What changes your TDEE?

Meraid

I can't tell if the amount you work out every week will determine if you sedentary, lightly active, moderately active, etc... or if it's just everything excluding exercise, how it fluctuates. Considering how I don't have a job, and it's summer, I sit around my house and the exercise I get is from making my meals and doing my workouts. And then when school starts up, walking around my school (litterally) and to and from school.
So if my current activity level is sedentary, is there a way I can up it all the way up to moderately active?
And the reason I ask this is because while MFP uses jobs as examples and TDEE calculators like fitnessfrog use exercising XX times a week. But then i thought TDEE doesn't include workouts. And I know there's that thing where there's this whole set it to thse if you eat back your calories or just set it to this but.. that's not my question

urglewurgle

This is what confuses me! My exercise routine (insanity) says to use 'moderatley active' to include the exercise and sets me a goal of 1800, MFP wants me at 1400 or something and to eat back my exercise cals!

MrsAgi

if you are including your exercise in your TDEE, then you are probably lightly or moderately active BUT you can't then eat back those cals as you have already included them.

If you want to increase your TDEE without the exercise cals (because it is not regular or you need to et them back as motivation to do it...) then you'll have to increase your daily activity - add in an hour's walk ever day, take the stairs instead of the lift/elevator, get off the bus two stops early etc..... Then you can probably go up from sedentary to lightly active and inputany exercise and eat back those als as extras:)

xsmilexforxmex

If you are walking/ actively on your feet at least 1 hour a day I would say it's at least safe to move up at least one.. I keep mine at sedentery but thats because I mostly sit at a desk all day.. I've heard sedentery classified as the equivilent of 'couch potato' .. If you have a certain amount of physical activity that you do every day and you are not requrarly logging, that setting is where you need to change it.. but say you workout 3x a week for 45-60 minutes.. that's something you need to log under excercises since it's not a daily thing..
personally I find it easier to set at sedentery and log every extra thing bc I know I'm not over estimating how much I can eat that day.