New here and a bit bewildered

doomspark

Ok... I have gone to the Scooby site and calculated my TDEE and so on. At least, I think so, since I'm not sure I did things correctly.

I am 51 years old, male, and 60 inches tall. I drive a desk and get very little exercise. I usually only eat twice a day.

I have no clue what to select for goal, or how to set those percentages for protein et al.

Help?

Kristendcampbell

Hello,

I am sure Heybales will come by at some point and give you his tips. As well as other pros here.

The biggest thing I keep seeing is people set their activity level too low, like sedentary when most are lightly active. I have a desk job as well but go do weights 3 times a week for about 30-40 min. So double check your activity

Then because it includes excercise you have a choice to manually set your calories here at MFP and not log your excercise. OR log it as 1 calorie so not to mess up things too much. Remember here if you log excercise it adds calories for you and we don't need that. You may want to go in and set your macros to 40 carb/30 protein/30 fat.

Then start increasing your calories with protein and veggies. Also a really good part ot what we have here is the website that also is linked to this group of people at www.eatmore2weighless.com Lots of reading for you as well as the stickies here.

Good luck.

AnitraSoto

^^^ Yep, good advice there. ^^^ Sounds like you might be Lightly Active since you do very little exercise... Just remember that if that changes and you add some exercise, go ahead and bump that activity level up.

Once you have your calorie goal, you can go into MFP and manually change your calorie goal to that number. It is generally recommended by EM2WL to change your macros to 40% Carbs, 30% Protein and 30% Fat (you can do that manually too, under Custom (not automatic) settings. Just try hard to get in that protein goal and the rest seems to naturally fall into place...

When you figure your TDEE, any exercise is already factored into that, so you will not (in this case) want to eat back those exercise calories that MFP gives you. Most find it easiest to enter their exercise into MFP, but then just change the calories burned to "1". That way you will still have a record of your exercise, but MFP will not give you extra calories to eat. Doing it this way is easy because that way your calorie goal, and more importantly your macro goals, won't get changed requiring you to do math to figure out your daily goals :-O

doomspark

Thanks. I will get this all set up, and them come back and report.

doomspark

BMR: 1682
TDEE: 2018
TDEE-20: 1615


Now I have to figure out how to actually eat 1600 calories in a day without loading up on junk.

And I have to figure out how to set my macros in MFP.

jbnl1991

Now I have to figure out how to actually eat 1600 calories in a day without loading up on junk.

This will get easier as you get used to eating more. I love nuts, so I add a handful of almonds with my morning snack. I say YES to avacado and guacamole now. I tossed those "light" salad dressings in the trash and make my own with olive oil. And I almost always have some peanut butter on my banana. I also regularly eat six ounces of meat instead of just four at a meal.

I predict that in a few months, it will be challenging for you to eat ONLY 1600!

Kristendcampbell

Depending on how long you have only eaten twice a day a full reset may be required. I would suggest slowly upping your calories 100 a day until you get to full TDEE and stay there for about 8weeks.

Then do the 15% cut 20 is a bit much right off the bat. You will want to go to the Eatmore2weighless.com site and read more about what to expect and other articles that will be helpful to you.