Question about TDEE calculators

AsellusReborn

Mmmkay, so I've been calorie counting and exercising for a month. (I realize that is not a long time, but I figured it was a good enough period of time to see if my calorie level is the right one for me.)


In a month, I've lost a pound. I tend to net around 1500ish calories; I measure and weigh my food so I think that's pretty accurate. I am 5'3" and 189lbs, and was hoping for a little more than a 1/4lb/week weightloss. (If that's all my body is going to give up a week...well, it is what it is then, but I'm hoping I can tweak things to get it going a little more - I have a lot of weight to lose.) For what it's worth I do know my pants are looser and I'm seeing some definition on my thighs, arms, and upper abs (my lower abs shall for the moment be called They Who Must Not Be Named...between having a baby and all of my weight liking to sit in my lower belly...yeah.)


I exercise daily; I'm on day 17 of the 30 day shred, rest days once a week. I also add 30 minutes of cardio sporadically and do about an hour of cardio on my rest day from the shred.


Anyway, that's all tl;dr background. MFP calculates my bmr as 1536ish. (Which means I've been netting under my bmr.)


Here is my question. Looking at TDEE calculators (http://www.fitnessfrog.com/calculators/tdee-calculator.html for example) do I put moderate activity? That's my guess because even though it's daily it's not like I'm working out hours every day. If so I get 2536 TDEE; -750 for ~1.5lb/wk loss it would be 1786, which is around where I've been eating.


So...am I doing something wrong? Should I be readjusting, stick it out another month...? Looking for input since imo what I'm doing isn't working, but if I just need to be slapped upside the head and told to be patient I can live with that too.

AsellusReborn

Bumping this up since it was falling off p1 and I know I don't look past p1 - maybe I'm just lazy though

llkilgore

I'd use the moderate exercise setting on that calculator unless you're been feeling physically run down by the amount of exercise you're doing or excessively hungry, in which case it might be better to move up a level.

If you've been feeling good generally, I recommend tweaking your calorie intake (or the percentage of exercise calories eaten back, if you use MFP's calculator) in small increments until your weekly weight loss comes closer to meeting your expectations.

In my case, I found I could stay on track to lose a pound a week by eating back about 2/3rds of the exercise calories reported by MFP.

heybales

That 3-5 days is about 1 hr a day, so 3-5 hrs weekly. And even there you can do the math and see how much credit you are getting for the exercise in there - not much.
So you are really at Very Active.

Here is another method since you are interested in getting your TDEE, I guess to take a deficit from, and properly fuel that workout.

Though I would recommend you are working out too much - never really giving the body a chance to recover.
if it can't recover and repair and rebuild stronger, then you'll find it can't do as much.
So if you are exercising for just the sake of calorie burn, you might as well lower goal and just walk.
If you are exercising for the sake of making some great body improvements - it needs the chance to do so, and everyday won't allow it. Eventually you won't be able to push as hard, even if it feels like it.

At least proper level of eating can help somewhat, but it must have time to use the nutrition too.

Use the spreadsheet referenced in this topic so you can log your stats and TDEE and deficit selected, and how to make the changes. And some common advice on the HRM tab.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/620206-spreadsheet-for-bmr-tdee-deficit-calcs-mfp-tweaks-hrm

AsellusReborn

Well, about 3-5 hours sounds right - the shred is 24 minutes a day, plus a random half hour of cardio here or there and an extra 30-60 minutes on Sundays. Probably comes out to 5-5 1/2 hours a week, so only very slightly above that. The rest of my day is very sedentary, I work from home.

rcthale

The tricky part of TDEE is that it assumes that you'll keep exactly the same activity level day-in, day-out. BMR is more reliable because it's mostly based on weight and age, things that don't change every day.

If you really have the time, you could start with BMR, plan your exercise for the day, then decide how many calories you want to be under. That is, BMR + Exercise - Deficit = Goal.

heybales

The tricky part of TDEE is that it assumes that you'll keep exactly the same activity level day-in, day-out. BMR is more reliable because it's mostly based on weight and age, things that don't change every day.

If you really have the time, you could start with BMR, plan your exercise for the day, then decide how many calories you want to be under. That is, BMR + Exercise - Deficit = Goal.

Actually, what's great about the TDEE method is it is a weekly avg taken down to daily avg.

So if you planned on 3 hrs a week and missed a workout, still time to make it up in the week.

Automatic calorie cycling too, because some days your net is higher, some is less, depends on the workout.

You mustn't keep the exact same each day.

BMR style works too though, in fact my spreadsheet referenced above has my original plan based more on that by Eating for Future You, based on BMR at goal weight, and activity. But it got ones too close and still stalled if not honest with activity.

And if you are doing BMR + exercise, there is absolutely no need to do a deficit, all your daily non-exercise activity between your BMR and your real TDEE is your daily deficit, about the max you can get that is mainly fat burning. You don't take a deficit in addition to that.