Increased Activity Level

IllustriousBee
IllustriousBee Posts: 70 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
My original goal was to lose 11lbs from 106lbs to 95lbs. I'm 4'10" by the way. I reached that easily. I'm also weightlifting, and I have a lean, but defined body now. I kept dropping weight. I was 92.2lbs today. I had my activity level set at sedentary. That put my pre-exercise maintenance calories at 1250. With exercise, it would go up to between 1400-1600. I was doing OK getting close to that, but obviously still dropping weight.

I wear a smartwatch, and my steps are usually between 6,000 and 10,000. I only would log any walking if I went on an actual walk though, so not those steps. I increased my activity level to lightly active, which puts my pre-exercise calories at 1400. Adding exercise puts me up to 1600-1800. Apparently, I am NOT sedentary because I obviously need to increase my calories so I stop losing weight. I guess I spend more time on my feet and active than I realize. FYI I don't work, but I do really enjoy cooking and spend a good bit of time in the kitchen. I'm also an actress, and I'm on my feet most of the time at rehearsals. I struggle to reach 1400 calories some days, so this should be interesting. I do love food though, so this is definitely a plus for me :smile:

Replies

  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,840 Member
    6 to 10k steps (not including walks as exercise) is definitely beyond sedentary 🙂 maybe even beyond lightly active.

    It's so important, as you are doing, to adapt your calorie intake to your actual weight trend, since the 'calories out' part of CICO can be hard to pin down: we might be more or less active than we thought and beyond that, our metabolism might be higher or lower than the statistical averages used to calculate our calorie goal.

    Enjoy all that food 😉
  • westrich20940
    westrich20940 Posts: 920 Member
    This same exact thing happened to me. I got to my goal weight and then just upped my calorie goal to the estimate of my maintenance (still doing my physical activity and adding in more strengthening stuff when the gyms opened back up). I then lost like another 5-8lbs without really 'trying'...which was a bit shocking.

    I think it's more so due to the fact that once you lose some weight and get more active/build some muscle --- your basal metabolic burn is just higher. Like...I burn more calories when I'm binging Netflix now than I did before I lost weight.

    I have found that the estimate of calorie goal that MFP gives me is also a bit low. This is just based on tracking my weight....MFP suggests something ~100-150 calories less than other calculators I've checked so I've been eating on the higher end of that and maintaining so I assume if I went by MFP I'd lose weight slowly still.
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,416 Member
    MFP underestimates for me by about 500 calories if I were to go by their descriptors.

    You really do have to spend some time in early Maintenance figuring out how much to eat.

    I've added more calories several times along my Maintenance journey.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    IllustriousBee wrote: »
    My original goal was to lose 11lbs from 106lbs to 95lbs. I'm 4'10" by the way. I reached that easily. I'm also weightlifting, and I have a lean, but defined body now. I kept dropping weight. I was 92.2lbs today. I had my activity level set at sedentary. That put my pre-exercise maintenance calories at 1250. With exercise, it would go up to between 1400-1600. I was doing OK getting close to that, but obviously still dropping weight.

    I wear a smartwatch, and my steps are usually between 6,000 and 10,000. I only would log any walking if I went on an actual walk though, so not those steps. I increased my activity level to lightly active, which puts my pre-exercise calories at 1400. Adding exercise puts me up to 1600-1800. Apparently, I am NOT sedentary because I obviously need to increase my calories so I stop losing weight. I guess I spend more time on my feet and active than I realize. FYI I don't work, but I do really enjoy cooking and spend a good bit of time in the kitchen. I'm also an actress, and I'm on my feet most of the time at rehearsals. I struggle to reach 1400 calories some days, so this should be interesting. I do love food though, so this is definitely a plus for me :smile:

    Sedentary is literally sitting on your butt all day...like I can have really busy days at the office and by quitting time have less than 2k steps because I've maybe gotten up from my desk to go to the bathroom a few times and that's it. Anyone on there feet a great deal of the day isn't sedentary. Sedentary is less than 3K steps, deliberate walks or not.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    Yes, you definitely aren't Sedentary :lol:

    I don't log the first hour (cumulative) I spend cooking, but since I can spend quite a bit of time cooking, I do log the time I spend that exceeds that first hour.

    Foods high in fat are an easy way to add calories - oil, butter, nuts, nut butter, cheese, etc. - those calories go down fast and easy!
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    I'm curious.....

    "I had my activity level set at sedentary."

    Why did you pick that?
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,225 Member
    If you know how fast you've been losing at X calorie level, averaging that loss over several weeks, you know how many calories you need to add to maintain, or a pretty good first approximation. A pound of loss is close enough to 3500 calories of cumulative deficit that you can use that as a guide.

    If you have your own data, there's no reason to try to jimmy around with activity levels and whether that's too many or not enough steps or what have you. Just figure out what your average daily deficit has been over (say) the past 30 days at X calorie level, and eat that many more calories daily.

    You might still find that your maintenance needs climb a bit above that, but it should be a good start on the right number.

    I'm another one for whom MFP estimates very low, around 500 low (25-30% of my NEAT), similar to Riverside. I'm sedentary, seasonally maybe at the lower end of lightly active, based on step counts. If I set MFP on *active*, it still estimates a little bit low for me. I just figured out how many calories I actual need pre-exercise, set my base goal manually to that, and it works fine. I've been maintaining for over 5 years doing that.
  • IllustriousBee
    IllustriousBee Posts: 70 Member
    Based on the descriptions of the levels, I figured sedentary or lightly active was the right one for me. I spend a good portion of my day on the computer, and my hobbies aren't very active. I was torn between the two, but since I was still losing weight when I set it up, I picked sedentary. The maintenance calories there are definitely not enough for me though.

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