Need opinions...four pounds from goal, TDEE-15% or TDEE -10%

ajcmoran2005

Hi everyone,

I am four pounds away from my goal and I was just wondering if I should go down to TDEE -10% or stay at TDEE -15%. I have been trying to eat closer to TDEE -15% the last couple weeks but unfortunately I've found myself going back to TDEE -20%. I just want to make sure that when I get to maintenance my body isn't going to be shocked and I will gain by going up 300 cals a day from what I have been eating. Any ideas?

ritchiedrama

Hi everyone,

I am four pounds away from my goal and I was just wondering if I should go down to TDEE -10% or stay at TDEE -15%. I have been trying to eat closer to TDEE -15% the last couple weeks but unfortunately I've found myself going back to TDEE -20%. I just want to make sure that when I get to maintenance my body isn't going to be shocked and I will gain by going up 300 cals a day from what I have been eating. Any ideas?

Whatever you're doing, aim to lose 1-2 lbs maximum a week, if that is happening, stick at what you're doing.

ladynocturne

10% would probably be for the best. But you have to REALLY make sure you measure everything that you eat and are extremely accurate on how many calories you burn.

I have a hard time knowing what your deficit is with the % so I'm going to just pretend 10% is 250 calories below maintenance for some calculations.

What if you did 20% 4 days a week and ate at maintenance for the other 3 days. This will give you a deficit of 437.5 calories 4 days out of the week, which should result in a .5lb of fat lost. This will hopefully give you a better margin for error since it's a higher deficit and you only have to do it 4 days a week instead of trying for 7 with a small deficit.

AJ_G

15%

jacksonpt

Have you done the math? How big is the difference between 10% and 15%? On 2000 cals daily, it's only 100 cals. That's pretty much margin of error for a lot of people.

What are you goals? If it's just weight loss, I'd probably stay at 15%. If it's body comp, I might be more inclined to drop to 10%. But again... the difference is so small that many people mis-estimate by more than that.

Docpremie

I've had a question about this as well. At what point do you switch from a 20% deficit to a 15% deficit, then 10%, etc. How close to your weight goal should you be for each of these adjustments using the TDEE method?

tracieangeletti

Tagging cuz I want to know too!!! :-)

ajcmoran2005

I'm 5'4" and 125 with my goal weight being 121. My TDEE -20% is 1623, -15% is 1725 and -10% is 1826. I'm meticulous about weighing everything so I know I'm accurate in my logging but it's my running that I'm not sure about. I run at a pretty big incline and the speed is in between the numbers MFP gives me so I really don't know what I've burned. I typically eat between 1650-1700 a day with a loss of between 1-1 1/2 pounds per week.