Activity level help.

_whatsherface

Hi all,
I am approaching my 1 year anniversary with MFP. I am down 78 pounds! Yay! However, I have hit a stall for the last 11 weeks. I've recently started to eat every 3 hours, carb cycle, drink a gallon of water a day, exercise more and longer blah blah and nothing is budging. I'm thinking maybe my body is used to eating at a deficit or maybe I'm just not eating enough. I'd like to change my activity level to see if it helps.
Currently, I'm off work for the summer. My day consists of sitting around and playing with my toddler. I work out at the gym doing cardio or Zumba 1-2x a day/5-6x a week. Other than that I'm doing stuff around the house, running to the store, etc. During the school year, I have a desk job but 2x a week I'm on my feet for 2 hours taking students to Job sites plus I work out at the gym 2-3x a week. This entire year I've had my lifestyle at sedentary and have logged exercise calories and sometimes eat them and sometimes don't.

I've recently changed my lifestyle to lightly active and was wondering if that seems right? Also do you still log exercise calories? Any input is greatly appreciated.

DemoraFairy

The problem is more likely to simply be you're eating too much - you've got to a weight where what you were eating is not longer a deficit. How many calories do you eat a day? Do you weigh everything? Can you open your diary?

To actually answer your question though, I would personally stick to the lower activity setting just to be safe, but lightly active probably isn't far off. Personally I go for sedentary and have a Fitbit that adds back calories, so if I'm active one day I get loads of calories back, and on the days where I actually am sedentary I don't overeat. If I did exercise other than walking that wasn't picked up by my Fitbit I'd definitely log it and eat back a portion of the exercise calories (currently with my Fitbit I eat all my exercise calories back, but Fitbits tend to be more accurate than exercise machines or MFP's estimations).

_whatsherface

I have a misfit shine which is similar to a Fitbit. I felt like the calorie estimates were way too high so I had to un-sync it. I'm 239 lbs and was eating 1830 calories for a 1lb a week loss. For a long time it was at 1.5 at like 1660 calories and I changed it because I stopped losing. I do measure everything I eat and guess if I go out. Recently though I have been working 2x a day and my deficit is very large. If I were eating too much I'd still lose weight on days where I net way less calories. I never use MFP estimates or machines. I've had a HRM I've used this entire time and that's what I use to log exercise. I truly believe it is because I've been at a deficit so long my body is just over it. I'm trying to restart things.

professionalHobbyist

I have had to lower my activity leve to sedentary.

I have lost over 125 lbs and it seems like my body just runs on fewer calories. If I eat 1600 calories I still drop pounds.

But it does seem things have really gotten tough closer to goal.

_whatsherface

I'm not anywhere close to where I should be weight wise. But at 1600 calories, I wasn't losing weight. At 1800 I'm not losing weight. I can't imagine having to go lower than 1600 at my weight to lose weight.

juggernaut1974

_whatsherface wrote: »

I'm not anywhere close to where I should be weight wise. But at 1600 calories, I wasn't losing weight. At 1800 I'm not losing weight. I can't imagine having to go lower than 1600 at my weight to lose weight.

At the risk of committing the cardinal sin...what is your current age, height and weight?

It's entirely possible a goal of 1600 may be too high, especially when coupled with the potential for a few logging errors (that most of us make) that make actual intake a couple hundred higher than that.

mitch16

Wait--I'm confused... You weren't losing at 1600 calories, and so you upped your calories to 1800?

aippolito1

If you weren't losing at 1600, try 1500... go gradually lower. If your exercises were more *intense* I would recommend more calories, but it seems like you're doing the same workout-wise, you're just on your feet more, which is fine... but probably isn't burning you as many calories as you think.

_whatsherface

I'm 28. 5'7 and 239-242 pounds. Down from 318. And yes I upped my calories to play around with them. At one point I wasn't losing and upped calories and then started losing again. After awhile I stopped losing so I dropped them and have been stalled the last 11 weeks since.

_whatsherface

The 1800 calories I get now is supposed to result in a 1 lb loss a week. According to MFP, I'm currently netting around 1400 calories a week and I'm still not losing.