TDEE Advice - Sedentary or "Moderate" Exercise

I am 35, 5'11" and 233 lbs. and work a desk job, I started at 275 lbs ~39% bf and my goal weight is 190 with 15% bf.

Most TDEE calculators give me 2600 calories for the "Sedentary" selection

So I have been for the last 4 months been using 2600 as my benchmark to calculate calories to eat. My aim was to lose 2 lbs per week until i get to the 215 mark and then reassess. So my calories to eat has been 1600 for last 4 months and I eat back roughly 100% of my exercise calories.

I typically exercise 5-7 times per week, 2-3 lifting weights, 2-3 lunch basketball sessions, and hiking or walking 18 holes golf on the weekend.

When I choose the moderate exercise option (~5 days) in TDEE calculators I usually get ~3400 calories. Which would make my goal 2400 calories with my 2lb per week goal.

That means on a weekly basis I should be burning 800 * 7 = 5600 calories if I follow this method.

5600 calories is really large amount of calories to burn and just seems like I don’t hit that on a typical week of exercise, maybe if I got all 8 of the above things in a week, even then it seems high.

I would like to stop tracking exercise and move to the other model I just don’t feel comfortable with it yet. Anyone have any advice to share or should I just stick with the method Ive been using and track/eat back calories from exercise.

Thanks ahead of time for feedback.

Replies

  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    Which calculators are you using? I checked it on IIFYM.com (both H-B and M-SJ) and didn't get such a high TDEE for the 5 day option or such a crazy difference (the difference was more like 500/day).
  • jearle99
    jearle99 Posts: 10 Member
    Fitness Frog, IIFYM (Harris Benedict), 3 others on google search results.

    I guess its more like 700 per day which isnt bad