oh just another question about TDEE :)

emmamaree71

so i've read a lot about TDEE -20% on here and i've officially made the decision to eat more calories. so in my fitness pal land, this means i'm eating (roughly) my calorie goal PLUS all my exercise calories, correct? TDEE -20% would be 1943 for me, and today for example if you add my MFP goal plus exercise cals, it comes out to exactly 1950.

just want to make sure because i have NEVER eaten all my exercise calories back before!!! kind of gives me anxiety

Dozer561

so to maintain weight with a daily workout you would be at around 2400 TDEE correct? thats how you got the 1900ish, thats -20% sounds fine.
how are you estimating your exercise calories? if you are using a HRM great, but the only concern is with the calculators here and pretty much any site like it seem to over estimate. i would eat back half to start with and adjust up or down accordingly. like when i go biking, i only log 1/2ish, usually go for an hour at 12-20mph and only log 30-40min.

mjl54

if you calculate your own goal calories to 20% - TDEE your exercise would be already added in if done properly. So you do NOT add in exercise calories nor do you eat back your calories

only eat back calories if you use what MFP sets up as your daily calories.

emmamaree71

good call, i just changed my goals so that i manually entered my calorie goal to be TDEE-20%. not sure why i never thought of doing that before and taking the math out! Thanks for your help!

husseycd

Don't eat back calories unless you've netted below your BMR, and honestly, I can't imagine that's a big deal unless you're doing it on a regular basis.

This approach is really working for me and I'm slowly building to 2000calories/day, which is about maintenance at my goal weight. I'm currently at about 1800. I started at about 1400-1500, upped to 1700, immediately started losing weight. Maintained at ~1700 for a couple weeks and then bumped up to 1800 this week. I've lost 5 lbs in three weeks.

My stats (just fyi, so you can compare and all):

37 year old female. 5'5"
Weight I came to MFP=138 lbs
Current Weight=133 lbs
Goal weight=125 lbs (I'm pretty happy around 130 though. Would really just like to lower BF%)
Current TDEE~2150
Goal TDEE =2060
I work out moderately every day.

Francl27

You don't eat the calories back but it's really pretty close to MFP goal plus exercise calories in my experience. I switched too, even though I eat less than I should probably, just because it's so nice not to have to worry about logging exercise anymore.

jacksonpt

so i've read a lot about TDEE -20% on here and i've officially made the decision to eat more calories. so in my fitness pal land, this means i'm eating (roughly) my calorie goal PLUS all my exercise calories, correct? TDEE -20% would be 1943 for me, and today for example if you add my MFP goal plus exercise cals, it comes out to exactly 1950.

just want to make sure because i have NEVER eaten all my exercise calories back before!!! kind of gives me anxiety

Yes, you are correct.