TDEE Calculators and Activity Level

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Panini911
Panini911 Posts: 2,325 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I was playing around with TDEE calculators but never sure what to put for activity level. Yes i work a desk job but walk no less than 15,000 a day (and that would be a bad bad day). I am hoping to reintroduce running at some point and cycling more often (but for now let's leave those off the table).

My work is a desk job but that hardly seems to be a reasonable choice when I make a point to walk over 15,000 (I would average 17,000 more so) daily (as non purposeful exercise, just something to get done in my day).

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  • MikePTY
    MikePTY Posts: 3,814 Member
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    Do you do much purposeful exercise now? If not, I would stick with MFP and make your activity level either active or very active (probably the latter but you could experiment).

    I do TDEE, but I think it has some pluses and minuses and is not for everyone. I think if you a lot of non-intentional exercise activity, the MFP way is usually better, since TDEE calculators seem mostly to be about intentional exercise. I think TDEE works for those that exercise frequently in regular consistent routines, but those who are active in non-exercise ways or have inconsistent/varying exercise are better suited by MFP.
  • Panini911
    Panini911 Posts: 2,325 Member
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    Interesting. Thanks!

    I've just used MFP up to now, i set myself to sedentary and just sync with fitbit and it adds calories. but i was wondering what maintenance would look like and curious what a TDEE calculator would say. (yes I also played around with MFP to see maintenance just not loving the numbers). I guess I need to just not worry about that now :P

    I always just found the definition of activity level strictly by "job" annoying. especially since i can't really log my steps as one easy walk, it's a bunch of small intentional periods of walking.

    My rehab doc (chiro) said to slowly test "normal activity" to see how things are going. I'm likely going to start with extra cycling to start (I want to bike to work). But my actual normal activity was 5km (before injury i was doing more 5-10+km). but i'll do cycling first and then once we establish where that leaves me, start a slow rehab running program (Sloooow rebuild) so it will be awhile before those really amount to any real calorie burn!

  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 13,757 Member
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    You're above highly active on MFP. Tops out at around 15
  • MikePTY
    MikePTY Posts: 3,814 Member
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    PAV8888 wrote: »
    You're above highly active on MFP. Tops out at around 15

    I've seen your step correlations here before, but I'll be honest, I don't understand them, as it seems like they give a lot of calories for not very many steps when you move up multipliers. Can you explain a little more about how they correlate?
  • NovusDies
    NovusDies Posts: 8,940 Member
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    I use TDEE because I have my own system of management that for me is superior to MFP. I know that my weight loss exceeds my logged deficit by about 100 calories per day for the last 4 months and unlike MFP I know how much weight I will lose in 5 weeks if I don't take any days off.
  • sefajane1
    sefajane1 Posts: 322 Member
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    NovusDies wrote: »
    I use TDEE because I have my own system of management that for me is superior to MFP. I know that my weight loss exceeds my logged deficit by about 100 calories per day for the last 4 months and unlike MFP I know how much weight I will lose in 5 weeks if I don't take any days off.

    Ooh, I'd like to know your superior system, if you don't mind sharing please?
  • Panini911
    Panini911 Posts: 2,325 Member
    edited May 2019
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    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    Panini911 wrote: »
    Interesting. Thanks!

    I've just used MFP up to now, i set myself to sedentary and just sync with fitbit and it adds calories. but i was wondering what maintenance would look like and curious what a TDEE calculator would say. (yes I also played around with MFP to see maintenance just not loving the numbers). I guess I need to just not worry about that now :P

    I always just found the definition of activity level strictly by "job" annoying. especially since i can't really log my steps as one easy walk, it's a bunch of small intentional periods of walking.

    My rehab doc (chiro) said to slowly test "normal activity" to see how things are going. I'm likely going to start with extra cycling to start (I want to bike to work). But my actual normal activity was 5km (before injury i was doing more 5-10+km). but i'll do cycling first and then once we establish where that leaves me, start a slow rehab running program (Sloooow rebuild) so it will be awhile before those really amount to any real calorie burn!

    If you've been logging here fairly meticulously, your own data ((calories eaten + (pounds lost X 3500))/number of days in period) will give you a more reliable maintenance estimate than any so-called "calculator", if you use your last month or so of data.

    I know but this is part of why I am looking at other calculators. for the past 6-8 weeks i've been putting ON weight. I've doubled down or weighing and logging. but the scale and trend has gone up 3lbs and isn't coming back. For a month i figured ok fine, water weight. but shouldn't that have moved on by week 6? and i'm not really doing anything that should cause that level of water weight. starting cycling but a few times a week and slow. doing rehab and acupuncture on my hips/quads. it's been stressful in my personal life. so maybe.

    I have a huge padding of exercise caloires I don't eat (I know I know). food scale for everything, rechecking and rechecking entries. nothing.


    there were 3-4 days in April I ate maintenance or more but not nearly enough to cause a GAIN. and again that was mid April.
  • NovusDies
    NovusDies Posts: 8,940 Member
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    sefajane1 wrote: »
    NovusDies wrote: »
    I use TDEE because I have my own system of management that for me is superior to MFP. I know that my weight loss exceeds my logged deficit by about 100 calories per day for the last 4 months and unlike MFP I know how much weight I will lose in 5 weeks if I don't take any days off.

    Ooh, I'd like to know your superior system, if you don't mind sharing please?

    It is a spreadsheet that I created. It has evolved over time but it started as an easy way to determine my actual weight loss compared to the weight loss I "should" lose from my calorie deficit. I kept adding everything I wanted to know but it all a bunch of different ways to evaluate the 2 daily data points of calories eaten and scale weight.
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 13,757 Member
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    MikePTY wrote: »
    PAV8888 wrote: »
    You're above highly active on MFP. Tops out at around 15

    I've seen your step correlations here before, but I'll be honest, I don't understand them, as it seems like they give a lot of calories for not very many steps when you move up multipliers. Can you explain a little more about how they correlate?

    Mike especially at the high limit above the MFP physical activity levels (i.e. in the 20K step range) I too am uncertain as to how fast the multipliers move as I suspect that there will be compensatory down-regulation as the step counts increase in the beyond 3-4 hour of activity ranges.

    However my step categories and PAL multiplier usage is in line with: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14715035 With personal confirmation of the findings while on a reasonable deficit with lots of fat available to lose.

    Now there do exist a lot of variables. Is the person standing all day and sprinting back and forth for short periods of time to accumulate the steps in multiple short bouts indicating constant activity (remember the person sorting packages?) or sitting all day and only getting up for a very long walk once a day (like I've done to my detriment at times)? Are they very heavy, medium weight, or very light weight as individuals as that seems to also affect the steps for each PAL level. None of this is captured.

    If you have some other correspondence between physical activity and steps I would be quite interested to find out what it is.

    My 15-16K steps = PAL 1.8 (MFP Very Active) is essentially saying that PAL 1.8 corresponds to 2.5 hours of physical activity that does not include deliberate non stepped based exercise per day.

  • Cahgetsfit
    Cahgetsfit Posts: 1,912 Member
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    I use TDEE personally. I set to moderate exercise. And that's because I do on average 4 sessions of weight lifting per week, plus one swimming and walk ~10 - 12K steps per day.

    Works for me. At least I don't have to worry about eating back calories and how many to eat and it mucking up my macros. That's what annoys me the most - mucking up my macros.

  • Sunshine_And_Sand
    Sunshine_And_Sand Posts: 1,320 Member
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    I prefer TDEE as well. I have a desk job, am not very tall (5'4"), and don't have too much to lose, so the calorie target MFP gives me looks pretty pitiful to me. I do have a pretty consistent purposeful exercise schedule in addition to my summer schedule of always walking it as a spectator to my kids' golf matches so that higher daily target I get with TDEE seems much more doable.
    Yes, logically I know it ends up being about the same calories per week either way but the psychological aspect of seeing the higher daily target helps me stay on track.
    I also find it helpful at times (for me) to use MFPs calculator and set the goals to goal weight maintenance and treat it like TDEE in that not eating back exercise calories. YMMV on how well this one works for you though. If you have a huge gap between goal and current weight, it's probably a bad idea as you would be undereating. If there isn't a big gap, it would be more like a slight deficit and feel like a nice break as well as give you an idea of how sustainable maintenance will be for you when you get there.

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