TDEE vs NEAT

PAV8888

also @richiechowns , not sure why you and @heybales are using estimates IF YOU HAVE YOUR OWN 3+ weeks of data.

You could just pluck in Calories taken in + weight TREND change in Calories = estimate of actual TDEE + a percentage if your previous period was a deficit. Then continue to refine as the weeks roll on.

REGARDLESS of the "nomenclature" of the method used, it remains important to adjust up or down for any increase or decrease in exercise OR activity calories. i.e. you should capture any changes to your base level of Calories, regardless of provenance and regardless of what was originally included.

If you forgot to add petting the cat in your original totals... then it would be legit to add petting the cat Calories. And if you included petting the dog; but didn't perform your dog petting duties, then you should subtract your petting the dog calories to maintain the desired balance!

richiechowns

PAV8888 wrote: »

also @richiechowns , not sure why you and @heybales are using estimates IF YOU HAVE YOUR OWN 3+ weeks of data.

You could just pluck in Calories taken in + weight TREND change in Calories = estimate of actual TDEE + a percentage if your previous period was a deficit. Then continue to refine as the weeks roll on.

REGARDLESS of the "nomenclature" of the method used, it remains important to adjust up or down for any increase or decrease in exercise OR activity calories. i.e. you should capture any changes to your base level of Calories, regardless of provenance and regardless of what was originally included.

If you forgot to add petting the cat in your original totals... then it would be legit to add petting the cat Calories. And if you included petting the dog; but didn't perform your dog petting duties, then you should subtract your petting the dog calories to maintain the desired balance!

That's actually funnier than you'll realise as my son was pretending to be a cat yesterday, so I was petting a cat of sorts!

I'll have a bash at working through my data shortly over the last 3 weeks or so.

paperpudding

This all seems very complicated to me.

I would start by putting my stats in to MFP and accurately eat the given amount for 1 month.

At the end of 1 month look at whether you have lost at expected pace.

If so, continue.
If not adjust your calories up or down accordingly.

which I think is what Pav was getting at too, albeit in more jargony language than me.

( He's probably been eating too many cucumbers )

richiechowns

paperpudding wrote: »

This all seems very complicated to me.

I would start by putting my stats in to MFP and accurately eat the given amount for 1 month.

At the end of 1 month look at whether you have lost at expected pace.

If so, continue.
If not adjust your calories up or down accordingly.

which I think is what Pav was getting at too, albeit in more jargony language than me.

( He's probably been eating too many cucumbers )

I'm looking to recomp, maintenance cals or a slight surplus, so not losing weight. Also I get big adjustments on exercise through Garmin, so the eat back exercise calories I don't think would work for me.

Seems easier to calculate TDEE based on my average weeks exercise and then eat the same cals each day regardless?

ahoy_m8

Good post. I do think accurate terminology makes a difference to those trying to understand. There is a lot of misinformation out there. Imprecise terminology only further confuses matters.

FWIW, I'm a long time maintainer, my intentional exercise is extremely consistent week to week, and I also use the TDEE method based on my own data (which is also very close to online calculators). In other words, my weekly exercise is averaged into my daily calorie allowance (which is the same every day).

ahoy_m8

I posted before realizing this is a zombie thread. Just thought (hoped?) SezxyStef was back.

PAV8888

One option is to discount your watch data and ignore it.

The other option is to evaluate how accurate it is.

I've gone through this exercise several times in the past starting from when I was losing rapidly, then slowly, then while maintaining, I found my Fitbit to be quite accurate over sufficient time (my off road walking/hiking primary exercise is fairly friendly to step counters, less than flat paved roads but more than other)

So in the past I've had errors or unexplained calories not exceeding 5% of TDEE during any rolling 60+ day period tested (frankly only once during a 30 day time period). Mostly less than 3%. Even though 3% is almost 100 Cal, I can certainly work with that!

Yesterday i repeated the exercise for the 90 days between March 7 and June 5 during which I applied an apparent ~6.17% of TDEE deficit of ~167 Cal a day, dropping 4.3 very real trending weight lbs.

The error for me bracketed between a 1.65% overstatement of TDEE and a 2% understatement.

Unless you have reason, or interest, for such levels of detail, a rough estimate of how wrong your Garmin might be based on past results, plus being guided by your actual hunger signals should be more than enough, assuming you continue to weigh yourself and observe your weight trend, in order to push on a small slow surplus.

While I no longer regularly engage in such detailed calculations I was somewhat curious as to how close the numbers would align given that I believe my loss at this time to be pretty much 1:1 fat to non fat mass and that I've observed an approximately 5 to 10 BPM drop in Fitbit calculated resting heart rate scaling with size of deficit while, in general, due to COVID my activity level is a bit lower than in the past

Of interest to me was a drop of about 170 to 270 calories of TDEE with a 30-40 minute reduction in average walking activity (M, 54y, 172.25cm, 150-155lbs).

Of equal interest was that hunger scaled fairly well with the drop as long as I wasn't buying take out and oh Henry bars in quantity

SezxyStef

ahoy_m8 wrote: »

I posted before realizing this is a zombie thread. Just thought (hoped?) SezxyStef was back.

I still lurk...;)

kshama2001

paperpudding wrote: »

This all seems very complicated to me.

I would start by putting my stats in to MFP and accurately eat the given amount for 1 month.

At the end of 1 month look at whether you have lost at expected pace.

If so, continue.
If not adjust your calories up or down accordingly.

which I think is what Pav was getting at too, albeit in more jargony language than me.

( He's probably been eating too many cucumbers )

Yes, especially for people who are new and confused. You're here at MFP. Let MFP do the calculations. Follow for a month and then adjust as needed.

PAV8888

I blame the cucumbers! Nice to see @SezxyStef lurking: even if an EXTRA year late... boy oh boy the cucumbers that could be consumed in a year!