What is your actual TDEE?

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  • love2lift_85
    love2lift_85 Posts: 356 Member
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  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
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    That could be a possibility, but I still think that's unlikely.. .. It's a lot of veggies though.. My diary is open.. I check everything I log against labels and use the MFP entries not the user ones. .. Today is pretty typical of my days. If 1700 is my TDEE with all my exercise then I'm going to stop exercising. It's just not worth it.. I struggle to eat this much.. if I can eat less.. i'm all in.. I only wish I was kidding. Even if my bug is 10% off.. that still put me way above 1700, closer to what the iifym calculator says. I am still confused by all this stuff I guess. I know how to eat, I know how to exercise. but i an't put it all together for some reason..

    hmm.. could I be messed up because I was eating under 800 calories for 2/3 months straight last year? and have only been consistently eating at this level for the last few months?

    That's why this method can be really great if you start at the high end of the range - you can likely keep your metabolism up where expected.

    Sadly you started at the under healthy range, and likely have given yourself the upwards of 20% impact to metabolism some more recent studies are finding you can do.
    Now they did studies for 9 months and saw no correction to it eating at maintenance, they said likely lifetime, but they don't know.

    But at least for now, to finish losing the weight, you'll have to accept the fact you likely screwed yourself up, making this a more difficult journey - but at least you have numbers now.

    And yes, all that exercise, especially if cardio, didn't actually help the matter at all. What the study found is your body was just forced to become more efficient in all manner, getting calories out of food, during rest, during exercise even.

    Even right now, with all your exercise, your body could be slowing down some daily activity enough you really aren't impacting the day's TDEE as much as you think. Some people find burning 300 more in calories forced the body to slow down daily 200 calories - so only a 100 net gain in raising the TDEE.
    It's why some can start eating 200-300 more calories, and weight loss starts again, they started moving more daily. Ate 200 more, but moved 400 more in daily activity, and exercise got better.

    Anyway, if you trust your logging, then you got your TDEE now for whatever level of activity you are doing.
    Do less though as you mention above, you'll need to eat even less.
    Log accurately and recheck the figures with new routine in a month.
  • Confuzzled4ever
    Confuzzled4ever Posts: 2,860 Member
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    That could be a possibility, but I still think that's unlikely.. .. It's a lot of veggies though.. My diary is open.. I check everything I log against labels and use the MFP entries not the user ones. .. Today is pretty typical of my days. If 1700 is my TDEE with all my exercise then I'm going to stop exercising. It's just not worth it.. I struggle to eat this much.. if I can eat less.. i'm all in.. I only wish I was kidding. Even if my bug is 10% off.. that still put me way above 1700, closer to what the iifym calculator says. I am still confused by all this stuff I guess. I know how to eat, I know how to exercise. but i an't put it all together for some reason..

    hmm.. could I be messed up because I was eating under 800 calories for 2/3 months straight last year? and have only been consistently eating at this level for the last few months?

    That's why this method can be really great if you start at the high end of the range - you can likely keep your metabolism up where expected.

    Sadly you started at the under healthy range, and likely have given yourself the upwards of 20% impact to metabolism some more recent studies are finding you can do.
    Now they did studies for 9 months and saw no correction to it eating at maintenance, they said likely lifetime, but they don't know.

    But at least for now, to finish losing the weight, you'll have to accept the fact you likely screwed yourself up, making this a more difficult journey - but at least you have numbers now.

    And yes, all that exercise, especially if cardio, didn't actually help the matter at all. What the study found is your body was just forced to become more efficient in all manner, getting calories out of food, during rest, during exercise even.

    Even right now, with all your exercise, your body could be slowing down some daily activity enough you really aren't impacting the day's TDEE as much as you think. Some people find burning 300 more in calories forced the body to slow down daily 200 calories - so only a 100 net gain in raising the TDEE.
    It's why some can start eating 200-300 more calories, and weight loss starts again, they started moving more daily. Ate 200 more, but moved 400 more in daily activity, and exercise got better.

    Anyway, if you trust your logging, then you got your TDEE now for whatever level of activity you are doing.
    Do less though as you mention above, you'll need to eat even less.
    Log accurately and recheck the figures with new routine in a month.

    I don't really understand this.. I think you're saying that my metabolism is so slow.. that instead of bringing my tdee up when i exercise, my body slows it down further to compensate for the extra calories expenditure?? That just seems opposite to everything I've heard before..

    i don't know how long I wasn't eating enough.. I only became aware of it when I landed in the hospital. So you're saying that because of that.. even though I was eating too much for 34 years prior to that.. I've screwed my metabolism and can't get it back?

    None of this makes any sense to me.
    If you are struggling to eat as much as you are, then I can't see any harm in eating a bit less and seeing what happens, (as long as it's nothing too drastic) especially being that it seems there is an overestimate in play somewhere. Being that the online calculators seems to agree with your BMF, it is probably in your intake somewhere. I have no idea whether the VLCD would still be messing with your TDEE a year later, but eating at maintenance for a while was probably a good thing, whether you meant to or not. I would say just keep tracking everything and stay consistent.

    Well.. i'm think i'm going to stay at this level for now.. I am getting smaller, even if the weight is staying the same. If something doesn't give i'll play with the numbers *after* the holidays. Not going to stress about all this over Thanksgiving and Christmas. I will keep tracking everything.. i'm too afraid of dropping back down to unsafe calorie levels.
  • WalkingAlong
    WalkingAlong Posts: 4,926 Member
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    I do math like this, too. My Fitbit is accurate based on 35 lbs. of loss with it over a year. For a one-month sample period, I think water weight can throw things off. I just read a study too about 3500 calories not always equaling a pound of fat. I guess it varies.
    What's your TDEE?

    I track mine, as well.

    TDEE - exercise is right at 2800. Exercise averages 750 calories/day (running 30 day average).

    All in, 3550 calories/day. The correlation between expected and actual gain is > 0.99 across 3+ months of tracking, so I am highly confident in this number.

    Detailed breakdown:
    BRM: 2050
    NEAT: 2800
    Exercise: 750

    ETA: NEAT is about 200 calories/day higher (adjusted for body comp changes) than it was 4 months ago, before I started running. There hasn't been a change in daily activity levels outside of intentional exercise. You want a benefit of LISS/MISS? There it is. Half a pound a week "for free".

    NEAT is non-exercise activity thermogenesis, or what you burn from normal movement (not exercise, not BMR). How could your NEAT be 2800? If your total burn is 3550, of which exercise is 750 and BMR is 2050, your NEAT would be 750. And how could it be 200 calories higher now than before without any change in non-exercise activity?
  • QuietBloom
    QuietBloom Posts: 5,413 Member
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    That could be a possibility, but I still think that's unlikely.. .. It's a lot of veggies though.. My diary is open.. I check everything I log against labels and use the MFP entries not the user ones. .. Today is pretty typical of my days. If 1700 is my TDEE with all my exercise then I'm going to stop exercising. It's just not worth it.. I struggle to eat this much.. if I can eat less.. i'm all in.. I only wish I was kidding. Even if my bug is 10% off.. that still put me way above 1700, closer to what the iifym calculator says. I am still confused by all this stuff I guess. I know how to eat, I know how to exercise. but i an't put it all together for some reason..

    hmm.. could I be messed up because I was eating under 800 calories for 2/3 months straight last year? and have only been consistently eating at this level for the last few months?

    That's why this method can be really great if you start at the high end of the range - you can likely keep your metabolism up where expected.

    Sadly you started at the under healthy range, and likely have given yourself the upwards of 20% impact to metabolism some more recent studies are finding you can do.
    Now they did studies for 9 months and saw no correction to it eating at maintenance, they said likely lifetime, but they don't know.

    But at least for now, to finish losing the weight, you'll have to accept the fact you likely screwed yourself up, making this a more difficult journey - but at least you have numbers now.

    And yes, all that exercise, especially if cardio, didn't actually help the matter at all. What the study found is your body was just forced to become more efficient in all manner, getting calories out of food, during rest, during exercise even.

    Even right now, with all your exercise, your body could be slowing down some daily activity enough you really aren't impacting the day's TDEE as much as you think. Some people find burning 300 more in calories forced the body to slow down daily 200 calories - so only a 100 net gain in raising the TDEE.
    It's why some can start eating 200-300 more calories, and weight loss starts again, they started moving more daily. Ate 200 more, but moved 400 more in daily activity, and exercise got better.

    Anyway, if you trust your logging, then you got your TDEE now for whatever level of activity you are doing.
    Do less though as you mention above, you'll need to eat even less.
    Log accurately and recheck the figures with new routine in a month.

    I don't really understand this.. I think you're saying that my metabolism is so slow.. that instead of bringing my tdee up when i exercise, my body slows it down further to compensate for the extra calories expenditure?? That just seems opposite to everything I've heard before..

    i don't know how long I wasn't eating enough.. I only became aware of it when I landed in the hospital. So you're saying that because of that.. even though I was eating too much for 34 years prior to that.. I've screwed my metabolism and can't get it back?

    None of this makes any sense to me.
    If you are struggling to eat as much as you are, then I can't see any harm in eating a bit less and seeing what happens, (as long as it's nothing too drastic) especially being that it seems there is an overestimate in play somewhere. Being that the online calculators seems to agree with your BMF, it is probably in your intake somewhere. I have no idea whether the VLCD would still be messing with your TDEE a year later, but eating at maintenance for a while was probably a good thing, whether you meant to or not. I would say just keep tracking everything and stay consistent.

    Well.. i'm think i'm going to stay at this level for now.. I am getting smaller, even if the weight is staying the same. If something doesn't give i'll play with the numbers *after* the holidays. Not going to stress about all this over Thanksgiving and Christmas. I will keep tracking everything.. i'm too afraid of dropping back down to unsafe calorie levels.

    If you ate so little you ended up in the hospital, than yes, it could be permanent. There just aren't the studies yet that show it will come back.

    I like your idea of not stressing about it. I say keep doing what you are doing and keep an eye on everything.
  • QuietBloom
    QuietBloom Posts: 5,413 Member
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    Thanks for the clarification regarding exercise calories. I guess I need to face that fact, that as a (fairly) small older woman, I simply don't have that high of a BMR. :wink:
  • LiftAllThePizzas
    LiftAllThePizzas Posts: 17,857 Member
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    I do math like this, too. My Fitbit is accurate based on 35 lbs. of loss with it over a year. For a one-month sample period, I think water weight can throw things off. I just read a study too about 3500 calories not always equaling a pound of fat. I guess it varies.
    What's your TDEE?

    I track mine, as well.

    TDEE - exercise is right at 2800. Exercise averages 750 calories/day (running 30 day average).

    All in, 3550 calories/day. The correlation between expected and actual gain is > 0.99 across 3+ months of tracking, so I am highly confident in this number.

    Detailed breakdown:
    BRM: 2050
    NEAT: 2800
    Exercise: 750

    ETA: NEAT is about 200 calories/day higher (adjusted for body comp changes) than it was 4 months ago, before I started running. There hasn't been a change in daily activity levels outside of intentional exercise. You want a benefit of LISS/MISS? There it is. Half a pound a week "for free".

    NEAT is non-exercise activity thermogenesis, or what you burn from normal movement (not exercise, not BMR). How could your NEAT be 2800? If your total burn is 3550, of which exercise is 750 and BMR is 2050, your NEAT would be 750. And how could it be 200 calories higher now than before without any change in non-exercise activity?
    I think he's saying body comp changes raised his NEAT without having to increase activity level. (It's one of the things I hope to accomplish by adding skeletal muscle, too.)
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 9,986 Member
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    I started using MFP in August, and I've been doing this calculation every week on a trailing 8-weeks basis since the beginning of October. I do the calculation with net calories, to get a "pre-exercise" TDEE, but I've been fairly consistent in getting about five hours of low to moderate intensity exercise each week, so my gross calories average about 225 more.

    I started doing the calculations because I had initially selected sedentary (thinking I was somewhere between sedentary and lightly active) and 1 lb a week weight loss, and was averaging 2 lbs a week during the first two months, so I wanted to try to figure out if I could reset it lightly active, or whether that would be overshooting.

    My trailing 8-week mean TDEE before intentional exercise has ranged from 2028 to 2376 (median in that range is 2224), or about 2250 to 2625 with exercise. According to MFP's calculator, with "lightly active" as the setting (I have a desk job and pretty much any walking I do outside, even as part of my commute, I account for as logged exercise, so it's hard to see how I could be more than lightly active), my "calories burned from normal daily activity" (which should be the same as my TDEE before exercise calculation) is 1950, so even at the low end of my range of results, I'm burning about 175 calories more than MFP thinks I would be.

    Using the Harris-Benedict formula at www.bmi-calculator.net, I get a TDEE (including exercise) of 2159, assuming lightly active. That's only about 90 calories lower than the lowest trailing 8-week TDEE (including exercise) from my data. But I would think my "true" number is closer to that median of 2224 (2450 with exercise).

    If I use the "moderately active" coefficient of 1.55 at the bmi-calculator site, it's spot on for the 2450 median figure from my data, but I just have a hard time buying that someone who has a desk job, does nothing more strenuous than cooking and laundry at home, and accumulates five hours of light to moderate exercise a week (including the walking portion of my public transit commute, walking to nearby offices for events during the course of the work day, 9 flights of stairs to my office once or twice a day, a couple of mixed brisk walks/light jogs on the weekend, a little dancing, a bit of Pilates/yoga, and any yard work, such as raking, that I might do -- all of that totaling only five hours a week) is moderately active.

    I also have a hard time believing I'm consistently _overestimating_ my calorie intake by 200+ calories a day. This week I had my first gain since I started, and it followed a week in which I had to do a lot more estimating (no scale, no measuring cup, no chain restaurant or packaged food nutrition information because I was attending events where they just drop a plate of food in front of you) than usual, which suggests that when forced to estimate and guess, I'm more likely to underestimate.

    That seems to leave me with questioning the BMR calculation. I know it's an average, based on your age, gender, height, and weight, but I haven't seen any data on what the standard deviation for those averages is. Is it possible to have a BMR 200 calories above the average number and not be way out in the long tail of the distribution curve? (I don't think I'm a snowflake. :wink: ) Does anyone know at what age for a woman the BMR average figure essentially starts assuming you're menopausal?

    Well, maybe I really am moderately active, and I can look forward to my TDEE going up even higher when I start adding in real workouts. :smile: (Maybe I'm sleep-walking as a lumberjack or a construction worker...?)
  • SezxyStef
    SezxyStef Posts: 15,268 Member
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    Mine is 1995.

    I have tracked with a kitchen scale for the most accurate I can get since August 19th of this year.

    I initially started with TDEE Sept 9th so I would have a good round of data to work with...it was 1995 and has stayed there since.

    Regardless of inches lost, exercise I was doing 30DS when I measured my TDEE now I do SL 5x5 and it has been accurate.
  • LiftAllThePizzas
    LiftAllThePizzas Posts: 17,857 Member
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    Well, maybe I really am moderately active, and I can look forward to my TDEE going up even higher when I start adding in real workouts. :smile: (Maybe I'm sleep-walking as a lumberjack or a construction worker...?)
    I think the terms "lightly active" and "moderately active" etc can mean anything depending on who you ask. They're relative. I don't think I've ever heard anyone describe themselves as being on the extreme high end of the scale but obviously someone has to be or the scale wouldn't go that far. And lots of people describe themselves as sedentary when they are taking 10,000 steps a day, etc.

    IOW I think the people who made up those descriptors had a very different idea about what they meant. This is why it's good to use those calcs to get in the ballpark at first, but then do some fine tuning after you have collected at least a few weeks of data.:smile:
  • jofjltncb6
    jofjltncb6 Posts: 34,415 Member
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    Well, maybe I really am moderately active, and I can look forward to my TDEE going up even higher when I start adding in real workouts. :smile: (Maybe I'm sleep-walking as a lumberjack or a construction worker...?)
    I think the terms "lightly active" and "moderately active" etc can mean anything depending on who you ask. They're relative. I don't think I've ever heard anyone describe themselves as being on the extreme high end of the scale but obviously someone has to be or the scale wouldn't go that far. And lots of people describe themselves as sedentary when they are taking 10,000 steps a day, etc.

    IOW I think the people who made up those descriptors had a very different idea about what they meant. This is why it's good to use those calcs to get in the ballpark at first, but then do some fine tuning after you have collected at least a few weeks of data.:smile:

    Despite having a relatively sedentary desk job, I moved mine to "active" to get closer to my calculated burn. As has been said up there^ and prior, they're just guidelines for a good starting point...and then you make adjustments based on the results. This is another reason why it's important to track consistently and accurately for a while...so you can determine (hopefully) what needs to be adjusted. The more data and fewer variables, the better.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 9,986 Member
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    Well, maybe I really am moderately active, and I can look forward to my TDEE going up even higher when I start adding in real workouts. :smile: (Maybe I'm sleep-walking as a lumberjack or a construction worker...?)
    I think the terms "lightly active" and "moderately active" etc can mean anything depending on who you ask. They're relative. I don't think I've ever heard anyone describe themselves as being on the extreme high end of the scale but obviously someone has to be or the scale wouldn't go that far. And lots of people describe themselves as sedentary when they are taking 10,000 steps a day, etc.

    IOW I think the people who made up those descriptors had a very different idea about what they meant. This is why it's good to use those calcs to get in the ballpark at first, but then do some fine tuning after you have collected at least a few weeks of data.:smile:

    Despite having a relatively sedentary desk job, I moved mine to "active" to get closer to my calculated burn. As has been said up there^ and prior, they're just guidelines for a good starting point...and then you make adjustments based on the results. This is another reason why it's important to track consistently and accurately for a while...so you can determine (hopefully) what needs to be adjusted. The more data and fewer variables, the better.

    Yes, that's what I did too after I had the data (moved the setting from sedentary to lightly active after I had the data to justify it).

    It's good to know there are other people who think tracking this kind of data is worthwhile, so that even if I'm whacky, geeky, and obsessed, at least I'm not the only one. :smile:
  • Mr_Knight
    Mr_Knight Posts: 9,532 Member
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    It's good to know there are other people who think tracking this kind of data is worthwhile, so that even if I'm whacky, geeky, and obsessed, at least I'm not the only one. :smile:

    Hell no, you're not alone. Lots of "quantified self" types tracking themselves out the whazoo. :) I run daily correlations across multiple time frames to make sure expected and actual losses track to within 3%.
  • Mr_Knight
    Mr_Knight Posts: 9,532 Member
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    1694 with the maths. MFP estimates my maint at 1670. Scooby's gives me 1698. So.. all seems well.

    For all the special snowflakes floating around here, most people will find the online calculators are actually pretty good. Even the high body-fat types, as long as they use K-D and don't self-under-report their BF %age.
  • _TastySnoBalls_
    _TastySnoBalls_ Posts: 1,298 Member
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    To my wall
  • WalkingAlong
    WalkingAlong Posts: 4,926 Member
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    I think he's saying body comp changes raised his NEAT without having to increase activity level. (It's one of the things I hope to accomplish by adding skeletal muscle, too.)

    Are you sure you don't mean body comp changes raised his BMR? I don't see how you could raise your non-exercise activity thermogenesis without raising your non-exercise activity. It's the definition of NEAT.

    200 is a lot of calories. It would imply he added 20-34 lbs. of muscle in a few months. I'm not sure if that's possible, especially eating at a deficit.

    http://www.builtlean.com/2013/04/16/muscle-burn-calories/
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
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    That seems to leave me with questioning the BMR calculation. I know it's an average, based on your age, gender, height, and weight, but I haven't seen any data on what the standard deviation for those averages is. Is it possible to have a BMR 200 calories above the average number and not be way out in the long tail of the distribution curve? (I don't think I'm a snowflake. :wink: ) Does anyone know at what age for a woman the BMR average figure essentially starts assuming you're menopausal?

    The 1919 study for that Harris BMR was using healthy weight average fat to lean body mass participants.

    Since as you go up in weight you rarely keep that ratio of muscle to fat, they start inflating the BMR the heavier you get.
    That's why Mifflin BMR had an adjustment to the formula and is usually seen as 5% more accurate, especially as you go more overweight. But even it loses it.

    I've seen many examples of RMR tests done with Bodpod's, so it was seen if the RMR was expected for their amount of LBM, and pretty dead on usually including the Katch BMR, but the Harris BMR is 200-400 inflated based on age, weight, height. These were folks 60-80 overweight, and not lifters with good overweight.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
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    I don't really understand this.. I think you're saying that my metabolism is so slow.. that instead of bringing my tdee up when i exercise, my body slows it down further to compensate for the extra calories expenditure?? That just seems opposite to everything I've heard before..

    i don't know how long I wasn't eating enough.. I only became aware of it when I landed in the hospital. So you're saying that because of that.. even though I was eating too much for 34 years prior to that.. I've screwed my metabolism and can't get it back?

    None of this makes any sense to me.

    You are raising your TDEE when you exercise, no doubt about it.

    But what several studies have shown for those undereating, in order to leave you might say enough calories for the BMR functions, your other daily activity slows down, your NEAT.
    So while you may add 400 in exercise, you lose 300 in NEAT. So you do indeed gain 100 in TDEE overall - but not the 400 you think.

    The more recent studies have found that in addition to that effect, you body gets more efficient at everything, even exercise, and you don't burn as much. This is a suppressed TDEE. One study found up to 15%, another up to 20%.

    If you want to find out about it, this topic starts out with the studies, other studies are scattered throughout the post, along with great BBC report talking to 2 of the scientist with their comments.

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1077746-starvation-mode-adaptive-thermogenesis-and-weight-loss

    That's why the method being discussed of honing in on true TDEE is so useful. It could take years eating at maintenance slowly trying to raise your calories to totally repair that effect.
    So you might as well tackle the weight loss with the problem, and then hope you can survive in maintenance, and get it back later.
  • LiftAllThePizzas
    LiftAllThePizzas Posts: 17,857 Member
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    I think he's saying body comp changes raised his NEAT without having to increase activity level. (It's one of the things I hope to accomplish by adding skeletal muscle, too.)

    Are you sure you don't mean body comp changes raised his BMR? I don't see how you could raise your non-exercise activity thermogenesis without raising your non-exercise activity. It's the definition of NEAT.

    200 is a lot of calories. It would imply he added 20-34 lbs. of muscle in a few months. I'm not sure if that's possible, especially eating at a deficit.

    http://www.builtlean.com/2013/04/16/muscle-burn-calories/
    What I mean is that there would be a difference between me with 150 lbs of LBM and walking 5 miles a day, versus me with 160 lbs of LBM and walking 5 miles a day. It takes more energy (on the BMR side) to maintain muscle mass, and it also takes more energy to do stuff with it. IOW you wouldn't feel any difference between walking 5 miles from one scenario to the other and wouldn't need to change habits or anything, but you would end up using more calories to do it.

    (Not sure that it would account for an additional 200 a day though.)

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