can someone explain TDEE and BMR please

nicoladuff1

I'm totally confused with TDEE and BMR and how many calories i should be eating as a minimum to lose weight. MFP and BodyMedia Fit seem to give me so much detail i've no clue what i'm meant to eat and what i need to burn to get the deficit i need

can anyone explain in simple terms for me please, thanks!

i'm 5ft 6 175lb and trying to lose 1- 1.5lb a week and i'm going to the gym for les mills classes 3 -4 times a week, not losing as much as i expected and am wondering if i'm doing soemthing wrong.

cheers for any help

zlauerMom

I got the BMF so I wouldn't have to calculate all that. LOL I did check when I first got it, and the targets were very similar between BMF and calculating it for myself.

I've been eating what BMF says for my Calories Consumed target. If I workout I can eat more, sometimes a lot more. After working out I sinc my BMF and it gives my current calorie deficit. I just make sure I stay on target. My target is a 750 calorie deficit. Over a week, I average a calorie deficit of about 800 calories/day. I've been losing what I expect over time. One week I might lose one pound and the next two pounds, but over several weeks I'm losing 1.5 pounds a week on average. As I get closer to my ultimate goal, I'm going to go for 0.5 pounds/ week.

If I do a workout and it seems more intense than what BMF gives me credit for... Oh well that is life. I go with it. There are times it says I'm more active than I thought and times it says I'm less active than I thought. I try not to over think it. I just stay near the deficit.

You could try changing your exercise routine. I change mine all the time. The body is so good at getting efficient when you repeat things.

If you have been at it a while and haven't been seeing what you think you should, I would ask yourself if you are accounting for absolutely everything you eat. Don't get mad at me please. I'm doing this with friends and one of them is terrible at accounting for what she eats. She is increasingly frustrated because the rest of us are losing as expected and she isn't. But we lunch together and her calorie estimates are often way short, and she leaves off lots of calories which she explains away-- I walked this morning..., I road the bike..., that is insignificant..., etc. Yet the rest of us also walked with her and went to the gym with her. We count the three olives, the cucumber, the one shrimp, the cracker-- nothing is insignificant. I don't think we are over the top in accounting, with MyFitnessPal it is very easy.

nicoladuff1

Thanks for the response I was thinking the BMF should make it easier and your way of just looking at the daily deficit seems far simpler ill try that and see what happens.

I agree it's easy to forget to count the odd little thing you eat but I'm finding it so easy to count everything as I scan it all with my phone I'm loving that bit lol

Many thanks for the response.

elaine_des

your TDEE is the calorie you are burning for the day, BMF set it as your goal for the day. Your BMR would be the amount of calorie you would burn if you stay in bed all day not moving. Just for brain and other organs function. But like the previous post i don't really pay attention to those anymore and look at the deficit over a long period of time. Sometime I only have 500 other time 800 but I average 750.

Make sure you eat enough to not have a bigger deficit than 750. I am 5"7 moderate active, burn an average of 2550 cal per day and eat average of 1900 cal per day. I love my BMF, it really pushed me to be more active and in the same time I get to eat more. Yeah!

CdnArtyWife

I've been using the BMF app to give me my target intake (1500 Cal) but I'm tracking on MFP. I manually adjusted my MFP intake goal to match the BMF goal (1500 Cal) but as I'm active through the day MFP adjusts my intake goal up or down depending on activity level. I know this is because MFP uses *NET Calories.

For instance, MFP has adjusted my daily allowance for today to 1765 (so far) because of the housework I did this morning. I've still yet to get to the gym for the 30 min treadmill run and 45 minutes of weight training that I have planned. MFP will probably increase my daily allowance again after that. As of right now I've taken in 921 Cal spread out over 4 healthy meals and snacks.

So should I go ahead and eat the additional Cal that MFP allows me? Or should I just keep using 1500 Cal as my "magic" number? Or should I go back to letting MFP set a target goal for me (that seemed low...approx 1250-1300 Cal) and just eat the adjusted amount as the day goes on?

I'm not feeling deprived using 1500 as a target. I usually go over a bit but still end up with a 600-800 deficit at the end of the day. There are times that I've gone as high as 2000+ in a day, but most of those I still had a deficit, even if negligible.

I've been using the rule of "just watch the deficit number" and that has been working, but it is kinda hard to plan meals ahead of time if I'm going to have an extra large deficit in the day just because I scrubbed the toilets extra vigorously and beat out some rugs in a day.

nicoladuff1

right i think that makes more sense Elaine according to my BMF i burn around 2000 on a non gym class day and 2700 on a gym class day - so really i should eat slightly more on gym days to keep my deficit at the 750 on average for the week. i think i'm under eating then.

i'll try eating more next week and see if it shows on the scales

many thanks for the help - it can all seem so confusing with the 2 apps on my phone