Calorie deficit

sophie9492015

Dont worry i have realised ive posted a few forums about things that don't make any sense....

RhiannonBecks

Ok, riding on the coat tails of the OP, you guys have given so many helpful tips- just wondering if this sounds right for my numbers. I did set my goals in MFP and suggested 1200 cals for loss (2# per week, have a total of about 25# more to lose).

When I did a TDEE Calculator it says maintenance cals are 1872.00 I have been eating right around 1200 ( so 500 cal +/- give or take). Yesterday for example, per my Fitbit, noted I burned close to 700 cals throughout the day.

I ended my night at 1325 , so 125 cals "over". But, my long winded question is this, bc I burned the 700 cals according to fibit, is my 1325 final cal still technically a deficit.

I typically do not eat my calories back, so I was just concerned about losing my deficit yesterday?

Thanks guys!

DX2JX2

RhiannonBecks wrote: »

Ok, riding on the coat tails of the OP, you guys have given so many helpful tips- just wondering if this sounds right for my numbers. I did set my goals in MFP and suggested 1200 cals for loss (2# per week, have a total of about 25# more to lose).

When I did a TDEE Calculator it says maintenance cals are 1872.00 I have been eating right around 1200 ( so 500 cal +/- give or take). Yesterday for example, per my Fitbit, noted I burned close to 700 cals throughout the day.

I ended my night at 1325 , so 125 cals "over". But, my long winded question is this, bc I burned the 700 cals according to fibit, is my 1325 final cal still technically a deficit.

I typically do not eat my calories back, so I was just concerned about losing my deficit yesterday?

Thanks guys!

When you set up your TDEE, how active did you say you were on a regular basis? TDEE includes calories for activity you tell it that you do, whether it be exercise or a job that has you on your feet all day, etc.

Based on what you built into your TDEE, was yesterday more active, less active, or just about in line? Assuming that yesterday wasn't unusual for you in terms of activity and that it matches what you built into your TDEE, then those 700 calories were already included when calculating the total you should be eating to achieve your target deficit. Just keep doing what you're doing.

If you find that you're regularly more or less active than you assigned in your TDEE calc (for example, you said you were lightly active but have been finding yourself spending an hour at the gym 5 times a week), then you probably want to recalculate your TDEE to make sure that you're getting 'credits' for the calories you're burning through exercise.

The above is why I actually prefer calculating my calorie levels at a totally sedate lifestyle (no exercise, desk job), and then add in my exercise manually. It keeps me from having to worry about what the invisible algorithms in the system have assumed for my daily activities, etc. and since I know what I've included for activity, it's easy for me to know when I might have to adjust my numbers.

RhiannonBecks

@DX2JX2 thank you so much for the response.

So I set my lifestyle to SEDENTARY as I work at a desk 9 hours.

Yesterday was a bit more active than normal, but not to the extreme. I try to get in a walk w/my dogs about 5 days a week, totaling around 2 miles, yesterday I added a walk in during lunch bc it was so nice outside, and again on break, but both combined only added aprox 1.5 miles to my "exercise".

" Based on what you built into your TDEE, was yesterday more active, less active, or just about in line? Assuming that yesterday wasn't unusual for you in terms of activity and that it matches what you built into your TDEE, then those 700 calories were already included when calculating the total you should be eating to achieve your target deficit. Just keep doing what you're doing."

>> So with that said, being that my cals are set to 1200 (which includes my deficit, yeah), and I finished my day with 1325 cals, I really only had a deficit of 500-125? ).

Maybe I am just over thinking it. I know the concept is not hard, and I know the goal is long term, i just don't want to feel guilty for the extra 125 cals, if that will make or break a loss at the end of the week you know?

DX2JX2

RhiannonBecks wrote: »

@DX2JX2 thank you so much for the response.

So I set my lifestyle to SEDENTARY as I work at a desk 9 hours.

Yesterday was a bit more active than normal, but not to the extreme. I try to get in a walk w/my dogs about 5 days a week, totaling around 2 miles, yesterday I added a walk in during lunch bc it was so nice outside, and again on break, but both combined only added aprox 1.5 miles to my "exercise".

" Based on what you built into your TDEE, was yesterday more active, less active, or just about in line? Assuming that yesterday wasn't unusual for you in terms of activity and that it matches what you built into your TDEE, then those 700 calories were already included when calculating the total you should be eating to achieve your target deficit. Just keep doing what you're doing." >> So with that said, being that my cals are set to 1200 (which includes my deficit, yeah), and I finished my day with 1325 cals, I really only had a deficit of 500-125? ).

Maybe I am just over thinking it. I know the concept is not hard, and I know the goal is long term, i just don't want to feel guilty for the extra 125 cals, if that will make or break a loss at the end of the week you know?

Other way around, if you set your lifestyle to 'sedentary', then your calorie target doesn't include much in the way of exercise or incremental calorie burns. It basically assumes that you're only burning the calories you need to live your day to day life and spend a good part of the day at a desk or on a couch. If you exercise or are active above this level, then you actually get 'extra' calories on top of your goal.

That is, if your TDEE assumes that you burn ~2000 calories with a sedate lifestyle, then once you start adding activity you would actually burn more than that. You can theoretically eat more and still maintain your target deficit, or you can not eat more and achieve a higher deficit than you originally planned for.

If you called yourself sedentary in the TDEE calculation and you were a bit more active than usual yesterday then technically at least some of those 700 calories could have been added to your daily calorie target. That said, TDEE works on averages. Don't worry too much about your activity level on any specific day - it's the long-term changes in your activity levels that you need to think about.

RhiannonBecks

@dxj257 -- Excellent. Totally clears it up for me. I really appreciate your thoughtful, kind response. It makes so much more sense for whatever reason the way you just explained it!

WinoGelato

Highly recommend to the OP and anyone else working out how to best use this tool to read the stickied "Most Helpful Forum Posts" at the top of the Getting Started section. There are answers to many of the questions you've asked and some you haven't thought of yet in there.