More luck eating back exercise calories, or TDEE - 20%?

dellieve

I'm currently going a bit nuts trying to figure out the best way to not only lose weight, but keep it off and maintain the healthy lifestyle that comes along with it.

I started with the standard way of putting my details into MFP, wanting to lose 2lbs a week (as everyone does), and I've slowly evolved through the different ways of calorie deficits, to the point where I think I'm becoming slightly OCD.

At the start, I was well undereating what I should have, and not eating back exercise calories, slowly moving into still undereating but starting to eat back exercise calories.

Eventually I moved onto changing my weight loss goal from 2 to 1.5, and eating back all exercise calories.

About a month ago, I then worked out all my BMR/BF% details, and started basing it on TDEE -20%, but I was still netting under my BMR every day.

I know i'm probably going to get a lot of differing opinions here, as people love arguing for what they believe in, but I'm kinda more after what you've found that you've had your best results from.

I'm not in a hurry with weightloss, but I'd like to at least get into the right way of thinking so that going into maintenance it won't be much of a change from what I'd already be accustomed to.

I went through the spreadsheet from here...
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/620206-spreadsheet-for-bmr-tdee-deficit-calcs-mfp-tweaks-hrm

And going by the MFP Tweaks one, it's telling me to set my daily goal at 1950 and eat back exercise calories, (which would work out to be a daily intake of about 2400) yet going by the TDEE (Deficit is 0.7% of current weight, to potentially allow gaining LBM during deficit), it says I should eat 2056 daily, and not eat back exercise calories..which I'm guessing would lower me below my BMR...

Righto, just confused myself again..

So..advice?

beachlover317

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/654536-in-place-of-a-road-map-2-0-revised

Try this site. It will help you unmuddle your mind. It helped me too, as I am a little OCD as well. Good luck!

dellieve

Ok, read through that entire topic, and what i'm getting from everything now is to make sure I net my BMR.

So, I'm gonna try that. It's more than I've usually eaten over the past 6 months, but it's worth giving a shot, so I'll try netting just over BMR, and eating back exercise calories, and see what sort of results I see.

beachlover317

I was afraid - okay VERY afraid to up my calories. But I could not believe the amazing amount of energy I had this week. I have worked in the yard every day for about 3 hours. This is not me. This has never been me. I feel amazing. However, having said that, tomorrow is weigh in. So time will tell. Good luck!

PFJules

For me the two numbers are pretty much the same lol!

LorinaLynn

For me the two numbers are pretty much the same lol!

Same here. It's more a matter of whether I prefer to eat about the same every day, regardless of exercise, or to eat more on heavy exercise days and less on lighter days. Even though I go with MFP's numbers, I'm not so strict with them... Sometimes I'm more hungry the day after a long run, so I'm not going to stress about hitting my numbers if I know I'm going to make it up the next day.

HeidiMightyRawr

I never really properly calculated my TDEE, but that seems to be what I'm most close to following.

I used to eat 2000 + exercise calories, but found it hard on my 2 rest days to stick to just 2000 (I was ALWAYS over) So I then decided to eat 2300 each day regardless of exercise (my average weekly burn / 7 was 300) and I find this a lot easier, and I feel it's actually helping me this way!

_stephanie0

i net my bmr san eat exercise calories...that worked better for me!!

mcarter99

Your BMR has nothing to do with today's intake. There's no reason you can't eat below it.

I would do the TDEE -20% method personally.