Struggling... :~/

twostepsforward

Hi all,

I am really struggling to work out how much I should be eating. I simply cannot decide whether I am sedentary or lightly active. I don't want to eat too little, but I dont want to eat too much either! I looked back over my weigh ins and I am the same now as this time last year...something has got to change! I have not been aware of EM2WL for long, though I have done a bit of reading on this and IPOARM and 5:2 dieting and it feels like a genuinely workable option to follow forever.

Should I be sedentary or lightly active? Or should I just go and get a fitbit zip and go off that? I do have a polar f6 and I tried leaving it running for 24 hrs once before but at some point it switched off so didn't get too far with that.

5'3" 175lbs
I work two days a week in an office job and rest of the week I am at home doing the usual cleaning, school runs and caring for my three year old.
My exercise is never consistent as I don't exactly enjoy cardio and for some reason I don't like the idea of heavy weights being around the house with little ones even though I have toyed with the idea of NROL. I am currently on week 2 of mark laurens body by you, which is a bodyweight routine - about 20mins 3x per week.

Any help appreciated!

morkiemama

I’m not knowledgeable enough on the subject to give advice to others, nor am I very far along in my eating more journey. I hope someone can come along and help you with that. : )

However, I do know that you cannot judge your daily expenditure by your Polar HRM. HRMs are inaccurate for measurements outside of exercise and for heavy weight lifting. The data you get will not be good.

cedarghost

In my experience, I have found very few people are actually sedentary. Sounds like you are wanting to pick Sedentary out of fear of gaining weight. You are going to have to learn patience. Set your calories as Lightly active, stick to them, then evaluate in 3 to 4 weeks and adjust as needed. If you gain, you gain. It will be minimal and at least you will know what your TDEE is.

heybales

If you have a very variable exercise routine, but your busy daily activities seem semi-consistent, you can use the theory and just eat back exercise calories when needed that have the same deficit taken off.

Here is spreadsheet to assist, because common desire.

Fill in Simple Setup tab, leaving exercise out of Activity Calculator, but include whatever time replaces a 40 hr work-week time with time on your feet. The base assumption is sedentary with 40 hrs sitting. So if in for 16 hrs of work, decide how much of the other 24 hrs is actually standing moving around a bit. Perhaps you know 12 of that 24 is TV and computer time, the other 12 is housework and getting kids and moving, ect.
That sets the Activity Calculator with your correct non-exercise multiplier.

Then go to the MFP Tweak tab.
Use the Katch BMR, use your multiplier shown, and there's your estimated TDEE with appropriate deficit given.
Now in table underneath that, log your HRM shown calories and exercise time, log and eat back what that column says to do.

Link near the bottom, though you might review the sections on Simple Setup and MFP Tweak tabs.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/813720-spreadsheet-bmr-tdee-deficit-macro-calcs-hrm-zones