Should I say I'm 'sedentary' or 'lightly active'?

Hi everyone.  I'm still pretty new and trying to figure out how exactly to track my calorie expenditure and intake accurately.  I'm 5'6, 182.4lbs (down 3.6! yey) 24 years old.  I'm in college and I work as a Housekeeper- I know, it sucks.  Well, the job itself is a physical job, I'm constantly running around and sweating the entire time I am at work, I never take any breaks.  When I'm not working I don't do much of anything other than sit in class or study.  

So the question is should I say I'm lightly active.  Or should I say I'm sedentary and just add light cleaning as an activity when I work?  I usually work 5 days a week but the amount of hours I work varies from 5 hours to 9 hours a day. 

Thanks guys, sorry if I sound like a newbie!

I would count that as moderately active. As far as putting in sedentary then putting your work hours in as an activity that's up to you--the only difference will be time spent logging on your computer. Also as you lose weight it's important that you redo your account settings and adjust your calorie intake according to your new weight.

Hey!  We have pretty much the same stats!  if you want a buddy feel free to PM me!

I agree moderatly active sounds about right for you.

Thanks everyone.  I think that is probably true just based on how easy it was for me to lose weight this last week. I'm definitely not complaining. :) As of this morning I've lost 5.4lbs, to 180.6 and I haven't dropped my calories below 1200.  Most days I was at around 1500.  Granted I'm sure a lot of that is water weight because I was on my TOM last week too.  But I'm still happy. 

a80r I friend-ed you :)

your a busy lady...good for you to have the drive....you will succeed and will succeed at weight loss to.

1200 cal is what I do and I only sip water all day as I do not like going to the bathroom every hour on the hour.

I would suggest you introduce walking at this time as you need that out door escape and cardio.

here is a neat trick to make it effective...on your watch, time the number of steps you take in one minute...it has to be 100 steps minimum in a minute.  Work your way up to 30 minutes a day(checking your step count periodically as you go) which is 3000 steps..this is the best return for walkers.

Have good walking shoes, do some 3 minute prewarm up stretching before doing this.

I'd say moderately active as well.  Housekeeping is pretty hard work and I think it would definitely qualify as moderate.  Sedentary is really for those of us who have a desk job and spend most of the day sitting in from of a computer.  Since your job requires physical activity, sedentary doesn't fit and you might end up with too large of a deficit without realizing it.  You should probably add exercise that you may do above and beyond your job though.  Please remember though that 1200 is the absolute minimum for a woman who lays in bed all day.  I'd up my calories if I were you.  You don't want to mess up your metabolism because it takes a long time to get it back to where it needs to be.

Days you clean: Moderate.  Days you study: Sedentary/Light (I bet you walk to a lot of classes).

My mom cleans houses for a living and it can be quite vigorious at times. Make sure you stay hidrated and eat up your protein.

massageguy- thanks for the advice on getting in some walking.  I will definitely try that.  I would love to get in some other kind of cardio outside of work.  :)

caverlady-  I have been thinking about raising my calories to 1600 or so.  I know I did that awhile ago and I lost weight and wasn't starving the entire time too.  The thing with me is I tend to eat almost all of my calories at night.  I usually don't have time in the morning to eat breakfast, I know I should get up earlier.  Then I don't eat at work because I don't take any breaks and then when I am home I just binge.  So I've been trying to spread out my food a little, even if it's just a little snack while I'm on the go,  and that seems to really help me not be so hungry when I get home at night. 

mperic81- Yeah, it really is hard work sometimes.  I think my biggest fear is overestimating how many calories I burn and then eating too many and not being able to lose.  But I guess if that happens I can just adjust accordingly.