How Much of a Deficit Can I Get Away With

PeachyPlum
PeachyPlum Posts: 1,243 Member
edited November 14 in Social Groups
I've been away from MFP for a while and I'm so mad at myself that I didn't carefully record everything I was doing for future reference. Now I'm re-learning and slowly remembering what worked for me in the past.

I'm tracking my TDEE with a BodyMedia Fit, which was incredibly accurate for me in the past. I remember that I used to shoot for a calorie deficit of 15% of my average TDEE (working out every other day).

What I don't remember is what I used to do on a day when I had a huge deficit, like today. I had a really active day today, and even if I eat all my planned calories, I'm likely to have a deficit of nearly 1,000.

Should I be eating at least some of those calories back? Or am I fine because I still ate way over my BMR?

This would have been a great day for a cheat meal, but oddly when I start eating healthy, I really stop having any desire for the unhealthy stuff anymore.

Replies

  • Jennbecca33
    Jennbecca33 Posts: 321 Member
    If you have a very active day, yes, you should eat back some calories so that you don't net below your BMR. A deficit of 1000 cals is too much. Are you not linking your BMF with MFP and just using it to get an average TDEE? If they are linked, it should be giving you your calorie goal everyday.
  • PeachyPlum
    PeachyPlum Posts: 1,243 Member
    If you have a very active day, yes, you should eat back some calories so that you don't net below your BMR. A deficit of 1000 cals is too much. Are you not linking your BMF with MFP and just using it to get an average TDEE? If they are linked, it should be giving you your calorie goal everyday.

    MFP doesn't interpret the data from the BMF correctly. Yesterday I synced it right after I woke up, and MFP gave me 273 exercise calories, for 7 hours of sleeping and 10 minutes of making coffee.

    I synced it again this morning, and all told, yesterday I burned a total of 3042 calories and MFP wanted me to eat 3229. I only use the sync feature so that MFP can tell the BMF Activity Manager how much I ate.
  • PeachyPlum
    PeachyPlum Posts: 1,243 Member
    Oh, I just re-read the TDEE and BMR sticky thread for the fourth time and I remember now how I used to do it

    I eat back at least most of TDEE(day) - TDEE(avg)!

    Thank you for the help, it makes much more sense now!
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    Why is the account syncing so jacked up - that's terrible?

    For this steady day method though, you gotta unsync accounts anyway.

    Or memorize your eating and macro goals, because the sync will change them.
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