Opinions on Calorie/Activity Level Settings, Please

LoreleiWalks
LoreleiWalks Posts: 143 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hello!

I have posted about this a few times before, but never really got a lot of responses, so I'm giving it another go.

I am losing pretty slowly and I am thinking it may be due to not eating enough. I am set to sedentary, which gives me 1520 calories a day. However, I do not really think I am truly sedentary. I work a desk job where I basically sit on my butt for most of the day. What makes it more complicated is my commute. 4 days a week I take public transportation to and from work. There is a lot of walking involved, generally 2-3 miles per day, according to my pedometer. On the way home, I often am carrying a heavy load - purse, laptop, lunch bag, and several bags of groceries if I stop at the market. On these days, I would consider myself lightly active at the least. If I change my settings to lightly active, I get 1680 calories per day. I calculate exercise calories using my HRM and generally eat all or most of them back.

What I'm wondering is this: Should I change my settings from sedentary to lightly active? If so, how? Should I just set my calories to 1680 and use that number on "commute days" and cut back to 1520 on my less active days? I also thought maybe I would add together the calories for the 4 "commute days" and the 3 less active days, then divide that by 7 - which gives me an average of 1611 calories each day.

Any input, opinions, ideas, etc. would be welcomed. Thanks so much! :)

Replies

  • ECoch
    ECoch Posts: 7 Member
    Give it a try, what have you got to lose. I would customise my goals to the average over 7 days of 1611.
    Try it for a few weeks and see how you get on. I've just increased my calories and lost 1.4lb this week.
  • LoreleiWalks
    LoreleiWalks Posts: 143 Member
    Bump - anyone else?
  • seekingstrengthX2
    seekingstrengthX2 Posts: 771
    If your ticker is right and you have less than 20 pounds to lose, I'd say you're eating too much. MFP put me on 1200 calories from day one and I've lost consistently the whole time (so far).
  • horsesandhipbones
    horsesandhipbones Posts: 53
    Well, I'm at college so I also spend quite a lot of time sitting down, but I walk about 1 mile each day just getting there and back. This takes about 35 minutes each day. So what I do is set my activity level to sedentary, then add 30 mins of 'fast walking' to my exercise log each day.
  • LoreleiWalks
    LoreleiWalks Posts: 143 Member
    I disagree that I am eating too much. I am 5'10 and 185 (goal 169). 1200 would make me starving and crabby. Nope, not for me.
  • kathyl05
    kathyl05 Posts: 67 Member
    I love your attitude; you are such a realist! Try bumping it up and see what happens. Maybe try different foods too; shakes things up. I notice if I eat things with sugar; so weird how our bodies react to things...
  • Kelblue1
    Kelblue1 Posts: 139 Member
    I would set yourself at light active and then follow it and see what happens. I have myself as light active and can have 1200 cal. a day, on my exercise days i do eat my calories back, but on the days I do no exercise, I actually eat about 300-400 extra calories some days I will usually keep losing. So far!!

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