Am I doing this right?!?

HokieMama4

I'm sure this kind of question gets asked all the time, but I read through the message boards and couldn't find a post that made it clear to me (maybe I'm just really slow on this). I read "In place of a road map" with the TDEE and BMR calculator. According to that, my BMR is 1450 and my TDEE is 2592. If I subtract 20% that's 2073.

So here are my specific questions...

Is 2073 supposed to be the amount of calories I EAT or the NET number of calories (once exercise is subtracted)? For example, if I eat 2073 in a day and burn 500 calories exercising am I under eating? 2073 actually sounds like kind of a lot to me. I find it hard to believe I can actually net 2073 and lose any weight. I'm not even sure I can consume that many calories without eating junk.

Since my BMR is 1450, is that supposed to be the minimum number of calories I EAT or the minimum number of calories I NET (once exercise is subtracted)?

I would really appreciate you all being able to clear this up for me! Thanks for your patience with a newbie...

Ailorn

Net is the number that counts. Sometimes estimations are off with how much calories you actually consume while exercising. Keep your net above your BMR and you're good. Body needs fuel. Give it a try and see how it goes for a few weeks. If you've been eating under your BMR then you might gain a little as your metabolism realizes it has the fuel it needs. No worries. Besides a handful of nuts are packed with calories but dont fill you up. Are also good healthy fats.

GauchoMark

if you are doing in place of a roadmap, isn't your exercise included in your tdee? So you would just eat 2073 every day no matter what because you aren't logging exercise.

HokieMama4

if you are doing in place of a roadmap, isn't your exercise included in your tdee? So you would just eat 2073 every day no matter what because you aren't logging exercise.

I guess that's what's supposed to happen, but everyday isn't the same. Some days I do 30 minutes on the elliptical (about 375cal), some days I do a kickboxing class at the gym (about 700cal), and some days I rest (0cal). How does that work?

weird_me2

if you are doing in place of a roadmap, isn't your exercise included in your tdee? So you would just eat 2073 every day no matter what because you aren't logging exercise.

I guess that's what's supposed to happen, but everyday isn't the same. Some days I do 30 minutes on the elliptical (about 375cal), some days I do a kickboxing class at the gym (about 700cal), and some days I rest (0cal). How does that work?

Your TDEE calculation should include your average activity level for the week. It looks like you picked highly active to go from a BMR of 1450 to a TDEE of 2590, so you have accounted for all of your exercise in your TDEE calculation. No matter what exercise you do that day, you should be eating your 2073 goal. Some days this will translate to a much bigger deficit than others, but overall for the week you are going to average a 20% reduction from your TDEE. You need to make sure you do maintain the level calculated for in your TDEE, though to keep the numbers accurate.

GauchoMark

it averages out. So, if your BMR is 1450, to get your TDEE you tell it how much you exercise and it multiplies your BMR by an activity factor. Since your TDEE is 2592 and your BMR is 1450, the activity factor you chose is 1.79 which is equivalent to "5-6 hours of strenuous exercise per week". That implies that your exercise is included in that estimate.

This is a good site to go to that works off the TDEE - 20% method: http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/

I personally prefer to use BMR * 1.2 = TDEE. This is for a sedentary lifestyle. Then I just manually log my exercise and eat back those calories. I feel that for me this is easier and more accurate.