TDEE- can someone explain and help me?

berrydana7

I was looking around at the forums and i frequently saw BMR, TDEE. can someone explain to me what TDEE is? i did some research on it but i still don't really understand. if you want to lose weight, you would want to have a calorie deficit so how come when i put my information in a TDEE calculator, the recommended calorie intake was higher than the one MFP recommended?
i am wondering, which is better for fat and weight loss faster - based off TDEE or the one recommended by my fitnesspal which for me is 1200?
i am 5ft 2, 18 yrs old, sedentary lifestyle and 118 pounds

Hildy_J

Hi there,

To lose weight, you need to take off 10% (as you're already in the healthy BMI range) off that TDEE calculation in order to find your daily calorie goal.

The TDEE and MFP methods add up to the same... With MFP you log and eat back your exercise calories, with TDEE you don't need to log activity, as it's built in.

Some people find they're too hungry on 'rest' days on the MFP method, as 1200 is pretty low. Others swear by it. It's a case of trial and error, really - finding out what works best for you.

All the best

SezxyStef

I was looking around at the forums and i frequently saw BMR, TDEE. can someone explain to me what TDEE is? i did some research on it but i still don't really understand. if you want to lose weight, you would want to have a calorie deficit so how come when i put my information in a TDEE calculator, the recommended calorie intake was higher than the one MFP recommended?
i am wondering, which is better for fat and weight loss faster - based off TDEE or the one recommended by my fitnesspal which for me is 1200?
i am 5ft 2, 18 yrs old, sedentary lifestyle and 118 pounds

Both methods are fine you just pick the one that you want to use.

I am personally going or fat loss and lifting weights...so it is hard to calculate the calories burned by that so hard to know what to eat back so I use TDEE-15% (as I want to still lose weight as well).

As well just remember a calorie deficet of any kind will help you lose the weight but if you are more interested in fat loss and being slim and fit try lifting.

bridgie101

TDEE means Total Daily Energy Expenditure.

I plugged you into a calculator and got 1882 cals a day for you to maintain/stay the same, and that was when I put in there that you do light exercise, which on the calculator said 'exercise 1 - 3 days a week.' You would exercise that often wouldn't you? I thought more.

If you don't exercise at all, says the machine, you get 1643, which is not much.

http://www.fitnessfrog.com/calculators/tdee-calculator.html

People who do the 'tdee' diet will take that number and take away 20% to make a safe, reliable, sustainable loss without losing muscle mass.

So that'd be 1882 - 376 = 1506 calories to eat a day.

How much you would lose in a week goes like this:

376 x 7 = 2632 calories in deficit a week.

it takes 3500 calories to make a pound of fat. So you would be losing 2632/3500, or .75 of a pound every week. And it would be a safe loss.

MPF works a different way. It doesn't ask you to reduce your eating by a percentage of your needs. It simply wants to reduce your eating by a set number of calories. And you tell it how many calories to reduce.

So you might have told it you were sedentary and it thought your tdee was 1643. And then told it you want to lose a pound a week.

It would then say: 1 pound of fat = 3500 calories. 3500 calories divided by 7 days equals 500 calories a day to reduce, to lose 1 pound of fat a week.

and then it would say 'but we can't let you go below 1200. that's our minimum calorie number.' So instead of taking off 500 calories a day, it's taking off 443 calories a day. so it would have put your calories to eat per day at 1200 and told you you would lose almost a pound a week.



What sedentary means: it means there is no muscle mass. Which means that person doesn't use as many calories resting as someone with more muscle does resting. That's why the machine needs to know how active you are. It isn't factoring in your exercise. It's factoring in the cost of running your muscles at rest.

Now: someone will jump in I am sure if I don't have my facts straight but I think I've got it fairly right.

berrydana7

TDEE means Total Daily Energy Expenditure.

I plugged you into a calculator and got 1882 cals a day for you to maintain/stay the same, and that was when I put in there that you do light exercise, which on the calculator said 'exercise 1 - 3 days a week.' You would exercise that often wouldn't you? I thought more.

If you don't exercise at all, says the machine, you get 1643, which is not much.

http://www.fitnessfrog.com/calculators/tdee-calculator.html

People who do the 'tdee' diet will take that number and take away 20% to make a safe, reliable, sustainable loss without losing muscle mass.

So that'd be 1882 - 376 = 1506 calories to eat a day.

How much you would lose in a week goes like this:

376 x 7 = 2632 calories in deficit a week.

it takes 3500 calories to make a pound of fat. So you would be losing 2632/3500, or .75 of a pound every week. And it would be a safe loss.

MPF works a different way. It doesn't ask you to reduce your eating by a percentage of your needs. It simply wants to reduce your eating by a set number of calories. And you tell it how many calories to reduce.

So you might have told it you were sedentary and it thought your tdee was 1643. And then told it you want to lose a pound a week.

It would then say: 1 pound of fat = 3500 calories. 3500 calories divided by 7 days equals 500 calories a day to reduce, to lose 1 pound of fat a week.

and then it would say 'but we can't let you go below 1200. that's our minimum calorie number.' So instead of taking off 500 calories a day, it's taking off 443 calories a day. so it would have put your calories to eat per day at 1200 and told you you would lose almost a pound a week.



What sedentary means: it means there is no muscle mass. Which means that person doesn't use as many calories resting as someone with more muscle does resting. That's why the machine needs to know how active you are. It isn't factoring in your exercise. It's factoring in the cost of running your muscles at rest.

Now: someone will jump in I am sure if I don't have my facts straight but I think I've got it fairly right.

very detailed! thanks so much!
yep i do exercise a few times a week although if i don't exercise, i am sitting down so i put sedentary as my activity level if that is right.
hmm so both of these calorie calculation methods are equivalent in a sense but for MFP it tells you to eat your calories back while for TDEE its the amount of calories it recommends you to eat regardless of exercise or not?
TDEE is still a bit confusing still because it's telling me to eat more calories :huh:

berrydana7

Hi there,

To lose weight, you need to take off 10% (as you're already in the healthy BMI range) off that TDEE calculation in order to find your daily calorie goal.

The TDEE and MFP methods add up to the same... With MFP you log and eat back your exercise calories, with TDEE you don't need to log activity, as it's built in.

Some people find they're too hungry on 'rest' days on the MFP method, as 1200 is pretty low. Others swear by it. It's a case of trial and error, really - finding out what works best for you.

All the best

okay i will stick to MFP for now since i am not too hungry even though i'm eating 1200 but maybe later i will experiment with TDEE

yarwell

What sedentary means: it means there is no muscle mass.
Now: someone will jump in I am sure if I don't have my facts straight but I think I've got it fairly right.

Sedentary means most of your day is spent sitting down - an office job - rather than standing up - a salesperson or waiter

bridgie101

TDEE means Total Daily Energy Expenditure.

I plugged you into a calculator and got 1882 cals a day for you to maintain/stay the same, and that was when I put in there that you do light exercise, which on the calculator said 'exercise 1 - 3 days a week.' You would exercise that often wouldn't you? I thought more.

If you don't exercise at all, says the machine, you get 1643, which is not much.

http://www.fitnessfrog.com/calculators/tdee-calculator.html

People who do the 'tdee' diet will take that number and take away 20% to make a safe, reliable, sustainable loss without losing muscle mass.

So that'd be 1882 - 376 = 1506 calories to eat a day.

How much you would lose in a week goes like this:

376 x 7 = 2632 calories in deficit a week.

it takes 3500 calories to make a pound of fat. So you would be losing 2632/3500, or .75 of a pound every week. And it would be a safe loss.

MPF works a different way. It doesn't ask you to reduce your eating by a percentage of your needs. It simply wants to reduce your eating by a set number of calories. And you tell it how many calories to reduce.

So you might have told it you were sedentary and it thought your tdee was 1643. And then told it you want to lose a pound a week.

It would then say: 1 pound of fat = 3500 calories. 3500 calories divided by 7 days equals 500 calories a day to reduce, to lose 1 pound of fat a week.

and then it would say 'but we can't let you go below 1200. that's our minimum calorie number.' So instead of taking off 500 calories a day, it's taking off 443 calories a day. so it would have put your calories to eat per day at 1200 and told you you would lose almost a pound a week.



What sedentary means: it means there is no muscle mass. Which means that person doesn't use as many calories resting as someone with more muscle does resting. That's why the machine needs to know how active you are. It isn't factoring in your exercise. It's factoring in the cost of running your muscles at rest.

Now: someone will jump in I am sure if I don't have my facts straight but I think I've got it fairly right.

very detailed! thanks so much!
yep i do exercise a few times a week although if i don't exercise, i am sitting down so i put sedentary as my activity level if that is right.
hmm so both of these calorie calculation methods are equivalent in a sense but for MFP it tells you to eat your calories back while for TDEE its the amount of calories it recommends you to eat regardless of exercise or not?
TDEE is still a bit confusing still because it's telling me to eat more calories :huh:

the TDEE calculator site was very clear about what the choices were and what they meant (I find MFP a bit fuzzy on this) and it said quite clearly "sedentary, no exercise...., light activity exercising 1 - 3 times a week" Light activity was the one I picked, erring on the side of caution because I've seen you exercise most days, if not every day.

I'm not quite clear about eating exercise calories though. i think with the TDEE you don't eat back exercise calories, as they are already calculated into that tdee - but I just don't know. I really don't know. I use the MFP system, because I'm old, and I'm at home after an operation so I'm rather lazy and so not so hungry, and that means my calorie requirements aren't high. I'm also fat. I can push for 1kg a week weight loss because I'm so far from my goal. I don't think I'm going to get away with it much longer though.

aliencheesecake

Hi there,

To lose weight, you need to take off 10% (as you're already in the healthy BMI range) off that TDEE calculation in order to find your daily calorie goal.

The TDEE and MFP methods add up to the same... With MFP you log and eat back your exercise calories, with TDEE you don't need to log activity, as it's built in.

Some people find they're too hungry on 'rest' days on the MFP method, as 1200 is pretty low. Others swear by it. It's a case of trial and error, really - finding out what works best for you.

All the best

Thanks! That helps!