anyone try eating at tdee for a month?

agentventi

What results did you get?

acpgee

I took a 3 week diet break last year to break a plateau. My weight fluctuated upwards a little first week (probably glycogen replenishment) but I was back to my lowest weight prior to diet break at the end of three weeks. When I started restricting again, the scale started moving again (albeit slowly).

martyqueen52

I always eat 100 calories above TDEE, which for me is 2600, so 2700 is my number.

At first my weight shot up about 3 lbs from Glycogen because I stopped carb cycling. My body still looked the same just my muscles were a lot fuller and not so soft. My strength went up a large amount too which finally allowed me to break new PR's in the gym.

Anyhow, I was sort of on a permanent cut at 2300.... but shooting up to 2700 was a huge shock to my body, so don't be alarmed if you see something like that as well.

PS - The weight scale is the WORST THING IN THE WORLD to measure progress... so many factors can change your daily weight.

cwolfman13

I've been eating at TDEE for 7 months and my results have been to maintain...which is what you would expect from eating your TDEE. TDEE is just your maintenance calories...so you maintain. Keep in mind that all of these calculators are just starting points...nobody has a TDEE of exactly some number these calculators spit out...it takes trial and error.

hananah89

I ate about at my TDEE for 3 or 4 weeks a few weeks back and the only thing I gained was the 1-2lbs of water weight you get when you stop dieting. I was actually pretty happy about that considering all the social things I had going on that month.

geekyjock76

You need a reference point, though, and must take in to account such things as: how large of a deficit the person pursued, their starting fat mass, total weight lost, magnitude of fat loss versus lean mass loss, the time frame in which weight loss occurred, magnitude of decrease in energy expenditure, etc. All these variables will determine what would happen when someone suddenly increases calories up to adjusted TDEE following chronic calorie restriction.

For example, a person who rapidly lost a significant amount of weight due to an eating disorder will likely need to eat well beyond their adjusted TDEE initially to illicit any recovery of weight since they'd be hypercaloric and rather resistant to weight gain. In such a person, the vast majority of weight recovered will come from fat mass and water weight with very little recovery of lean mass.

In contrast, a person who lost 10 lbs in 20 weeks with a 250 calorie deficit will only recover a few lbs of water weight when increasing calories to adjusted TDEE.

sijomial

What results did you get?

Maintained my weight (as you would expect...), added a little LBM, lost a little bit of fat.

darrensurrey

What results did you get?

Maintained my weight (as you would expect...), added a little LBM, lost a little bit of fat.

I guess the issue is that although you're eating at TDEE, you're lifting, so as you build LBM your TDEE slowly goes up. If you continue to eat at your original TDEE, you will be eating at a deficit!