Tracking Calories in a deficit

jauble

Wondering what other fitness professionals do. This may be along post, but would love to hear what you are doing.
This is a sample: I set a clients calories at 3000, after about 3 weeks of maintaining weight, we decide to do a calorie deficit. So let's say I now have them eating 2750 calories. They are supposed to eat this many calories no matter how many calories they burn, or do you tell them to do a double deficit?
When I assign calories initially it is based off of their activity level so what they might burn is already calculated, so I do believe they should be eating the calories, even if they are burning also.
I'm not the best at explaining this, but hopefully someone understands and can tell me what they do with their clients.

StaciInGa

I am not a fitness professional. But I have a pretty good handle on calories, data and numbers in general.

If you are assessing their total daily calorie expenditure, based on lifestyle/job/hobbies AND weekly average exercise to be 3000 calories daily, then yes you have already taken their exercise into consideration. So their calorie intake target should not increase/decrease based on exercise. If their lifestyle changes so that their TDEE changes, reassess.

Are you a fitness professional, or are you a client in a scenario like this? Is the client attempting to lose weight, maintain and add muscle, or something else?

cmriverside

I'm wondering how much training you had regarding calories in general.

Myfitnesspal uses the Mifflin St Jeor method of calculation. It sounds to me like you are using the more generalized TDEE method of estimation. If you're going to play dietician, then you need to understand the difference.

Here's a starting point: (read the imbedded links, too) https://support.myfitnesspal.com/hc/en-us/articles/360032625391-How-does-MyFitnessPal-calculate-my-initial-goals-

penguinmama87

cmriverside wrote: »

I'm wondering how much training you had regarding calories in general.

Myfitnesspal uses the Mifflin St Jeor method of calculation. It sounds to me like you are using the more generalized TDEE method of estimation. If you're going to play dietician, then you need to understand the difference.

Here's a starting point: (read the imbedded links, too) https://support.myfitnesspal.com/hc/en-us/articles/360032625391-How-does-MyFitnessPal-calculate-my-initial-goals-

Yeah, it matters a lot what particular method you use.

As far as recommendations for clients, they will be more accurate if they weigh everything using a basic food scale. It's very easy, when using volume metrics, to underestimate how much you're actually eating. The MFP recipe builder tool is really nice if a person cooks a lot at home (I can get to-the-gram nutritional data for the things I make myself.) Not everybody *has to* do this, but it's a good thing to check if weight loss stalls - probably the number one culprit is "I ate more than I thought I was" (or "I didn't think I had to count that.")

PAV8888

Tl;dr: I'll actually do you and your clients a real favor and suggest strongly that you read the sticky threads in this forum, in the getting started forum and in the exercise forum.

Yes, all this will be a full time job for the better part of weeks or a month but you will actually learn a lot of useful information and be in a position to offer useful advice.

I will leave my initial reply below because hey, I typed it already.

Professionals SHOULD either truly and fully understand NEAT, TDEE, TEF, EA, AF, BMR/RMR (preferably the difference between them too but hey, let's not overdo the asking), Mifflin, Harris, Kash, plus the short and long term effects of deficits and overages and how they relate to performance and goals... or they should consider that they have no business offering diet suggestions from a position of professional authority until they do

Understanding the tools they are using (MFP in this case) helps too. MFP by default does not use TDEE. Instead it uses NEAT+EA to determine a final AF and caloric goal.

Since most certifications apparently include at least an absolutely minimal nutritional module I suggest, strongly, that you go back and review it. And by preference avoid offer dieting services till you do all that.

westrich20940

It sounds like what you are saying is that when you calculate their calorie goal to begin with -- you are using the TDEE method - which takes into account intentional activity. If this is true, once you subtract some calories to create a deficit....as long as their activity level stays roughly the same - they shouldn't change anything other than eating the fewer cals.

If you are saying they then become MORE active...then you would need to recalculate the TDEE with their new activity level and subtract cals to create a deficit from there.

If I'm understanding what you are saying right.

tomcustombuilder

You can use whatever calculator you want that sounds reasonable however none of it matters if the person is inaccurate with their calorie counting and tracking. Most people, especially those new to all of this can in some cases be off by a LOT. some studies show upwards of 50% and some only count cherry picked days where they were low cal.

As far as what to figure in as far as exercise calories there is no hard, fast rule. Some add all exercise cals, some do 50% and some say don’t eat back those calories. After working with a client for awhile you’ll get into a rhythm with things and get it figured out however it may take a few months. Regardless of all the equations, theories, etc it will all come down to trial and error to get it right or close enough to have a good understanding of how to approach things.

If your client was maintaining at 3,000 and that included exercise then going into a deficit amount will include exercise and no further additions to daily amounts to compensate. If a person has a fairly consistent weekly exercise program you can just usually figure a daily amount and not try to figure in the exercise amounts every day.

Exercise is a small number in the overall weekly TDEE amount. Some people have lower NEAT on days they exercise so many times the exercise calories are a wash and sometimes can even go the other direction and actually have a lower TDEE because of the exercising.

Under estimating calorie intake and overestimating exercise calories burned are common so it will be trial and error to get things right.