Want opinions on activity level, please

ambuford21

Now that i've been at this and lost about 11 pounds I've pretty much doubled my walking that I've been doing. 5 days a week I walk 20 minutes uphill to work and 20 minutes downhill to work (compared to the 10 minutes each way it used to be). And 3 days a week I've got the couch to 5k running plan going. The rest of the time I'm pretty much sitting at my desk.

Based on previous opinions I set my activity level to lightly active with a goal of 1 pound a week. I've sort of hovered around the same weight for the last 3 weeks so I got to playing with the Calculator in the settings. If I set my activity to sedentary with a loss of 1 pound a week it is about 100 calories less than BMR which doesn't sound right to me, so lightly active is what I've stayed at giving me 1,970 calories per day to lose 1 pound per week (and honestly any loss is good, even if its not a full pound a week, I'm still happy). My whole thought with this is that I don't deprive myself of anything as long as it fits in the calories for the day (never having ice cream, pizza, bread etc. ever again would be an awful way to live)

My concern is do I have the right settings in for activity level since that obviously will affect my total daily calories? I guess I need the validation that the activity level I'm set at is the right one since I'm sort of hovering around the same weight. Oh, and the obligatory stats are: 5ft 11in, 220 pounds, female

On the other hand, 11 pounds lost is about 10 pounds better than I was doing before I joined MFP!

nxd10

For me, the calorie calculations worked almost exactly as they were supposed to (a pound a week) if I set myself to sedentary and then logged my walking. When I set myself to lightly active - even though I was - I didn't lose. Went to sedentary - the pounds fell off. YMMD.

Yes, it meant logging those 2 10 minute walks to work as well as my daily constitutional. But it worked.

After I hit my weight goal, I got a fitbit and it was MUCH better. The zip costs $59 and works great. You can get a regular pedometer for much less and use it to log all you steps every day with a good calorie estimation. I was SHOCKED at how much variation I have (and how few steps I walked sometimes when I didn't work at it).

ambuford21

See it just seems strange that those settings would put me under my BMR. I get that its just an estimation, but it just doesn't seem like that should be.