Activity Level??

FitinFiveMonths

Hi, so I have a brief question about what activity level I should choose. I'm always flip flopping between 'light' and 'moderate' and I'm never sure which one I should choose because people are always telling me different things, so I'm wondering if the wonderful people at MFP could help me decide on one?

A little info:

I'm 5' 5'' and 179 pounds.

I go to school full time and often am walking across campus and up flights of stairs. I also work a job in sales, so I'm pretty much always standing or even doing some light walking, I work about three days a week on average between 4 and 6 hours a shift. I have also been going to the gym 2 times a week (sometimes 3) doing at least 30 minutes of cardio, interval training, (usually more :P) and then I spend some time on the weight machines. When I'm at home I'm not too active, usually sitting or lying down, or maybe some light cleaning.

Any input you have for me would be great, I had my activity level at light for two weeks and I lost 1.5 pounds over that time, so I don't know if I was starving myself and my body was refusing to loose weight. However, over the summer I ate 1200 calories and lost 20 pounds without a bit of exercise. I also drink AT LEAST 8 cups of water a day, and I've been watching my macro's and I'm hardly ever over in fat and carbs, and usually I eat just over my fiber and protein.

Any input is appreciated!

FitinFiveMonths

bump?

cooter2533

I would probably put light if I were u. I work a desk job but lift heavy 5 days a week and do a lot of cooking and stuff around the house but still use sedentary. My wife is around your size and eats 1200-1300 a day with good success so far

Pebble321

Honestly - it really doesn't matter. Just pick one and stick with it for a month of two and then evaluate what has happen\ed. If you have been reasonably accurate with logging food and exercise cals and have lost weight faster or slower than you expect - then you know that you need to change something.

FitinFiveMonths

Oh thank you! I've heard different things, so I guess I'm trying to find something that works for other people as well. I'll think about switching back to light

havalinaaa

A 1.5 pound loss over two weeks is pretty good for your weight/height. How low is your goal? And will you be logging your exercise/eating those exercise calories?

FitinFiveMonths

I'm going to see how my body reacts to the higher calorie count for another week or two. Thanks for the input!

FitinFiveMonths

We'll I'm currently 40 pounds overweight, so I have that much to loose, plus a little more if I want to when it gets there. I want to weigh 140 eventually. And yes, I always eat my exercise calories back so I'm above 1200 calories at least. Some days I can't eat my calorie goal because of how much I burn.

xraychick77

probably lightly active.

i am an xray/ct tech...i hit the gym a lot..almost every day. but ya at home i sit and play video games..hehe..

heybales

Hi, so I have a brief question about what activity level I should choose. I'm always flip flopping between 'light' and 'moderate' and I'm never sure which one I should choose because people are always telling me different things, so I'm wondering if the wonderful people at MFP could help me decide on one?

This is long, but will allow you to nail it much better.

Several places for inaccuracies that if they all go one direction, could have your calorie goals higher than they should be.
Now, I'm not advocating killing your metabolism by eating 500 under your BMR. Which is the other reason for not seeing advancement.

But it could be your BMR estimate by MFP is wrong.
Which means your calculated maintenance calories based on that is wrong, and if the wrong activity level, even more wrong.
And then your exercise calories could be way off if not using a decent HRM estimate.

So suggestion:
Confirm your BMR using another respected formula, which requires bodyfat % and is more accurate.
Get a better estimate of daily activity for the maintenance calories.
Do your math for weight loss to get your daily calories.
Update MFP.
Figure out if exercise calories is way off.

Here is site for getting your body-fat %. May not be super accurate, but the estimate is good enough for use in calculations.
The plus here is, you record these measurements in MFP as additional things to track and see positive progress.

http://www.fat2fitradio.com/tools/cbbf/

Take the results over to here after noting them.

http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/CalRequire.html

Change height to BF in the calculator, and the Katch-McArdle formula is used for BMR.
Do NOT include exercise in the levels and time of activity, because you'll still enter that into MFP and it will credit you, but really thing about your normal average daily activity levels and time outside exercise.
Now you have a better BMR figure based on lean body mass (keep that in mind because you should not eat below that ever) and more importantly, maintenance calories based on real activity times.

Now do the math from those maintenance calories just like MFP does on it's estimate.
500 cal/day is 1lb week. Add/subtract 250 to that figure depending on being realistic. Even 10% of maintenance is recommended sometimes.
So take that calorie figure from the maintenance calories - and there is your goal calories.
This should NOT be below your BMR figure. You should never eat below what your body requires for basic life, unless you just want to slow your metabolism down and make weight loss harder.
If it is lower, your goal calories can be your BMR, but you would be better served sticking to 10% in that case.

Now you can enter that figure in MFP Goals manually. Don't worry about the figures on the right now, but may be interesting to see how it compares to that formula.

Now go to Enter Weight, and Add additional measurements for what you took for the body fat %.

Now eat back those exercise calories, and use a cheap HRM to get some sort of decent estimate.

Do this all over again in a month. And progress beyond the scale can be seen now too.

Example here. (30 yr old female, 180 lbs, desk job - not me)
Body fat% calculated - 32%
8 hrs resting, 15 very light, 1 light
BMR - 1572
Maintenance - 2162
Goal weight loss weekly - 1lb, 3500 calories, 500/day
Goal calories - 2162-500= 1662 daily (just above BMR, so would have been unrealistic to attempt 2lb/weekly).

Any exercise gets logged, and manually corrected by HRM estimate of calorie burn.
Extra food eaten is snack before and after workouts that are balanced carb/protein, with extra protein afterwords.
Want to feed that muscle, since that is what will help it grow, and burn fat 24hrs a day.