Super Confused!! Please Explain!

victoriadw84

I was just reading some information through a forum about TDEE and BMR. I have the numbers but I really dont understand what I should be taking in a day for calories.

SW:254
CW:247
GW:160

I work out 4 days a week incorporating cardio (30-45 mins) a day and weight lifting. MFP shows I should be eating 1380 calories a day then I calculate my TDEE and BMR and have no idea what to do from here.

TDEE
Maintenance:
2804 Calories/day
Weight Loss:
2243 Calories/day
Extreme Weight Loss:
1683 Calories/day

BMR
Lightly Active (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk) 2116
Moderately Active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk) 2385

So completely confused about seeing what MFP recommends for calorie intake to these #s above.
What do I do?

erickirb

I was just reading some information through a forum about TDEE and BMR. I have the numbers but I really dont understand what I should be taking in a day for calories.

SW:254
CW:247
GW:160

I work out 4 days a week incorporating cardio (30-45 mins) a day and weight lifting. MFP shows I should be eating 1380 calories a day then I calculate my TDEE and BMR and have no idea what to do from here.

TDEE
Maintenance:
2804 Calories/day
Weight Loss:
2243 Calories/day
Extreme Weight Loss:
1683 Calories/day

BMR
Lightly Active (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk) 2116
Moderately Active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk) 2385

So completely confused about seeing what MFP recommends for calorie intake to these #s above.
What do I do?

With MFP you would eat 1380 plus eat back what you burn. So if you burn 800 cals one day MFP would tell you to eat 2180. Essentially both use your BMR, with MFP you add lifestyle activity, then a deficit from taht then add back the cals burned from exercise to eat. The TDEE, includes exercise but at the end of the week (if you chose an appropriate activity level, and weekly weight loss goal) both should get you close to the same net cals for the week.

As an example 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.

-What you have ask yourself is, would you rather eat, lets say you go for extreme weight loss, 1683 everyday, or 1380 (3 days/week) on days you don't workout and more than 1683 (4 days/week) on days you do workout?-

FYI: the weight loss on the TDEE calculator is between1 and 1.5lb/week loss, instead of 2. The extreme weight loss would be about 2.2lbs/week loss (too aggressive for most people)

LoraF83

MFP sets your goal with the assumption you will do no exercise. So, your deficit is pretty much created from your BMR (plus a little for whatever lifestyle setting you chose) minus calories for your weight loss goal (however many lbs per week you said you wanted to lose). So then, if you exercise, you get extra calories to eat, since that deficit is already there.

I'm assuming you read "In Place of a Roadmap"? I follow that program - so instead of "earning" exercise calories and having my intake vary from day to day, I use the TDEE average I calculated to determine a calorie goal that stays the same very day.

I would say to stick to the "weight loss" number - 2243. For compairson, I started at 230lbs, I now weigh 189.5 and I eat 2042 every day.

There's a group here for people who follow the Roadmap - come check it out!

saxmaniac

Personally, I would set the activity level based on what you do for most of the day, not your "workouts". If you spend your weekends hiking and biking around slowly, then that's light exercise 1-3 days a week. If you work as a nurse and are moving all the time, then you're more active. If you work for a moving company and lift heavy stuff all day, you are very active. And so on.

If you have a desk job and only exercise when working out, then set it to "sedentary".

But, all of these are just labels and estimates for a starting point. If you don't see the results you want after a week or two, then drop your calories by 100-200 and try again.