Have I underestimated TDEE??

jordymils

I am about 2 weeks into my metabolism reset. I was unknowingly eating 1200-1300 calories for a few months or so (filling up on veggies etc so was never really hungry and didn't know I was under eating) and when I realized I upped my intake but was still eating too low and floated between 1500-1800 for about 6 months, before I found EM2WL. That said, my weight loss journey started 2 years ago, have since lost 30kg, and for a long time I didn't count calories so could have been under eating then too, hence my thinking a reset would be best. 

I am now eating  2315 cals per day (and feeling very full and bloated, normal I know!) and will continue this for another 6-8 weeks, depending on my weight changes etc. Thus far I haven't actually gained anything. 

My question is this: I know we should never have a net intake below our BMR (mine is 1493) even when cutting calories by 15%, and my TDEE with 15% cut is 1968. I do crossfit 4 times a week plus 1-2 40 min walks and sometimes one other HIIT resistance program like 30 day shred, but 4 crossfit sessions is my minimum. According to my heart rate watch, I burn an average of 600 calories in a session but am obviously also lifting heavy during the sessions so will have after burn as well. 
When I cut and eat at 1968, the 600 calorie burn will leave me at a net intake below my BMR, so have I underestimated my TDEE?? I used the scooby calculator and put in moderate activity... The next one up is strenuous and would put my TDEE at 2576 and with a 15% cut it would be 2190, which would put my net intake around 100 calories ABOVE my BMR when cutting. Does that sound more accurate? If so, I imagine that would also explain why I haven't gained anything since starting the reset? Not sure I could eat another 200 calories right now!!

My stats are female, age 24, height 166cm, weight 68kg.

Sorry this was so long but really hope someone can clarify my confusion!!

Noor13

If you are regularly netting below your BMR, you have underestimated your TDEE, yes.
If you are not quite sure if you are falling into the next category of your activity level, just chose a number in between as your TDEE.
We always tend to underestimate our activities, and you seem to be very active, from what I read.
Try to go up a bit and see what happens

AnitraSoto

^^^ Yep, it sounds like you have definitely underestimated your TDEE (most likely confirmed by the lack of any weight gain at that level...) Bump it up another level and go from there :-)

jordymils

Thanks for the replies!!
Honestly not sure how I'll manage to get in the extra calories, let alone the extra protein, but I'll do my best.
Any tips on getting extra protein for a lactose intolerant vegetarian would be greatly appreciated :P I already have 1-2 serves pea/rice protein each day plus eggs, nuts, beans, etc etc but it's a struggle some days!!

One more quick question - if my activity level went back to just 4 crossfit sessions with 3 rest days each week, do you reckon I'd still be above moderate activity? I also have a fairly active job as a nanny and at farmers markets, so spend minimum 50% of my working day on my feet...

trosewine

One way to lower your calorie intake is to cut out some of your exercise. Easy solution!

heybales

Be aware too your HRM, even if setup with exact test measured stats of VO2max and HRmax, would be inflated for crossfit type workout, and HIIT.

Why?

The formula for calculating calories burned based on HR is only valid with _aerobic_ zone exercise that is steady state, meaning same HR for 2-5 min.

Because when you are going steady, and then get more intense, your HR shoots up higher than it needs to be, evidenced by the fact when you remain at that intensity for 2-5 min, it will lower by 5-10 BPM in there somewhere.

If you never hold steady, you have inflated HR compared to actual effort put forth. That's going to read as more calorie burn than reality.

Also, lifting and HIIT is not aerobic, but anaerobic, and no where near steady-state.
The increase in HR there is not based on required more oxygen, because being anaerobic you actually don't need the oxygen. The increased HR is for other reasons.

So you are not burning 600 per session, even if HRM was setup with tested stats. Which I doubt it is anyway.

Also, the HRM, and tables, are reporting what you burned for say the whole hour. Say 600.
But being in a diet, you already have every hour of your day accounted for with an average amount burned.
By your TDEE estimate, that's 2315, almost 2400 say, daily.
So you are already accounting for 100 calories an hour to be burned by all your activity.

Pretend the 600 was factual, you only burned 500 more than what is already accounted for.
Take off the inflated calorie burn of your workouts, and you don't have to worry about Netting your BMR.

You can use this to estimate between levels with actual time of workouts. Because your daily work time counts too incase it is not just sedentary desk job.
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1018770-better-rough-tdee-estimate-than-5-level-chart

But I'd agree, probably time to lighten up the workouts.

Exercise tears down the body if done right.
Rest for recovery and repair is what actually builds it back up stronger, if diet allows.

Where is your rest for those really hard crossfit efforts?

jordymils

Be aware too your HRM, even if setup with exact test measured stats of VO2max and HRmax, would be inflated for crossfit type workout, and HIIT.

Why?

The formula for calculating calories burned based on HR is only valid with _aerobic_ zone exercise that is steady state, meaning same HR for 2-5 min.

Because when you are going steady, and then get more intense, your HR shoots up higher than it needs to be, evidenced by the fact when you remain at that intensity for 2-5 min, it will lower by 5-10 BPM in there somewhere.

If you never hold steady, you have inflated HR compared to actual effort put forth. That's going to read as more calorie burn than reality.

Also, lifting and HIIT is not aerobic, but anaerobic, and no where near steady-state.
The increase in HR there is not based on required more oxygen, because being anaerobic you actually don't need the oxygen. The increased HR is for other reasons.

So you are not burning 600 per session, even if HRM was setup with tested stats. Which I doubt it is anyway.

Also, the HRM, and tables, are reporting what you burned for say the whole hour. Say 600.
But being in a diet, you already have every hour of your day accounted for with an average amount burned.
By your TDEE estimate, that's 2315, almost 2400 say, daily.
So you are already accounting for 100 calories an hour to be burned by all your activity.

Pretend the 600 was factual, you only burned 500 more than what is already accounted for.
Take off the inflated calorie burn of your workouts, and you don't have to worry about Netting your BMR.

You can use this to estimate between levels with actual time of workouts. Because your daily work time counts too incase it is not just sedentary desk job.
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1018770-better-rough-tdee-estimate-than-5-level-chart

But I'd agree, probably time to lighten up the workouts.

Exercise tears down the body if done right.
Rest for recovery and repair is what actually builds it back up stronger, if diet allows.

Where is your rest for those really hard crossfit efforts?

Thank you for your response.
I understand that the calorie burn is most likely an overestimate for a crossfit session, or HIIT, for the reasons you outlined but I figured that because crossfit also involves heavy lifting which leads to afterburn, it would probably even out over the day. That said, I don't rely on the HRM at all, I just use it every now and then to see what the burn is so I can see if I've had an off day, etc. Out of curiosity, more than a number to base calculations on.

A little more detail of my activity:
I currently work as a nanny 3 days (9 hours each) per week to twin toddlers, on the floor of a gym one day and selling at farmers markets 1-2 days per week. So most of my work involves me being on my feet.
I do 4 crossfit sessions per week, 1-2 walks (usually while at work with toddlers in pram or on treadmill if the gym is quiet and I get bored) and the last couple of months I have been doing 1 pole fitness class per week but I only have 3 more weeks of that and will not be continuing. So then I'll be going back to 4 days of crossfit and 1-2 walks, but these are at a moderate pace and I'd consider them more of a leisure activity, rather than 'exercise'...

I just used the formula from the link you posted to estimate my TDEE. I underestimated my working hours (I'm not on my feet 100% of the time while at work..) so have calculated that with 25 hours work on my feet (about half of my actual hours, although this is probably an underestimate) and 4 hours crossfit, my numbers came out at 1.823 x 1500 = 2,734. I didn't even include the pole fitness class or walking and this number is WAY higher than what the scooby calculator said.
There are so many different formulas, how do I know which one is more accurate?!

I genuinely enjoy exercise so do more of it because it makes me feel good, but I think once my pole fitness classes are finished I will scale back to my usual 4 crossfit sessions with nothing more than light walking for the rest of the week...

heybales

I would suggest basing observations using the HRM on what the HRM was actually designed to do - monitor your HR.

Look and record your avg and max HR for the session. That will be much more useful than calorie burn.

For instance, you could have a decently high HR for avg, but it was obtained by a nice spread of hard intense efforts with a high maxHR and good recovery.
Or you see the same decent avg HR, but the max is much lower than normal. If it felt like you were pushing just as hard - you must not have really been. Were you tired, ate poorly day before or pre-session, slept badly, ect?

That's how you start to tell what helps. But calorie burn for both the sessions would be about the same since the avgHR is the same.

Great job wanting to track, it is very useful.

The afterburn for a good heavy overload to the muscles is in the next 24 hrs, the repair work if a good workout. So that's the next day where you have a lighter routine hopefully, so you have extra calories there to cut in to. Besides, with what you eat going more towards repair, it just means the increased metabolism is burning more fat - don't need to eat those calories back.

The formula in that link for TDEE, is actually the same formula ALL the TDEE tables use. If you read down the posts I have another one that spells it out.
Take say the 4 hrs you may have thought made you Moderately Active and run it through the formula, now that matches Scooby and any other site for that level, right.
The only difference is deciding how your hours fit in to that table.
As most can easily recognize, 1 hr of walking is not the same as 1 hr of running as 1 hr of standing moving slightly.
So those divisions of hours to use is based on some studies that several sites base TDEE estimates on, as well as the spreadsheet.

So your 25 hrs on your feet counts as 3 hrs of decent activity. And that's exactly why even without exercise, you are in the Lightly Active level already, 1-3 hrs.
Start adding in 4 hrs of exercise now, and you just bumped up to other levels. But walking counts too, just not nearly as much, but that bumps you up too.

Ya, you are burning a lot of calories, and your TDEE is really upwards of that high.
Now if you want even better than that estimate, use the spreadsheet.

jordymils

Everything you said with regards to my activity level makes sense, and sounds more logical than basing it solely on exercise level. I've always wondered how the online calculators work when 2 people could have the same stats and exercise level, but one works a desk job and the other works on their feet all day, yet they would be given the same BMR and TDEE because it only asks for activity level based on exercise, rather than daily activity plus exercise.

I just used the simple setup tab on your spreadsheet (the other tabs look far more complicated than I have time to decipher right now) and it gave me a TDEE of 2368, which is much closer to what I got from the scooby calculator than the other manual calculation. And that's why I get so confused, because I'm constantly getting different numbers....

heybales

Everything you said with regards to my activity level makes sense, and sounds more logical than basing it solely on exercise level. I've always wondered how the online calculators work when 2 people could have the same stats and exercise level, but one works a desk job and the other works on their feet all day, yet they would be given the same BMR and TDEE because it only asks for activity level based on exercise, rather than daily activity plus exercise.

I just used the simple setup tab on your spreadsheet (the other tabs look far more complicated than I have time to decipher right now) and it gave me a TDEE of 2368, which is much closer to what I got from the scooby calculator than the other manual calculation. And that's why I get so confused, because I'm constantly getting different numbers....

Do stick on the Simple Setup tab for the figures, and the Progress tab for, well, logging stats.

The others are if you want the studies and reports that led to the figures. For instance the TDEE Deficit tab shares the studies the Activity Calculator is based on. And some people have more hours of exercise, but because of what it is, it knocks it back down to a lower level compared to the simple TDEE chart.

HRM tab is general info, useful if you want HR zone training, or good calorie burn estimator based on HR.
MFP Tweak tab if your exercise is too variable and you want to do eat-back style like MFP uses, but using a reasonable deficit.

So the rough 5 levels is just that, rough. The formula those 5 levels is based on can be used by itself too, as that post go in to, but you gotta adjust the hrs better.

Oh, if you think the TDEE levels are bad when one is desk job and one is on their feet, think about the bad cases I've seen where someone walks 1 hr x 6 days a week, and is told to use Very Active. Same as someone running or biking or gym classes 6 days a week - huge difference in burns there, and one doesn't lose weight usually.

Was Scooby using your Katch BMR? It may be close to your Mifflin or Harris you used there, but spreadsheet does use Katch if you did the bodyfat calc.

jordymils

Was Scooby using your Katch BMR? It may be close to your Mifflin or Harris you used there, but spreadsheet does use Katch if you did the bodyfat calc.

I just went back and had a look. It was originally using the Harris formula, but when I change it to the Katch formula and use my average body fat % from the spreadsheet, I get an even lower TDEE (2296 vs 2315 using Harris). Even when I bump it up to strenuous activity I get 2576 (2566 with Katch) which is still significantly lower than the 2700+ I got using the manual formula from your other post.

As I'm only 2 and a half weeks into reset, I think I'll stick with the 2315 for now and see how I go. As I haven't gained anything yet, and am actually seeing some positive changes in muscle definition, I suspect I probably am eating too low for TDEE but I think the only way to really know is to bump up my cals by 100 at a time until I see a gain on the scales.

Tricky business it is with all these number and estimates!!

heybales

You are correct on only way to test to confirm.

Eat 250 more daily for 2 weeks.

If you really were at TDEE already, that increase would cause 1 lb gain slowly over 2 weeks.

jordymils

You are correct on only way to test to confirm.

Eat 250 more daily for 2 weeks.

If you really were at TDEE already, that increase would cause 1 lb gain slowly over 2 weeks.

Sorry just to confirm, do you mean to eat an extra 250 calories each day for 2 weeks, meaning I'd be eating 2,565 every day instead of 2,315? Not to increase calories by 250 calories each day, right?

Thanks so much for your help

heybales

You are correct on only way to test to confirm.

Eat 250 more daily for 2 weeks.

If you really were at TDEE already, that increase would cause 1 lb gain slowly over 2 weeks.

Sorry just to confirm, do you mean to eat an extra 250 calories each day for 2 weeks, meaning I'd be eating 2,565 every day instead of 2,315? Not to increase calories by 250 calories each day, right?

Thanks so much for your help

Only 250 more daily, not each day more.

You know the math for fat right, 1 lb = 3500 calories.
250 x 14 days = ....

jordymils

Only 250 more daily, not each day more.

You know the math for fat right, 1 lb = 3500 calories.
250 x 14 days = ....

Yep, got it. Thanks again!