Should I be at active or very active?

Uh... good question. Normally MFP is set up such that everyday activities count for your activity setting, like working, chasing toddlers, cleaning, etc. If you sit at work all day then you might be sedentary regardless of how much exercise you do. The exercise is then logged separately. But with 10-12k steps per day, if this is not from exercising then you might already be very active. With the elliptical added, and if it ads more than a few minutes.. possibly.

Don't worry about a plateau. You increased your workouts, hence your muscles need more healing - which results in water weight gain. It's important to fuel your body properly, not be the first to reach goal weight. Btw, female cycle also causes water retention. If this plateau lasts longer, say at least 3-4 weeks for a male and longer for a female then it's a real plateau and you should have a look at how accurate your logging is.

The elliptical-at-your-desk thing, if you’re sitting while doing it, won’t give you much extra burn because of the lack of body weight. It’s why people leaning on the handrails on cardio machines (particularity the stair machine) don’t get as much burn for the buck—“resting” on the handrails makes the load lighter and therefore you don’t have to work as hard.

As folks have said, MFP is designed to take everyday activity into account, not additional exercise—that you add in. I get a lot of exercise each day, and have a desk job. I’m set at sedentary and add my excise and steps in through by Fitbit.

abbym3 wrote: »

I appreciate everyone’s feedback.
I use my Apple Watch to track my exercises, but don’t use it to track when I’m on my elliptical at work, and yeah, I use my elliptical standing and adjust the resistance given the task I’m working on (but I’m constantly moving).
Before I started working out 5x a week, I was doing as MFP expected, eating back my calories and that’s how I lost 15 lbs.

I’ve been at this plateau since about February. I have recently added in consistent weight lifting 2x a week while HIIT/calisthenics workouts 3x, along with running 2 miles before each workout, so I was wondering if maybe I’m undereating.

I more be wondering if you have some soreness from the changes in both volume and intensity of your exercise resulting in water weight potentially masking what your change in routine has done to your calorie balance.

But if your weight has been stable since February until "recently" you were most likely at maintenance calories for that time period, whether the change in exercise routine has tipped you into deficit isn't going to be clear yet.

Give it a month from whenever the recent change of exercise occurred then adjust your calories according to whatever your goal is.

BTW - using your watch for guessing calories from "weight lifting 2x a week, HIIT/calisthenics workouts x3" could well be a poor choice of tool, very poor if it's purely using heart rate for its estimates.

FWIW, I have my setting at "lightly active" and I work out 6 days a week (run 4-5 miles 3x a week and do a strength training class 3 a week) and average 17,000-20,000 steps a day. I am in maintenance but I think it's better not to count on your exercise calories too much. For me, it works better to just monitor my overall caloric intake based on my TDEE and not try to compensate every day for my exercise. And for the sake of full disclosure, I can maintain at 2100-2200 a day.

For strength training the database here is a better choice - search the CV part of the exercise diary for "strength training".
(It's not an aerobic exercise so using heartrate gives badly exaggerated estimates. Your HR is rising for reasons unconnected with oxygen demand.)

I would compare what your watch gives for circuit training to the database here but be aware the the "spiky" nature of stop / start, interval training exercise isn't tracked at all well by heartrate - I'd take off a proportion.