TDEE calculator - how much should I eat?

Sarah21797

Hello. I am a 25 year old female, 5 foot 5 and 120lbs. I am wanting to maintain my weight.

I have used the MFP calculator and my calories to maintain are suggested to be 1650 a day. I chose the sedentary option as I do not do any specific workouts etc. But I do get 10k steps in a day which when added on gives me about 100 extra calories a day to eat, so 1750.

Does this sound about right for maintaining?

Sarah21797

I forgot to add that I recently had my ACL operated on hence the limited workouts but once I am back up and running I will horse riding daily so will
Probably need more calories then

Lietchi

Where are you getting that number of 100 extra calories for 10k steps? That level of steps corresponds with active on MFP, I believe, and certainly not sedentary, which would give you more than 100 calories extra.
Also to clarify: MFP's activity level settings are meant to reflect your activity level not counting workouts (so your job, chores, etc.). So if you do start working out again, you should log that separately and you'll get extra calories.

And one last comment: the MFP calculator, as well as any calculator you'll find, just gives you an estimate based on population averages. Some people aren't average and need more/less calories than average. So if you choose a calorie goal, monitoring your real life results (your weight trend) will tell you if that number is right for you or not. And then you can make adjustments: increase calories if you start losing weight, lower calories if you start gaining.

Sarah21797

Thank you that’s really helpful. Well I got 100 calories from syncing my steps as calculated on my phone with MFP. It was giving me around 100 calories extra a day with approx 10k steps. Does that make sense? Thank you

Lietchi

Sarah21797 wrote: »

Thank you that’s really helpful. Well I got 100 calories from syncing my steps as calculated on my phone with MFP. It was giving me around 100 calories extra a day with approx 10k steps. Does that make sense? Thank you

Do you mean to say you have step tracker app on your phone, that's linked to MFP? Or an actual activity tracker (Fitbit, Garmin, Apple,...) that is synced with MFP?

Sarah21797

Just an Apple Watch that is synced and doing on average 10k steps a day and this appears in my exercise on MFP as 100 calories a day give or take a few

Lietchi

I apologise beforehand for making things more complicated but Apple doesn't always sync well with MFP, which might explain so few extra calories for 10k steps.

The way things work (in theory) with synced tracker is:
- Apple sends over your total calorie burn for the day to MFP and sends over individual workouts with their calorie burn
- MFP compares your total calorie burn as per your chosen activity level on MFP +the workout burns it received from your tracker, to your total calorie burn according to Apple
- the difference is what gives you the calorie adjustment

There are several reasons why you would have a low calorie adjustment from 10k steps:
- Apple does not send over the correct number to MFP (a known issue, even though it apparently doesn't malfunction for everyone)
- Those 10k steps were partly included in a workout

If you're interested in figuring out if your Apple is syncing well or not, I can give you some explanations on numbers you could look up to check.
If not, 1750 calories sounds perfectly reasonable as a starting point, and you can then correct based on your weight trend (and adjust when you start to do more exercise).
I have a tracker synced (Garmin) and I've always followed the calorie goal given by MFP +adjustments according to the calorie burns my Garmin sends over. It works great for me, but it's something each person will have to assess for their own situation since there are individual differences in metabolism and how accurate trackers are for us.

sijomial

Some issues that jumped out at me....

Apple doesn't send the correct numbers over to MyFitnessPal - I wouldn't sync it.

"I have used the MFP calculator and my calories to maintain are suggested to be 1650 a day"
Not exactly - it's 1650 + exercise calories.
Your title suggests you are using a TDEE calculator but this isn't actually a TDEE calculator, it's TDEE minus exercise.

"I chose the sedentary option as I do not do any specific workouts etc"
That isn't a good reason to choose sedentary as it's absolutely nothing to do with purposeful exercise. It's your daily/weekly actvity and movement excluding purposeful exercise. Look carefully at the descriptors and you will notice that exercise isn't mentioned at all. That's because it's estimated separately and only after you do it rather than a predicted average.

"But I do get 10k steps in a day which when added on gives me about 100 extra calories a day to eat, so 1750."
That highlights that Apple isn't sending correct data over.
10k steps outside of exercise should be reflected by your activity setting, way above sedentary.
(But with caveat that you are recovering from injury are you still getting all those steps in?)

If you want a TDEE estimate I'd suggest using this one - https://www.sailrabbit.com/bmr/

ahoy_m8

Cannot comment on the details of synching devices, but generally speaking, your numbers --1750 kcal at 10k steps daily-- sound in the ballpark to me.

Sarah21797

sijomial wrote: »

Some issues that jumped out at me....

Apple doesn't send the correct numbers over to MyFitnessPal - I wouldn't sync it.

"I have used the MFP calculator and my calories to maintain are suggested to be 1650 a day"
Not exactly - it's 1650 + exercise calories.
Your title suggests you are using a TDEE calculator but this isn't actually a TDEE calculator, it's TDEE minus exercise.

"I chose the sedentary option as I do not do any specific workouts etc"
That isn't a good reason to choose sedentary as it's absolutely nothing to do with purposeful exercise. It's your daily/weekly actvity and movement excluding purposeful exercise. Look carefully at the descriptors and you will notice that exercise isn't mentioned at all. That's because it's estimated separately and only after you do it rather than a predicted average.

"But I do get 10k steps in a day which when added on gives me about 100 extra calories a day to eat, so 1750."
That highlights that Apple isn't sending correct data over.
10k steps outside of exercise should be reflected by your activity setting, way above sedentary.
(But with caveat that you are recovering from injury are you still getting all those steps in?)

If you want a TDEE estimate I'd suggest using this one - https://www.sailrabbit.com/bmr/

Thank you! That one gives me even less! How confusing! I think I’ll do 1750 and see what happens? Thank you

sijomial

Sarah21797 wrote: »

sijomial wrote: »

Some issues that jumped out at me....

Apple doesn't send the correct numbers over to MyFitnessPal - I wouldn't sync it.

"I have used the MFP calculator and my calories to maintain are suggested to be 1650 a day"
Not exactly - it's 1650 + exercise calories.
Your title suggests you are using a TDEE calculator but this isn't actually a TDEE calculator, it's TDEE minus exercise.

"I chose the sedentary option as I do not do any specific workouts etc"
That isn't a good reason to choose sedentary as it's absolutely nothing to do with purposeful exercise. It's your daily/weekly actvity and movement excluding purposeful exercise. Look carefully at the descriptors and you will notice that exercise isn't mentioned at all. That's because it's estimated separately and only after you do it rather than a predicted average.

"But I do get 10k steps in a day which when added on gives me about 100 extra calories a day to eat, so 1750."
That highlights that Apple isn't sending correct data over.
10k steps outside of exercise should be reflected by your activity setting, way above sedentary.
(But with caveat that you are recovering from injury are you still getting all those steps in?)

If you want a TDEE estimate I'd suggest using this one - https://www.sailrabbit.com/bmr/

Thank you! That one gives me even less! How confusing! I think I’ll do 1750 and see what happens? Thank you

Which activity / exercise level are you picking as that surprises me?
I was expecting you to get more than 1750, not less.

If you are doing 10k steps you should not be picking sedentary (if that is what you are doing).

AnnPT77

Sarah21797 wrote: »

sijomial wrote: »

Some issues that jumped out at me....

Apple doesn't send the correct numbers over to MyFitnessPal - I wouldn't sync it.

"I have used the MFP calculator and my calories to maintain are suggested to be 1650 a day"
Not exactly - it's 1650 + exercise calories.
Your title suggests you are using a TDEE calculator but this isn't actually a TDEE calculator, it's TDEE minus exercise.

"I chose the sedentary option as I do not do any specific workouts etc"
That isn't a good reason to choose sedentary as it's absolutely nothing to do with purposeful exercise. It's your daily/weekly actvity and movement excluding purposeful exercise. Look carefully at the descriptors and you will notice that exercise isn't mentioned at all. That's because it's estimated separately and only after you do it rather than a predicted average.

"But I do get 10k steps in a day which when added on gives me about 100 extra calories a day to eat, so 1750."
That highlights that Apple isn't sending correct data over.
10k steps outside of exercise should be reflected by your activity setting, way above sedentary.
(But with caveat that you are recovering from injury are you still getting all those steps in?)

If you want a TDEE estimate I'd suggest using this one - https://www.sailrabbit.com/bmr/

Thank you! That one gives me even less! How confusing! I think I’ll do 1750 and see what happens? Thank you

It will give you less if you put in "sedentary". 10k steps is not sedentary. In Sailrabbit terms, I'd say it's at least lightly active (1800-1900+ calories), maybe higher (2000+).

I'm around your size, 5'5", 125 pounds, and about a zillion years older (65). Even granting that I'm mysteriously a good li'l ol' calorie burner for someone our size (let alone my age), when sedentary (for real, like 3k steps daily, sometimes less), I'd lose close to a pound month at 1750 (without exercise).

If you're persistently sedentary while recovering (*well* under 5k steps daily), then maybe 1750 is worth trying. Otherwise, it sounds low, honestly.

If you're still healing/recovering, I'd suggest erring on the high side, if going to err. Healing requires nutrition *and* calories. Prioritize healing. If you guess 100 calories too high, it'll take over a month to gain a pound.