Activity level

clo0107

High! Hoping someone can help.

I am trying to maintain my weight but have lost 2 pounds. I’m not sure if I have my activity level set correctly.

I’m a pilates instructor and soo on average 2 classes 5 days per week and one on a Saturday. Alongside this I usually do more high intensity workouts (barre, weights, treadmill) and also use my pilates reformer. So I’m doing exercise 7 days a week.

On average (looking over a 6 week period on Fitbit) I’m doing 10-11 hours of exercise a week. I track all my classes/workouts on mfp.

In between this I’m usually doing admin work as I’m self employed or jobs around the house etc. On a low step count day I approx do 2000 steps but average around 3000-4000 per day

Any advice much appreciated

I’ve set my activity level to lightly active. Do you think that’s correct?

Lietchi

The activity level level on MFP is intended to reflect daily life not including intentional exercise: job, chores around the house, taking care of children, hobbies etc.
And then intentional activity is added after that, which will increase your calorie goal.

Since your job includes exercise, it's a bit more complex

If you want to use the activity setting to include all your exercise, lightly active sounds a bit low to me. That being said: the best indicator is your weight, but over a longer period (1 or 2 months) since a 2lb weight change could also just be a normal fluctuation in water weight or food waste in your system. I'd suggest tracking your weight trend for 1 to 2 months, using a weight trending app such as Libra or Happy Scale, and then adjust your calorie goal/activity level as needed to maintain your weight. If you feel your energy level dropping, I'd adjust calorie intake sooner though, as that could indicate not eating enough.

heybales

If you can get MFP account syncing with Fitbit account it won't matter what activity level you select on MFP.
Because MFP will correct itself to what Fitbit says you burned in total.

But do NOT log workouts on MFP in that case - unneeded and increases chances of sync error.

That step count outside of exercise would be in the sedentary range though by itself.

But no matter what method is used, or potentially accurate a device is - you'll be adjusting.

It appears you need to eat more.

cwolfman13

clo0107 wrote: »

High! Hoping someone can help.

I am trying to maintain my weight but have lost 2 pounds. I’m not sure if I have my activity level set correctly.

I’m a pilates instructor and soo on average 2 classes 5 days per week and one on a Saturday. Alongside this I usually do more high intensity workouts (barre, weights, treadmill) and also use my pilates reformer. So I’m doing exercise 7 days a week.

On average (looking over a 6 week period on Fitbit) I’m doing 10-11 hours of exercise a week. I track all my classes/workouts on mfp.

In between this I’m usually doing admin work as I’m self employed or jobs around the house etc. On a low step count day I approx do 2000 steps but average around 3000-4000 per day

Any advice much appreciated

I’ve set my activity level to lightly active. Do you think that’s correct?

2 Lbs over what period of time? My average maintenance weight is around 182...but I can easily be up or down a couple Lbs day to day from that average.

Jthanmyfitnesspal

Yes, that setting is pretty much a guess. All it does is multiply your BMR by a factor that gets bigger for the higher activity levels. It sounds like yours is very high, so bump it up, man!

To really know how you're doing, you need to average your weight over many days using a weight trending app. I wish MFP did this, but for some reason, they don't!

mtaratoot

If your activity tracking device syncs to MFP, it will adjust your calories out. You sound like your normal everyday life is pretty darn active. That's what I'd probably set.

But that's just the start. Especially for maintenance. How closely do you track your calorie INTAKE? If you aren't tracking completely, the setting of your activity level is pretty meaningless. Calories out is just half of the energy balance. Pick a setting you feel appropriate with and then track what you eat for six or eight weeks, and look at the weight trend over time. There's several online tools that will do this for you. They usually use a weighted moving average that gives more importance to more recent data than the oldest data it considers - often about ten days. You could also just do a simple ten-day moving average on a spreadsheet and graph that.

If, after several weeks, you are hitting very close to eating your calorie goal but are losing weight, you can manually adjust your calorie goal. If you're gaining weight; same thing. If you are maintaining, Mazel tov! Keep doing what you're doing because it's working!

Expect daily fluctuations. I have had six pounds up and four pounds down overnight. Don't sweat it. But do sweat!