Tdee

cnjg6677
cnjg6677 Posts: 177 Member
edited December 2024 in Health and Weight Loss
Online calculators give me a tdee of 1132 calories ! Now what?

Replies

  • RelCanonical
    RelCanonical Posts: 3,882 Member
    Current height, weight, activity level?
  • cnjg6677
    cnjg6677 Posts: 177 Member
    I’m 4”11 41 years old and a desk job
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,055 Member
    edited August 2018
    cnjg6677 wrote: »
    Online calculators give me a tdee of 1132 calories ! Now what?

    Why not just let MFP set your calorie goal? MFP uses NEAT rather than TDEE. We see lots of confusion when a person is trying to use both at the same time.

    Plus, like others have said, that figure might actually be BMR rather than TDEE.
  • cnjg6677
    cnjg6677 Posts: 177 Member
    My weight is 95 pounds 4”11 desk job and 42 years old mfp gives me 1200 calories for maintaining! What can I do ?
  • cnjg6677
    cnjg6677 Posts: 177 Member
    And to add to that I just want to maintain my doctor says I’m at a good weight for my height and build! But 1200 seems really low maintenance calories
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 35,066 Member
    cnjg6677 wrote: »
    And to add to that I just want to maintain my doctor says I’m at a good weight for my height and build! But 1200 seems really low maintenance calories

    Keep in mind that that's 1200, plus you should eat back calories from intentional exercise (assuming you set your MFP profile activity based on daily life, not including intentional exercise, as the directions say you should).

    Other than that, try it for a month, and see. It's just a statistical estimate, not a crystal ball. MFP says I'd maintain around 1500 before exercise; the real number (based on almost 4 years of logging experience) is substantially higher, more like 2000 plus exercise. Isn't universal, but it happens.
  • Lillymoo01
    Lillymoo01 Posts: 2,865 Member
    cnjg6677 wrote: »
    Online calculators give me a tdee of 1132 calories ! Now what?

    As I know your stats are similar to mine that is your BMR and not your TDEE. My guess is that your TDEE would be somewhere between 1300 and 1400.
  • cnjg6677
    cnjg6677 Posts: 177 Member
    Lillymoo01 wrote: »
    cnjg6677 wrote: »
    Online calculators give me a tdee of 1132 calories ! Now what?

    As I know your stats are similar to mine that is your BMR and not your TDEE. My guess is that your TDEE would be somewhere between 1300 and 1400.

    What are your stats !
  • Lillymoo01
    Lillymoo01 Posts: 2,865 Member
    That is strange. When I first hit maintenance and put in my goal to maintain I was given just over 1300. Since then I changed them to gaining but just changed them back to maintain and it gave me 1200. In saying that I maintain on around 1500 net calories.
    If I were you I would start at 1200 for a few weeks and then up them by 50 calories a day for a month and see how you go. If you are still maintaining then up them by another 50. Keep doing this until you start seeing a steady but slight gain. Often the more we eat the more active we become without even realising it. This is how I got to 1500 calories a day.
  • Lillymoo01
    Lillymoo01 Posts: 2,865 Member
    cnjg6677 wrote: »
    Lillymoo01 wrote: »
    cnjg6677 wrote: »
    Online calculators give me a tdee of 1132 calories ! Now what?

    As I know your stats are similar to mine that is your BMR and not your TDEE. My guess is that your TDEE would be somewhere between 1300 and 1400.

    What are your stats !

    4'11
    92 pounds (trying to get closer to 100)
    47 years old
  • cnjg6677
    cnjg6677 Posts: 177 Member
    Lillymoo01 wrote: »
    That is strange. When I first hit maintenance and put in my goal to maintain I was given just over 1300. Since then I changed them to gaining but just changed them back to maintain and it gave me 1200. In saying that I maintain on around 1500 net calories.
    If I were you I would start at 1200 for a few weeks and then up them by 50 calories a day for a month and see how you go. If you are still maintaining then up them by another 50. Keep doing this until you start seeing a steady but slight gain. Often the more we eat the more active we become without even realising it. This is how I got to 1500 calories a day.

    Thank you so much I appreciate your help I’ll try and eAt at 1250 a day for a month and see what happens! I was surprised when I wanted to lose I was given 1200 calories then when I went to maintain I was excited for the extra calories but was still given 1200 calories very disappointing
  • Lillymoo01
    Lillymoo01 Posts: 2,865 Member
    cnjg6677 wrote: »
    Lillymoo01 wrote: »
    That is strange. When I first hit maintenance and put in my goal to maintain I was given just over 1300. Since then I changed them to gaining but just changed them back to maintain and it gave me 1200. In saying that I maintain on around 1500 net calories.
    If I were you I would start at 1200 for a few weeks and then up them by 50 calories a day for a month and see how you go. If you are still maintaining then up them by another 50. Keep doing this until you start seeing a steady but slight gain. Often the more we eat the more active we become without even realising it. This is how I got to 1500 calories a day.

    Thank you so much I appreciate your help I’ll try and eAt at 1250 a day for a month and see what happens! I was surprised when I wanted to lose I was given 1200 calories then when I went to maintain I was excited for the extra calories but was still given 1200 calories very disappointing

    How quickly were you losing at 1200 as this can give you some insight into how much you can eat? If it were an average of 1/2 pound a week you could eat an extra 250 calories a day. If it were 1/4 pound a week then you would have 125 pounds a day extra to eat.
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,421 Member
    edited March 2019
    Forget the estimates. How were you eating when losing? Start with that plus 250 Cal a day per each 0.5lb a week of average weight loss. And keep adding till you see a weight trend increase!!!
  • MikePTY
    MikePTY Posts: 3,814 Member
    cnjg6677 wrote: »
    And to add to that I just want to maintain my doctor says I’m at a good weight for my height and build! But 1200 seems really low maintenance calories

    Have you tried 1200 before? What was your experience? 1200 is very low for most adults, but maintence calories are built off of your height, weight, age, and activity level. And given your very small height/weight, that is why you have lower than most people.

    If you feel like it might be higher, here are a couple of potential reasons: are you sure you are sedentary? Sedentary is more than just having a desk job. If you have a desk job but find yourself moving a decent amount or at home find yourself doing things like cooking, cleaning, caring for children, etc, you are probably lightly active rather than sedentary. You also need to incorporate any exercise you are doing. If you are using TDEE, that will be built into your calorie goal, if you are using MFP and NEAT, you eat those calories back after you exercise.

    But it's also important to remember these are just estimstes based on the "average" person for your stats. If you find yourself to be different, you can customize your calorie goal to match your experience. But I would start by making yourself lightly active, and trying to never undereat your calorie goal. In your situation, I would rather err on the side of eating too much vs too little. You also may to try to look into incorporating some beginner weight lifting which will give you some more calories to eat and also help you build some muscle on your frame if you eat at maintnence/a slight surplus.
  • cnjg6677
    cnjg6677 Posts: 177 Member
    Thank you everyone for the awesome answers and all the help I’m gonna start playing with numbers !! Thank you all
  • Tacklewasher
    Tacklewasher Posts: 7,122 Member
    cnjg6677 wrote: »
    Lillymoo01 wrote: »
    That is strange. When I first hit maintenance and put in my goal to maintain I was given just over 1300. Since then I changed them to gaining but just changed them back to maintain and it gave me 1200. In saying that I maintain on around 1500 net calories.
    If I were you I would start at 1200 for a few weeks and then up them by 50 calories a day for a month and see how you go. If you are still maintaining then up them by another 50. Keep doing this until you start seeing a steady but slight gain. Often the more we eat the more active we become without even realising it. This is how I got to 1500 calories a day.

    Thank you so much I appreciate your help I’ll try and eAt at 1250 a day for a month and see what happens! I was surprised when I wanted to lose I was given 1200 calories then when I went to maintain I was excited for the extra calories but was still given 1200 calories very disappointing

    Not sure if it's been mentioned, but MFP will not go below 1200 cals for women. Ever (unless it glitches). So if it thinks your maintenance is under 1200, it will give 1200. If you try to lose, it will give no less than 1200. Not many maintain at 1200 (you may be one) and MFP figures that is the minimum for healthy eating.
  • middlehaitch
    middlehaitch Posts: 8,488 Member
    edited March 2019
    MFP gave me 1200 cals for maintenance. It was my deficit also when I was losing.

    I am that short, sedentary, older woman that doesn’t weigh much, that 1200 is/was suitable for.

    5’1, 65, started when 54, going from 130 to a maintenance of 100-105, MFP BMR at 65yo 975cal.

    Subtly increasing my NEAT, and getting in 60x5 a week of varied exercise, moved me from 1200 cals plus 200 cals for 60min exercise to a TDEE of 1600-1800.

    The way it seemed to work was
    1200+ 200 exercise x 5 for a while then I’d start losing slowly.

    Switch to 1400 TDEE, more daily energy, start losing slowly.

    Switch to 1400 + 200x3 exercise (started lifting), start losing slowly.

    Switch to 1400 +200x5 exercise.

    Switch to 1600 TDEE . Etc.

    At this point I’m winging it calorie wise, but dropped 2 lbs to 100 when I went back to lifting in early Jan so intake is up to an estimated 1800 TDEE

    None of this can be attributed to massive muscle gains, way too old for that, but maybe small ones. I think most of it is more cals in, more energy in everyday life, more cals burnt.

    Cheers, h.

    ETA: You could say I have moved from sedentary to active without really thinking about it.
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