Settings/TDEE advice please

Sherriediva1

I am not new to my fitness pal but I am back from a hiatus. I'm hoping for better weight loss and health results than I have experienced in the past.
my fitness pal set my daily caloric intake in at 1200 cal given that I would like to lose 2 pounds a week. As I was browsing the community Boards someone mentioned TDEE and Scooby's website so I looked it up. According to that calculator I should be eating 1818 cal a day with a .9 weight loss per week.

QUESTIONS:
1. at 1818 cal a day am I eating my exercise cal back?
2. If I want to shoot for 1-1.5 lbs per week should I decrease my calorie intake? His website didn't let me choose a goal......

I believe my info is public but I'll double check, thanks for any and all advice/info
Sherrie
(female, 41, 215lbs, 5'6")

JAT74

It depends if the calories you were given to lose 0.9 lbs per week was calculated based on you being active or sedentary. For me I set it to sedentary in which case I will be given a lower amount to maintain and even less to lose and then I can choose to eat back my exercise cals.

1800 sounds quite high so maybe you set it to say you are active, in which case if that's the amount you were given and you are still supposed to lose when eating that amount you wouldn't additionally eat exercise calories back.

AliceDark

If you're doing an actual TDEE calculation, you should be factoring in your weekly exercise. It's a completely different method, so you don't eat back any calories.

To lose a pound per week, you need to burn 3500 calories (create a 500 calorie deficit per day). Scooby's website takes a % off of your TDEE to give you a goal to lose weight. If your TDEE is 2000 (I'm making up numbers), TDEE-20% is 1600 calories per day, so you'd be creating a weekly deficit of 2800 calories and would be losing about 0.8 pounds per week.

lcooper327

This is what I do. It may help simplify a little for you with TDEE and eating back and all that Jazz. So I set it at sedentary maintenance. Mfp sets my calories for me. So I keep track of exercise and food and by the end of the day have a deficit of 500 calories which sets me up to lose a pound per week. Whether I achieve this deficit by eating less, working out more, or a combination is entirely up to me.

Sherriediva1

thanks y'all. I did set to sedentary but am aiming for 3-4 days cardio and 2 days strength training. am currently dealing with golfers elbow so upper body training is limited right now. I did check the math and 1818 is my TDEE-20% but I gotta shoot for at least a pound a week. I think I may try Icooper327's suggestion or maybe TDEE-25%.