Confused on my activity level? Help?

laurenehopkinsx

I'm an 18 year old female, 5'6 and weigh 8 stone 3 (115lbs) and I want to work out my maintainence calories but I'm a little confused on the activity level. I'm a student so I'm sat down a lot of the day, but from walking the dog I usually end up with 7500-12,000 steps a day according to the pedometer on my iPhone. As well as this I weight train 4x a week usually for about 45 minutes, and I do spinning as cardio sessions but only once/twice a week for 45 minutes. I've read people in similar positions being told they should set it to sedentary however this gives me 1600 cals which seems pretty low, and sedentary gives the impression I'm literally sat doing nothing all day. Am I right in saying I would be classed as lightly active?? Or am I actually sedentary??

quiksylver296

You're at least lightly active, if not active.

Francl27

Depends if you're going by TDEE or using MFP.

If you're using MFP, you're lightly active - but you have to add back exercise calories from your cardio. If you're using TDEE, probably moderately active.

JustSomeEm

If you're trying to figure your maintenance calories, why not set it at active or very active, monitor your weight for a few weeks. If your weight decreases, increase your calories a bit each week until the weight loss stops. If your weight increases, decrease calories by a bit each week until weight gain stops. Until I figured out my maintenance calorie level, I felt a little bit like I was playing Russian roulette. But it was totally worth the guessing game once I figured things out.

heybales

The MFP activity level is for the non-exercise portion of the day - that is easily Light Active by itself.
It doesn't ramp up fast enough to include exercise in it.
This is unlike other sites that have you predict amount of exercise and hope you do it or you may not lose weight.
It's pretty specific about what the levels mean.

So that is why MFP works by adding exercise when actually done - you do more, you eat more. Do less, you eat less.

Trying to teach a life lesson.

In this case for losing weight, you also eat a tad less than maintenance (which would include exercise on days you do it).

Strength training in the database is good calorie estimate - may seem low compared to cardio - but that is true.
For spinning and the fact no description of intensity, maybe just log 30 min and take the calories given.

So that means on workout days you eat more when doing more.

This allows the workouts to be good and strong and actually transform the body more compared to not eating enough.

JeromeBarry1

The method I chose was to set my activity level as "sedentary", mostly because I got paid to sit and work 8 hours. My exercise got logged as exercise rather than assumed from an activity level. If your job really is to stand and walk around most of the day, that really is lightly active. I think that stay-home moms of toddlers belong at that level.

laurenehopkinsx

I didn't realise MFP wasn't based on TDEE so that makes sense as to why it's so low at 1600! Think I will set to lightly active for now and see how it goes by checking my weight every week or so then thanks for the help!

heybales

As a woman whose metabolism changes through the month - a week isn't long enough as there are many valid expected reasons for water weight fluctuations outside even the lifting you do.
You'll need at least a month to discern anything, even with valid weigh-in days.

BikeTourer

If you feed your activity from your tracker to MFP, set your activity level and turn negative calories on. If your tracker and food log is anywhere close to accurate then a negative adjustment means you picked an activity level too high. Consistent large positive means it is set too low.

Its been my observation it is not uncommon to confuse tired from busy with tired from active. It takes me way more steps at 2.5 mph to cross into lightly active than steps at 4.5 mph... In other words the quality of the activity matters. The hardest time I had with being active enough was when my kids were toddlers. I was way more tired but in terms calorie burn I barely left sedentary unless I made time for "me" time. Now that the are long grown I'm way more active.

LivingtheLeanDream

You are between lightly active and active so go with whatever is your preference. You have to be careful with logging exercise though as that figure includes some exercise.

I am set on here as active and mfp gives my maintenance calories for active as 1900. Once I do more than 10k steps that number goes up as Fitbit sends my activity information over to MFP. My average TDEE is actually 2200 as I average 18-21k steps.

I like seeing the base calorie allowance being higher which is why I have it set as active.
It works either way though, if I did set it to sedentary it would give me 1600 and then I'd get a load of calories for all my steps - but the same end of day number would be arrived at.

For your height and activity your TDEE is likely to be higher than 2200, you will be able to work that out over the coming weeks as you build up your data.

Noreenmarie1234

You probably can eat a lot more like others said. For reference I am shorter and weigh less, around the same age, and maintain 2200-2600 a day. I workout 4x a week for about an hour. I get less steps a day than you. MFP gives me ~1400 sedentary to maintain, 1600 when lightly active.

tahxirez

Just link your step tracking to MFP like others said and enable negative adjustments. I like this method best with a sedentary activity level because it takes into account those very rare saturdays when I sit on the couch and watch Golden Girls. I would hate to be eating my normal 2000+ on those days when I didn't earn them at all. My Fitbit takes care of telling MFP that I earned more food on active days.

srecupid

Set it at sedentary and if still hungry once eating all your calories eat more. Keep track of your weight and see what happens. That's what I'm doing. Frankly i've stopped carrying about seeing negative numbers.