating level, and then what to include or exclude to adjust.

You might try the spreadsheet on my profile page - 2nd one down - Just my TDEE and deficit please.

Has chart for your increased non-exercise work, which I'd say is standing/slow moving job - if you were to average it out to 40 hrs. But then be honest what level if you have kids/pets keeping you active in the evenings around the house too.

For workouts, just try to hit the averages.
If intense cardio is 2-3 x a week for you know at least 60 min and then optional 45 min, just include 23 of it, so 143 min total, right between 120 without or 165 with optional.
Actually, that's the place to punch in both numbers of minutes, and observe that for your average TDEE, it really doesn't matter that much.

Now, if you had optional 4 hr run, that makes a difference.

Don't sweat the small stuff. Actually, yes, do sweat with the small stuff, you know, for a good workout.