getting confused on TDEE again

tressatnt

My eyes are blurring from reading and crunching numbers over and over. I'm confusing myself by overthinking things I think.
My TDEE:
Activity Level Daily Calories
Sedentary (little or no exercise, desk job) 1601
Lightly Active (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk) 1834
Moderately Active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk) 2068
Very Active (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days/wk) 2301
Extremely Active (hard daily exercise/sports & physical job or 2X day training, i.e marathon, contest etc.) 2535

I am probably at Moderately active, most weeks anyway. So -20% gives me 1654. But, if I wanted to eat back exercise calories (because I do like keeping track of my exercise and how much I burn), I would then take the Sedentary level and eat them back? That doesn't make any sense because they are only 50 cals different. Or do I take Sedentary -20% and eat them back?. It seems either way, I should only be eating about 1600 cals/day. Maybe I just answered my own question Sometimes you just gotta talk it through...lol

GauchoMark

don't mix the two methods.

If you do TDEE - 20%, then you don't log exercise. You have to MAKE SURE you really exercise the amount you say you are when you calculate your calories. So, you would eat 1654 every day no matter if it is an exercise day or not.

If you want to log exercise, then pick sedentary or lightly active (depending on your job and not taking into account exercise). Log your exercise as you do it and eat back those calories. So, if you set it at sedentary and 1 lb/wk loss, you would eat 1101 (1601-500) every day PLUS whatever calories you earn through exercise.

bcattoes

I find the TDEE calculators confusing too. For one thing, there is nothing about how many hours of exercise, just how many days. Surely 60 min of hard exercise will have a different burn than 30 min. And what if you do hard exercise only 3-4 days a week? Or moderate exercise 7 days a week?

I finally just started tracking my calories and to see what my average daily intake was. Since I am maintaining, I now know my TDEE. It was less than most of the calculators gave me.

kristinlc88

I'm getting super confused by it too. I THINK I finally got it, but if someone could tell me if I'm correct or not, that would be great...

I weigh 235 right now and I'm 5'9 so from http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/, my BMR is 1888.75. So if I multiple that by 1.375 since I'm doing an hour of cardio 6 days a week, I get 2,597. Subtract 1000 from that and I should be eating 1,597 total, even with the exercise calories I gain? Or should I only be subtracting 500? I keep seeing different things and it's getting confusing.

Also, do I stick with this number of calories even on rest days?

WendyTerry420

It's best to just pick a calorie goal, stick with it for about a month, check your results, then adjust if needed.