Direction on Calorie Intake

StephanieBFree

I am so completely stumped and not sure what to do. I am 5'2 and have so far lost 9 lbs in 50 days on MFP. I absolutely love this site and am so proud of my progress but here is where I am stumped. I work shift work as a 911 Police Dispatcher which consists of me sitting on my tush for 12 hours for 4 shifts (excepts for my 1.5 hour meal break). I would consider this quite sedentary work and am completely okay with only consuming 1200 calories per day plus whatever calories I have earned from exercising. However, on my four days off I am extremely active. I have five year old twins who keep me very busy. I exercise for at least one hour for each four day off and basically do not sit down except at the end of the day after the children are in bed.

I do not even consider myself slightly active on my four days off. On those days I consider myself very active. I am wondering if I should be changing my settings on my days off to Active and increase my calorie intake to 1320 per day????? Then on my days that I go back to work change it back down to sedentary and only consumer 1200 calories????

Any thoughts????????

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travelgirl09

It sounds like your sedentary time may balance out your very active time. If you change your setting to meet that half way, you will probably still stay at 1200 cals. When I changed mine, it didn't change my cals because I still wanted to lose 1-2 pounds a week. If you're okay with your progress, I would just keep an eye on it and adjust it accordingly. Hope this helps.

StephanieBFree

Thanks Travelgirl. I am thinking this same thing but another member sent me a message suggesting I change my goals a bit and see what happens. I changed my settings to active and put down that I want to lose 1 lb a week. This changed my daily calorie intake to 1320. I will give this a try for two weeks and see if it makes a difference. If not then I will go back to the 1200 calorie intake. Still interested in other opinions as well.

FScott0318

I think your best bet honestly is to try both directions, see which works best for YOUR body. Another couple of little tricks...IF your job will allow it. Standing vs. sitting will burn more calories....and if you do just little movements, sort of like short distance pacing, that gets more steps in and picks up the metabolism somewhat, even if only for short periods of time. Wear ankle weights when you are working....you can be sitting and still be doing things like lifting your legs off the floor ....kicking them out in front of you...and maybe even do deep knee squats, using the chair as leverage when you can move around.

Good luck! I JUST started this website, but can definitely see the help that it can give me.