Right Level?

jbean1990

I've been using MFP for about 4 months now and managed to drop from 15 Stone 3lbs to 11 Stone 12lbs, with a target of 11 stone 10lbs. For all of this time I've had my actiaivity level set to 'lightly active' and consumed no more than 1660kcal p/d. I'm starting to think I've set the wrong category! I'm a teacher, so on my feet most of the day apart from the summer break of course, and also run daily/every other day from 5KM to 11km.
My exercise for the last 7 days has been:
Wed - 9.3km run
Thur - 7.4km run
Fri - 5.8km run
Sat - no exercise
Sun - no exercise
Mon - 9.3km run
Tue - 5km run
Today - 10.1km run

Should I set it up to 'active'?

janejellyroll

MFP is designed for you to choose your activity level based on your regular daily activities (not including exercise) and then log your exercise and add the calories burned to your daily goal.

That said, you should make the adjustment based on your actual results. Are you losing faster than you expected? This is a sign that you probably should adjust your activity level. However, if you're losing at the rate you expect, you can leave it where it is.

cmriverside

Are you eating more for those runs? That is the way MFP is designed to be used.

How do you feel? I would eat 300-600 more calories on those run days and leave it at 1600 for the other two days. Lightly Active may or may not be the right setting, but you do need more calories on exercise days. You should be eating at Maintenance minus no more than 250 calories per day now.

If you've lost all that weight you should have good records to show you just how much you should be eating...but if you're not eating any more for exercise - start!

DX2JX2

Congratulations! You can also manually calculate a ballpark figure for your maintenance calories and then force whatever settings you need to force in order to make MFP show you the total you want.

Based on your real experience. If you've lost ~3 pounds per week at 1660 calories/day, then in order to hit maintenance at the same activity level, you'd need to add about 1500 calories per day (~3 pound loss per week = ~10500 calorie deficit per week = ~1500 calories per day). Your maintenance calories at that same activity level should be somewhere around 3160 per day (1660 + 1500).

Obviously adjust the above for your real average calories per day, etc. but whether MFP calls it lightly active or moderately active, or very active, it doesn't matter. Use the label that gives you the number you want it to.