'Light active' or 'sedentary'

Bella_Figura
Bella_Figura Posts: 4,351 Member
edited January 27 in Health and Weight Loss
Hi everyone,

I'm female, aged 48, and I have a desk job which means that I sit at my desk for 10 hours a day, with the odd trot up and down the stairs to the ground floor a few times a day to stretch my muscles (I work on the 4th floor and always use the stairs).

My only real forms of exercise are 90 minutes every day of tramping across muddy farmland and woodland with my dog (we average 3.25 mph) and two evenings of pretty vigorous dancing each week (Northern Soul) for a combined total of about 6 hours dancing a week. The dancing is the only time I get sweaty...I don't go to a gym or do any form of resistance training.

I class myself (using the scooby calculator) as 'sedentary'...is that right? In other words, I assume my TDEE = BMR x 1.2 and I don't count any calories from exercise. For me, this gives me a TDEE of 1517 (using Mifflin-St Jeor).

This means my daily deficit (if I eat 1200 calories a day) is 317 calories, which equates to a loss of about 0.6lbs per week.

However, my actual loss has been closer to 1.6 lbs per week on 1200 calories, so does this mean that I"m underestimating my activity level?

Replies

  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,927 Member
    Yes, you're underestimating your activity level.

    I'd call that Moderately Active.
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
    I have a desk job which means that I sit at my desk for 10 hours a day
    that is pretty much the definition of sedentary.

    If you lose 1.6 lbs per week on average over a month your daily deficit is closer to 800.

    BMR equations are estimates - straight line fits to population data and you probably weren't in the population.
  • Bella_Figura
    Bella_Figura Posts: 4,351 Member
    I've kept that rate of loss going (between 1.3 and 1.6lbs a week) since August 2012 (lost 66lbs so far) but have now stalled for the past 3 weeks. If I've been underestimating my deficit it might be a good idea to increase my calories for a week or so to give my body a bit of a jolt.
  • Rianne90
    Rianne90 Posts: 227 Member
    Since you don't count your exercise calories, and not eating them back, I'm thinking you're creating a much larger deficit then you would have if you ate back your exercise calories.
    It's a personal choice whether or not you decide to eat back the calories you burned walking your dog and dancing, but not counting it and not eating it back will make your deficit bigger and your weight loss as well.
    If you don't want to count the calories from your exercise but want to lose weight a bit more slowly, you might try setting your activity level to light or moderate (whichever seems appropriate to you) and continue the same way you were. This will allow you to eat a bit more calories a day, thus make you lose weight at a somewhat slower pace.
  • michelle7673
    michelle7673 Posts: 370 Member
    It probably won't hurt you. I do think you're moderately active, and I'd use that if you're not eating exercise calories. But keep in mind that you might just be in what I'd call a flat spot....when people use the word plateau, it implies a cause, which implies a solution. But weight loss isn't linear for a lot of reasons, and we probably don't even really understand why. So you're not necessarily doing anything wrong. How close are you to your goal?
  • Vailara
    Vailara Posts: 2,505 Member
    Definitely underestimating! 10.5 hours of brisk walking plus 6 hours of dancing is nowhere near sedentary!

    An extra pound a week weight loss suggests a 500 calorie a day bigger deficit than you'd calculated. (I know that working it out like that isn't completely accurate, but I find it does seem to help to give an idea of whether your calculations are right). If you were aiming for a 317 calorie deficit, then you could just eat another 500 calories a day. (Bear in mind that I'm speaking just from personal experience, not from knowledge). It looks like your TDEE is closer to 2000 than 1500, so you could work from that and subtract either a percentage or a number of calories.

    You could also try Heybales spreadsheet if you don't find you're fitting into the categories http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/813720-spreadsheet-bmr-tdee-deficit-macro-calcs-hrm-zones

    Good luck!
  • jzammetti
    jzammetti Posts: 1,956 Member
    Yes, you're underestimating your activity level.

    I'd call that Moderately Active.

    I agree - you are moderately active because all of your exercise should be included in your activity level. That is why you do not eat back exercise calories with the TDEE method. You may even be highly active with all those hours...
  • Bella_Figura
    Bella_Figura Posts: 4,351 Member
    Thanks for the replies everyone - I'm not too close yet to goal...my BMI is still 29.5 so I have another 35lbs to go. I'll check out that other calculator and maybe tweak my input calories a little. I don't have any cravings etc. sticking to 1200 calories and I log and weigh everything, but it wouldn't hurt I guess to increase my calories for a week and see what happens.
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