TDEE 15 or 20% cut?

DizzyLinds

I'm not sure which value to use when working out my TDEE?

MissKTMc

Are you referring to total daily energy expenditure? How active are you? If you can tell me roughly how much activity you do in a day and the nature of your work (sitting at a desk/ mostly standing/ waitressing etc) I can give you your PAL which can be multiplied by your BMR to calculate your TDEE. To work out your BMR I need your height, weight and age.
This is what I do for a living by the way so you're guaranteed that the info I give you back is as accurate as possible without using an objective measure.

angelina2585

I use this calculator

http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/

and a 15% cut of TDEE.

Is that what you're after?

DizzyLinds

Just want to know why 15 or20%?

I'm pretty active exercising 4-6 times per week. I'm a teacher so on school holidays at the mo, so just daily activity on top of my workouts.

Height: 4ft 11
Weight 56.4kg
Age:28

angelina2585

20% can be too big a cut because once you exercise, those calories burned can net you below BMR and then you'd eat more to net above. If you believe in always netting at or above BMR.

15% is not too big a cut - for me it's 300 calories - so it's slower but sustainable.

There's even 10% cut I'm thinking of dropping to that number after I finish my CUT break which weekend. I've been eating at TDEE for just over 3 weeks and maintained.

I've lost my weight slowly so am happy for it to carry on slower. Not too much suffering hunger wise.

I think that if I was doing the 20% cut I'd probably have binged a few times. At a smaller deficit I'm able to include things that I would normally see as 'bad' food on a 'diet'. With this method I'm eating nuts, oils, avocado, full fat cottage cheese.

MissKTMc

I'm confused as to this 15 or 20% business, could you elaborate??

DizzyLinds

It's how much you make a cut to your TDEE in order to create a deficit for weightloss

MissKTMc

Ah OK! The general rule of thumb among exercise scientists is to reduce your net calories by 500 to initiate weight loss. The goals created by MFP are pretty on the ball with respect to this so please be careful about messing about with it too much.

DizzyLinds

Ok, I just thought 500 would be too large deficit for me as I've not much to lose

MissKTMc

When you haven't got as much to lose, the fuel source of your deficit changes meaning you will utilise your protein stores rather than fat stores. It takes 9kcal to burn 1g of fat and approximately 40% of your calories burned would use fat as a fuel source so that gives you an idea of how much you need to do. Stick with the 500 calorie deficit for now and when you are within a lb of your goal weight reset your goals on MFP and you should see a smaller calorie deficit.

DizzyLinds

I'm about 4lbs away I'd say from goal weight

DizzyLinds

By the way where are you doing or did your studies?

MissKTMc

Then stick with it, you should see weight loss. The final furlong is always the hardest. I noticed on your profile that you're a PE teacher. If you still have contacts at the uni where you trained it might be worth trying to get access to an accelerometer or activity monitor of some sort for a true objective measure of TEE, assuming of course that the PE dept was conjoined with the sport science dept like ourselves.

DizzyLinds

Haha, I left ages ago!

MissKTMc

I'm a postgraduate researcher in the PESS dept at the University of Limerick. Even if you did leave ages ago it could be worth seeing if any of the old lecturers are still there and getting back in contact.

DizzyLinds

Oh just wondering as i used to go to Brunel University!

Sidesteal

Speaking very generally I would use a % reduction from TDEE rather than using a static calorie reduction, however for most people these values will be somewhat close to each other.

Whether or not you cut at 15% under TDEE or 20% under isn't that huge of a difference and you could really do either. Both should put you in a reasonable deficit. Keep in mind though, that TDEE calculators outside of MFP intend you to factor in an aggregate of exercise into your TDEE rather than logging exercise and eating those calories back.

So, if you were to use Katch-McArdle and come up with a TDEE of 2050 for example, you would deduct 20% from that and eat that value steadily rather than logging exercise and eating back those calories. The activity factor you select would include an estimate for exercise in this case.

DizzyLinds

I do log my exercise but have not been eating calories back as the figure I'm aiming for is my TDEE -15% which already has my exercise factored in.

yarwell

Even a 10% cut might be appropriate, if you aren't in a hurry. You might find you don't lose or gain, as your cut is close to the accuracy of the TDEE estimate anyway, so cut more or less based on a month's experience.