Caloric Calculators and accuracy

EzRemake

I've been on a cut for the last 7 months, and I'm at the point now where I'm looking to maintain my weight, and soon start bulking/cutting cycles. My problem right now is I'm having a hard time figuring out my maintenance calories.

I know my maintenance calories are higher on weight training days, but I'm curious how my maintenance calories are affected on non training days? My 'sedentary' maintenance calories at 1850 for instance, so would that mean my maintenance on non-training days are 1850, or would they be higher since I train 5 days a week?

EvgeniZyntx

Don't bother with online calculators, except as a starting estimate. Use your own data from logging. See the first link in my profile for an extractor that will give you your average TDEE.

nxd10

You have to make a decision about whether you want to set an activity limit and eat about the same every day or you want to vary your calories with your activities. In either case, the important thing is to hit your calorie goals every day. Which method works best for you depends on whether you do the same every day (sounds like you don't) or your days vary a lot.

Mine vary. I set to sedentary, bought a fitbit zip pedometer, and log major exercise. I eat back my exercise calories.

To figure my base, I told MFP I was maintaining and then slowly upped my current calories until I seemed to be stable. For me, that 250 up from my 500 calorie deficit the first year, then the full the next year. It's pretty straightforward.

DonM46

I had to go the opposite direction. I set 'maintain' and gained, so I cut 300, then lost, so I added 100. Took about 2 months to find the magic number.
Just as easy to do trial and error as trying to SOLVE for the unknown number.