Better to go off TDEE or reward self with exercise calories

em9371

I go from TDEE, that way its a lot easier to plan meals for the day rather than adding exercise cals and having loads left late at night. I find that having same total cals / varying net cals rather than level net cals / varying total cals has helped me avoid a plateau, 11 months now and a loss every week apart from 2, which were due to injury and a big meal out the night before weigh in!

Also it makes it more of an overall healthy lifestyle where you eat well and exercise regularly, rather than only working out because you want to be 'rewarded' with more food!

erickirb

Here is a look at doing it either way. The question you have to ask yourself is what is the easiest for my lifestyle.

-Say MFP gives you 1450 calories to lose 1 lb/week, and you plan on exercising 5x/week for an average of 400 cals per workout. well MFP will tell you to eat 1450 on the days you don't workout and 1850 on the days you do whereas a "professional" may tell you to eat 1700 everyday regardless if you workout.

So for the week MFP will have you eat 12,150 (1450*2+1850*5) whereas doing it the other way will have you eat 11,900 (1700*7) almost the same number of cals for the week (250 dif). The issue in not following MFP is if you don't workout the full 5 days or burn more or less than planned. If that is the case you may lose more or less than your goal, whereas MFP will have you lose your goal amount regardless how much you actually workout. -

What many MFPers do is take the low 1450 and not eat back exercise calories which is wrong, if you are not eating them back then your daily activity level should reflect the higher burn with would be covered in the 1700/day above.

erickirb

I go from TDEE, that way its a lot easier to plan meals for the day rather than adding exercise cals and having loads left late at night.
Also it makes it more of an overall healthy lifestyle where you eat well and exercise regularly, rather than only working out because you want to be 'rewarded' with more food!

You can estimate what you may burn if you know you are going to workout and eat the majority of them during the day, prior to exercising (provided having cals left is your reason for choosing TDEE method)

RawVeganFlirt

i eat between my TDEE and BMR everyday, no matter what day ("cheat" day, workout day, lazy day). once in a while ill eat closer to my TDEE for a week to give my metabolism a little shock, it prevents plateaus, plus its just nice to take a break and take in some extra cals

em9371

I go from TDEE, that way its a lot easier to plan meals for the day rather than adding exercise cals and having loads left late at night.
Also it makes it more of an overall healthy lifestyle where you eat well and exercise regularly, rather than only working out because you want to be 'rewarded' with more food!

You can estimate what you may burn if you know you are going to workout and eat the majority of them during the day, prior to exercising (provided having cals left is your reason for choosing TDEE method)

I burn pretty much the same each week so i could log exercise in advance in theory, ive just never liked the whole logging and eating back exercise thing, you have to think did you work out your cals right, what if you exercise more / less than you ate for etc! Even when I first started MFP I never used it, I know its exactly the same either way really but TDEE just makes much more sense to me :-)