Depressing TDEE calculation - tell me it's not true!

SusanMFindlay

maryjaquiss wrote: »

Thanks for all the replies. Being short sucks! I have a desk-based office job but I'm going to incorporate more moving so I can eat more cheese.

It's really not the "being short" that's giving you the low numbers though. It's the "being sedentary". 5'3 is actually average height for a woman. Increasing activity level gives you hundreds more calories per day (about 100 calories for every 2000 steps - which is about 1 mile walked).

Also, you didn't post your age but this TDEE calculator ( http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/ ) puts you at just over 1600 cals/day when sedentary if you were 40 years old. Higher than that if younger; lower if older. (But I had to make you 70 years old to get down to 1440 cals/day.)

lorrpb

Try eating back half your exercise calories rather than all of them. Since you have so little to lose, your ideal loss rate is 0.5 lb per week.

Rusty740

maryjaquiss wrote: »

b3achy wrote: »

maryjaquiss wrote: »

Thanks for your detailed response @b3achy I would definitely consider strength training but balancing family time, exercise and work is so difficult! I think I'm just going to have to grit my teeth and get through the last 8lb as I'm definitely not quite where I want to be, although I do feel so much better!

Just remember you can do plenty of resistance/strength training at home without going to a gym. Get some dumb bells or a kettlebell. Do body weight exercises in addition to the yoga. Get some resistance bands. Find exercises you can do lifting your baby. That's why I said you can do more strength training without it being a full on body recomposition, which implies heavy weights, gyms, etc. I only now am using a gym because I had gotten past the capabilities of my personal at home options, and I wanted certain machines for some training I'm doing.

And yea, I thought losing the last bit of weight wasn't going to be any harder than the rest, but it's definitely a game of patience, especially at our size. You can do it!

Ha, I'll be benching my 2 year old later! (If I can catch him)

My little kids love to work out with dad at home. Give your son a little weight of his own and set some goals. Here's something really simple you can do. Grab a can of food, one for him and one for you. Do 10 dumbbell clean and presses with each arm (look it up it's easy), then in 2 days, do 11 of them and increase as you go. Then do 10 squats, you could hold him while you do them. Then do 10 box jumps using a chair while he watches you with a funny look. This just took you 5 minutes, and yes, you will feel it if you adjust the weights to something you feel is heavy So long as you keep increasing the sets or weights you will see progress. Don't forget to write this stuff down or you won't get to 'see' your progress.

I'm actually in favour of body recomp for you. If the last few pounds are difficult, and they are, then it's time to think about an additional measure of progress and change some things up. For me, this is body measurements, waist in particular as it's highly correlated to body fat.

cwolfman13

maryjaquiss wrote: »

miritikvah wrote: »

Seems accurate without exercise added. What lifestyle did u choose? I'm 5'3 110 tdee 1800 with a moderate activity and exercising 4 hours a week or so. My bmr is around 1200-1400. To lose weight I have to eat 1600. If I lowered my exercise/lifestyle is be around there too. Being short and near your goal can suck besides with ur math its 1231 + exercise cals = total cals which should put you above bmr. Try using iifym with exercise added and you could reach the 1370 your used to. If you're seeing results at 1370 then you burn more than it says. Ultimately you know you body the best and these calculators don't take into account some variable so can be slightly off.

I'm not really seeing results at 1370 any more (even accounting for hormonal fluctuations etc) so I do need to cut it a bit but I wasn't happy that it was by so much!

RuNaRoUnDaFiEld wrote: »

That seems about right to me.

But that is with no exercise so once you add those calories on you'll be able to have more.

Have you considered a recomp instead?

Yeah, I'll just have to exercise more so I can keep eating! Haha. Not really considered a recomp - I have a 2 year old and a full-time job which makes it tricky, though I guess not impossible, to get to a gym without severely annoying my husband (running/yoga takes place early morning before everyone gets up and if I had to factor in getting to a gym I'd be sacrificing more sleep than I'd like ideally...

I missed this part...I personally don't know anyone with a two year old who is sedentary...my wife and I have a 4&6 year old and we haven't been sedentary in all those 6 years.

Also, health and fitness is important to both my wife and I...we swap cooking and kid duties throughout the week and make huge efforts to work as a team to get what we need to get done for our family, for each other, and for ourselves individually. I primarily cycle and I lift a couple days per week...she's primarily a runner and lifts one day per week.