Eating TDEE

i am very confused about this. I read helloitsdan's post about this but the more I read it the more confused I get. From what I can understand I have to eat below TDEE and over BMR. I'm very skeptical that this will work but I'm going to try since I've hit another plateu again only after losing 4lbs from my previous one.

When doing his method do you eat your excersise calories. So many people are saying not to some are saying to do so but I'm getting so frustrated because I can't stop getting into plateus and it's getting on my last ****ing nerve. What do I do?

Why are you skeptical? By definition, your TDEE is the amount of calories you burn throughout a day; the amount of calories you need to consume in order to maintain your current weight. If you eat less than that, you should lose. The tricky part can be finding out what your TDEE is. Calculators will give you an idea, but it may take a bit of experimentation.

Doing this method, if you calculate your TDEE including any exercise you do (because your TDEE includes all your activity) you would not eat back additional exercise calories, because that would mean you were counting them twice. When MFP gives you a calorie goal, it does not take planned workouts into account, only your normal daily activities, which is why you're supposed to eat back exercise calories.

Do remember that MFP often overestimates exercise calories, so if you're using MFP alone to work it out, you may find that's why you're hitting plateaus - as by eating all these calories back you may be back to where you started.

I've heard it overestimates for some people. It actually has always underestimated for me - based on what my heart rate monitor says, and my rate of loss. Anyway, I think someone would have to be logging an awful lot of calories through exercise for the MFP overestimation to cause a serious plateau. An overestimation of even a couple of hundred calories would be absorbed by a deficit.

Using your height, weight & age, calculate your BMR (calories you would burn if you never got out of bed) . Using the Harris Benedict method to calculate the number of calories you burn in a day.. If you want to lose 1 lb a week, subtract 500 & thats how many calories you should eat in a day. I know this sounds crazy, but you shouldn't let your net calories (food-exercise) get below you BMR.. Feel free to check out my diary if you want some ideas. I suggest having 5 or 6 smaller meals so you don't feel like you're stuffing yourself. There's like a million different ways to calculate your calorie needs. I like the calculators at bmi-calculator.net

Here's the thing on eating exercise calories back when using TDEE. It depends on what you have used as your "Activity Level" For me, I used lightly active and then I log my exercise and eat those calories back because that's what works best for me. If you KNOW you are moderately or highly active and you workout hard every day or close to it and you've set your activity level higher, then you do not want to eat those calories burned back because they have already been taken into consideration when determining what amount you should eat daily. I hope this helps!

Also, I was skeptical too (actually pretty stressed about it, because I increased my calorie intake by over 400 a day) but guess what?! After less than a week of increasing my intake I am already losing weight (finally!)

Do remember that MFP often overestimates exercise calories, so if you're using MFP alone to work it out, you may find that's why you're hitting plateaus - as by eating all these calories back you may be back to where you started.

I've heard it overestimates for some people. It actually has always underestimated for me - based on what my heart rate monitor says, and my rate of loss. Anyway, I think someone would have to be logging an awful lot of calories through exercise for the MFP overestimation to cause a serious plateau. An overestimation of even a couple of hundred calories would be absorbed by a deficit.

MFP always underestimates mine too! I got by my HRM which is almost always higher. MFP can't determine how hard your actually working, it can only guess!

Thanks everyone for getting back to me it means a lot.

The reason why I've been so skeptical is because I'm not used to seeing such high numbers to lose weight, I'm used to seeing small numbers. I have nothing against this method, it just scares me a little.

So let me see if I have this correct.

Using the Harris Benedict method my BMR is 1768 calories.

Helloitsdan says not to go on sedentary but on lightly active right? so then that means my calorie intake would be 2431.

GoTeamMeaghan you mentioned something about subtracting 500 calories. But from what I don't fully understand what you mean.

This is where I am stuck, how much am I actually suppose to eat?

you burn 2431 calories a day. You need to eat less than you burn in order to lose weight. You can either subtract 500 (like goteammeaghan suggested) or you can subtract 20% like mrdricta suggested. Subtracting too many calories would result in problems caused by undereating, not subtracting enough calories would result in slower fat loss (although nothing wrong with that so long as you're seeing a consistent change in the right direction)

2431 - 500 = 1931

2431 - 20% = 1945

there's not much difference between the two so why not make a target of 1940 calories a day. So long as you're eating less than you burn off, but still eating enough to sustain your body, you should see slow, steady and sustainable fat loss without any problems caused by undereating.

Thanks everyone for getting back to me it means a lot.

The reason why I've been so skeptical is because I'm not used to seeing such high numbers to lose weight, I'm used to seeing small numbers. I have nothing against this method, it just scares me a little.

So let me see if I have this correct.

Using the Harris Benedict method my BMR is 1768 calories.

Helloitsdan says not to go on sedentary but on lightly active right? so then that means my calorie intake would be 2431.

GoTeamMeaghan you mentioned something about subtracting 500 calories. But from what I don't fully understand what you mean.

This is where I am stuck, how much am I actually suppose to eat?

your BMR is 1768. using the harris benedict method to calculate your total calories burned in a day (im guessing exercise maybe 3-5x a week) you would take the 1768 * 1.55 = 2740. you burn 2740 calories a day, if you exercise. if you want to lose 1 lb per week, subtract 500 calories from that, which is 2240 calories a day. just make sure that your net calories (food-exercise) are above 1768.

Bump