TDEE - What is it and why you should not eat below your BMR

mymodernbabylon

1) Don't forget to also include any activity outside of exercise - do you walk a dog, have children, run errands, etc? That can bump you up a level. What I've done in the past is try eating at the calories between the two levels that I might be in and that has worked well.

2) The TDEE includes your exercise calories so you don't eat them back. How big a cut are you doing? 15% is the max you should really do. If you are still hungry and doing 15%, perhaps for now go to a 10% cut or see if your TDEE is correct. (I'm doing a 10% cut)

mymodernbabylon

If you do exercise more than your normal TDEE would account for (let's say you normally do a 30 minute weight lifting session and choose to also go for a 30 minute run that day), you can eat back 1/2 of those calories if you so choose. But honestly, I don't as I'm not doing that extra exercise regularly.

Nayners21

AndreaDJ wrote: »

I am a new member, and I have a few questions:

1) Calculating a true TDEE based on your activity level. Should I be choosing my activity level based on HOURS of exercise or DAYS of exercise? On the Scooby calculator I choose light activity because it bases your activity level on HOURS. I do workout 3-4x per week but at only 30 minutes each time. I've noticed on here that you guys say choose moderate if you workout 3-5 DAYS per week. At first I had a hard time eating at cut value around 2100 calories, now I have no problem :-) but sometimes I find myself hungry.

2). Can I eat back my exercise calories IF THE BURN DOESNT PUT ME BELOW BMR? Cut is 2100 and BMR is 1700. I do 30 min of weights and burn about 150 cals. Can I eat those back? Lord please say yes.

If you watch the EM2WL YouTube videos they explain it very well!

heybales

AndreaDJ wrote: »

I am a new member, and I have a few questions:

1) Calculating a true TDEE based on your activity level. Should I be choosing my activity level based on HOURS of exercise or DAYS of exercise? On the Scooby calculator I choose light activity because it bases your activity level on HOURS. I do workout 3-4x per week but at only 30 minutes each time. I've noticed on here that you guys say choose moderate if you workout 3-5 DAYS per week. At first I had a hard time eating at cut value around 2100 calories, now I have no problem :-) but sometimes I find myself hungry.

2). Can I eat back my exercise calories IF THE BURN DOESNT PUT ME BELOW BMR? Cut is 2100 and BMR is 1700. I do 30 min of weights and burn about 150 cals. Can I eat those back? Lord please say yes.

1 - As you can hopefully imagine - picky from 5 rough levels is hardly going to give you a "true" TDEE, it is a rough estimate.

Is 4 days of walking for 30 min each the same as 4 days of running for 90 min each?

And that is ONLY talking about exercise increasing your daily activity, there is nothing there about daily activity outside exercise being more than a bump on a log. If you are not truly sedentary outside exercise, than lightly active daily life plus lightly active exercise level is Moderately Active combo.

Hunger can be sign body is trying to make improvements and speeding up. Then again body also sends out hunger pangs when it wants to get the fat level back to where it was.
So be careful.

2 - Only if you want to gain weight. Slowly, but still gain.
Your average TDEE is based on weekly exercise and averaged to a daily level. Those exercise calories are already accounted for in your avg TDEE.
You eat them back too, and every workout day you'll likely be eating over maintenance.
Which will be great for the workout performance/recovery, terrible for fat loss.

AndreaDJ

Thanks for all the feedback. It has helped.

This is all new for me. I lost about 50lbs on WW, but have plateaued for the last 5 months, losing and gaining the same 5lbs. I'm giving this a try, hoping it works. I have gained weight since the start which is VERY SCARY, but I'm willing to give this a try for the next 4-6 weeks.

Don't eat back the exercise calories unless I go beyond BMR; got it. I guess the reintroduction of food may have me going "ham." I have also invested in a fit it which will hopefully provide more accuracy regarding BMR and TDEE.

Thanks again.

heybales

It will for TDEE, but it's starting with the exact same BMR formula almost as MFP does.

Also, that is the calorie burn given to all non-moving time - so it actually underestimates your daily burn.

Also, increase calories slowly, because whatever level you were eating at - that is actually your TDEE right now. Your suppressed lower than potential TDEE.
The TDEE chart is a rough estimate of your potential TDEE, but that isn't it right now - or you'd be losing weight with the level you eat at.

So if you start eating 700 over what you ate and maintained at, and your body doesn't speed up fast enough, guess what, about 1 lb of fat a week will be added, tapering off slowly.

So only increase 100 more daily for a week at a time.
Then another 100.

AndreaDJ

Too late. I jumped in with both feet, but keep in mind I had NO IDEA how many calories I was consuming because WW is point based. I estimate it was around 1750-1900. Oh well. Fingers crossed. Thanks for the feedback; it's appreciated.