TDEE-15% sedentary + exercise calories?

jennagoogles13
jennagoogles13 Posts: 266
in Health and Weight Loss
I was just wondering if it would be more accurate to do:
-TDEE-15% set at lightly active and eating 1725 calories daily
OR
-TDEE-15% set at sedentary and eating 1510+ exercise calories?

I'm interested to know what most of you are doing?

Replies

  • PepperWorm
    PepperWorm Posts: 1,206
    If you're exercising, you're not sedentary.
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
    I was just wondering if it would be more accurate to do:
    -TDEE-15% set at lightly active and eating 1725 calories daily
    OR
    -TDEE-15% set at sedentary and eating 1510+ exercise calories?
    If you exercise on average 215 calories a day they are the same thing. But to be honest the margin of error in the BMR/TDEE estimate is at least +/-150 cals so I wouldn't worry over it.
  • jennagoogles13
    jennagoogles13 Posts: 266
    If you're exercising, you're not sedentary.
    But I feel like setting myself at lightly active (1-3 hrs of exercise a week) is going to be less accurate than manually inputting my calorie burns..
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
    But I feel like setting myself at lightly active (1-3 hrs of exercise a week) is going to be less accurate than manually inputting my calorie burns..
    I agree, and it's how MFP is designed to work.

    Some people prefer a constant calorie intake in which case they don't log exercise calories.
  • PepperWorm
    PepperWorm Posts: 1,206
    If you're exercising, you're not sedentary.
    But I feel like setting myself at lightly active (1-3 hrs of exercise a week) is going to be less accurate than manually inputting my calorie burns..

    I mean that if you are adding in any sort of activity other than what you do in your normal daily life that raises your heart rate for 20 or more minutes, you are not considered sedentary. If you work out 3 days a week, I would consider it Lightly Active. If 4-5, Moderate. If 6-7, Active or Very Active.

    ETA: You mentioned not logging exercise calories. Perfectly acceptable IF you're not following the MFP method. If you are, log those calories and eat back at least half.
  • paulperryman
    paulperryman Posts: 839 Member
    If you're exercising, you're not sedentary.

    Daily activity and exercise are 2 different things. TDEE is general activity ie working, sitting around not including intentional exercise like going to the gym or playing sports which is not accurate to just use a 1.5x BMR burn for example to encompass everything..

    I would think the same applies to adding sports (which is intentional exercise) to work aswell (non intentional exercise) unless sports is your job.

    any intentional exercise should be logged seperately it's easier to manage that way

    so set to your average daily activity that is what you do for a living, then reduce your TDEE % by how much you want to lose (no more then 20%) and add back most if not all any exercise calories you do ontop of that, the beauty of exercise is if you need to lose alot and reducing by say 1Kg (7000 calories a week) a week would push you below your TDEE to BMR levels or lower that is detrimental, but exercise gives the same effect while allowing you to eat at a healthier level.

    The rest i agree with, you should be logging exercise even if it's just the averages MFP gives, or better yet get a heart rate monitor that are around $60-150 and give you a far better judge of what you are likely burning.

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