TDEE Calculations

PitBullMom_Liz

Question, possibly a silly one. When calculating TDEE, my activity options are:

Little or no exercise (ex: desk job)
Light exercise (ex: exercising 1-3 days/week)
Moderate exercise (ex: exercising 3-5 days/week)
Heavy exercise (ex: exercising 6-7 days/week)
Daily exercise (ex: exercising 7 days/week and working a physical job)

So, I lift 3x a week. Is that moderate excercise? Because quite frankly, it feels pretty heavy to me but heavy is only based on days per week, not effort. What do you all use? I sit at a desk all day (or stand now that I've rigged it for standing) but that doesn't contribute to exercise at all, LOL.

lwoodroff

it's not just the lifting, it's the housework, shopping, walking around, everything else. someone posted a helpful calculator which I can't remember right now where you adjust the wheels for each activity.

help! someone! please..

MK608

I use the little or no exercise option since I work a desk job. Someone had suggested that I exclude my exercise from the option... so, if I don't count my runs and lifting, I'm spending most of my time at work and at my desk. Hope that helps!

tc41586

I lift 3x a week also, and try to get a few runs in... I chose sedentary so that I eat back my exercise calories rather than moderate and not eating them back... I just read another thread on this, I'll look for the link...

I think that lifting would definitely be considered moderate exercise!

chubby_checkers

it's not just the lifting, it's the housework, shopping, walking around, everything else. someone posted a helpful calculator which I can't remember right now where you adjust the wheels for each activity.

help! someone! please..

If you find that link, let us know. Sounds like it would be a help!

@liz: I go by sedentary. I have desk jobs and sedentary hobbies. Any other activities (walks, cleaning, shopping, etc) I just consider a bonus.

randomtai

I lift 3 days a week and take care of 4 kids. You better believe I use moderate.. Mama needs her foods. :laugh:

BikerGirlElaine

I think what I started with was the average of light and moderate. Which turned out to be too low for me.

I think the important thing is to pick whatever you like, but to monitor how your feel and how your results are. If you're tired/crabby/haaaangry and the scale drops faster than you anticipated, eat more. If the scale moves up when you want to maintain or stays the same when you want to lose, eat less.

I was told to use 8 weeks of data when possible, but I started adjusting my intake based on my results after I had 4 weeks.

This link explains what has worked for me:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/819055-setting-your-calorie-and-macro-targets

bumblebums

Yep, I do what Elaine does--eat a fixed amount every day (well, except for days when I am 600 calories over, ahem) and monitor my weight and energy levels. It's so much easier, and there is less guesswork.

PitBullMom_Liz

Thanks for all the feedback. I'd love to see that TDEE scale with the sliding scale things if it can be found! I think I'd like to eat just a fixed amount, but I'm still unsure where to base that. I've been doing 2000 but it feels like an awful lot of food (not that I mind!) and I don't feel like I'm losing any fat. That being said, tomorrow will be the end of week 3, and I'm going to take pics at the end of week 4 to compare to day 1. So I guess I should just sit tight until then.

bumblebums

This calculator seems to get closer to my TDEE than the others:

http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/

Still low-balls it by about 200 kcal, but it does better than the IIFYM.com calculator, which underestimates it by 600 kcal.

I am going to guess that 2000 is indeed a deficit for you, as long as you are tracking accurately. You might be able to tolerate a bigger deficit, but the only way to find out is to try it. Have you asked the ETP guys to look at your intake?

PitBullMom_Liz

Not yet - I've just recently started weighing my food, and I think they ask that you give your plan several weeks before asking for help. I've only been trying this for three (and weighing for one), so I didn't want to bother them yet.

Each calculator I've tried seems to give my TDEE as 2400 for light activity and 2700 for moderate activity. So I'm either eating at a deficit of 400 or 700, I guess. I suppose I'm just being impatient, which is a common problem for me. I just get jealous of all the people who switch to paleo/primal and instantly drop 10lbs, or start lifting and eating at a deficit and feel inches just melting off within a couple weeks. This is why I've always quit exercising in the past - not fast enough results! But I enjoy lifting immensely, so no worries of me quitting this at least.

bumblebums

Not yet - I've just recently started weighing my food, and I think they ask that you give your plan several weeks before asking for help. I've only been trying this for three (and weighing for one), so I didn't want to bother them yet.

Each calculator I've tried seems to give my TDEE as 2400 for light activity and 2700 for moderate activity. So I'm either eating at a deficit of 400 or 700, I guess. I suppose I'm just being impatient, which is a common problem for me. I just get jealous of all the people who switch to paleo/primal and instantly drop 10lbs, or start lifting and eating at a deficit and feel inches just melting off within a couple weeks. This is why I've always quit exercising in the past - not fast enough results! But I enjoy lifting immensely, so no worries of me quitting this at least.

Well, here's why people "instantly drop 10 lbs"--when you reduce your carb intake (as you inevitably do on a Paleo diet), you tend to flush a lot of water weight out. That's how these low carb diets tend to cause rapid weight loss initially. For very obese people, it can be as much as 20 lb or more. (I think that's how the Biggest Loser losses happen in the first couple of episodes.) You are already lifting, though, so water retention from new exercise can counteract what you might lose from going low-carb.

About whether your deficit is 400 or 700 kcal--it's hard to tell given how short your accurate tracking span has been. But the more fat you have to lose, the larger a deficit you can tolerate. If you are feeling okay on 2000 calories, that's probably not a bad level for you, at least for a while. Stick with it for 4-6 more weeks and see where it takes you.

By the way, this might be a worthwhile read:

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/setting-the-deficit-small-moderate-or-large.html

(Along with just about everything else Lyle McDonald has written on the topic of fat loss; the guy really is quite smart.)

PitBullMom_Liz

Thanks for the link - bookmarked it to read later.

mimi337

Bump

lwoodroff

Try this one. http://www.health-calc.com/diet/energy-expenditure-advanced
Work out your weekly totals and divide to make an average day, I think! I will put the link in the useful sticky :-)

PitBullMom_Liz

This is fantastic! But cripes it's setting my TDEE high. Not that I'm complaining but 3 weeks of eating at a (apparently somewhat large!) deficit and my weight is bouncing around up and down 2 lbs. Patience, patience, patience.

TriLifter

I've used a bunch of TDEE calculators but couldn't get an acurate read on anything. I finally got a Fitbit for Christmas, and it changed my life (no joke). I have a desk job, but even on days when I don't work out, it's actually higher than the calculators would give me for sedentary (was closer to lightly active on a complete rest day!). Once I got the Fitbit, the guessing was all over.

bumblebums

So Lyle McDonald estimates TDEE by multiplying body weight in pounds by about 15, give or take 2 (depending on activity level). For me, TDEE is body weight times 16. Pretty much spot on. Can you ladies try this and tell me how close it gets to yours?

PitBullMom_Liz

That makes it really high. I weighed in at 219 this morning *insert swearing as my weight went UP*, so multiplying that by 15 is 3285. Doing it times 14 is 3066 and by 13 is 2847. You said give or take 2 so I went lower since I'm pretty sloth-ish. That calculator with the sliding buttons (very cool by the way) puts me at 2780.

lwoodroff

body weight x 16 for me is 2880, higher than the slidey button one by about 3-400 cals.. maybe as you carry more 'excess' weight it is less accurate? I think my body fat is around 30%..

PitBullMom_Liz

I figure I'm about 50% fat. LOL