TDEE Activity Level is, well, kind of... really vague.

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  • lithezebra
    lithezebra Posts: 3,670 Member
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    I set my activity level at sedentary, whether I am or not, and log my activity independently. I have a long, complicated reason for thinking that this is, overall, a more accurate way to determine one's caloric needs than choosing an activity level.

    I like EmilyoftheSun's way of doing it too.
  • ZombieSlayer
    ZombieSlayer Posts: 369 Member
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    Have you considered that you might be at your ideal weight already?

    At 5'4" I was at 23% body fat at 155 lbs (pre-pregnancy).

    When you're at ideal weight, seeing changes in body composition can take a long time.

    edit to fix typo.
  • jzammetti
    jzammetti Posts: 1,956 Member
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    TDEE seems to be a moving target for me. I tried the sedentary plus eating back exercise calories but stalled after a while. I moved to lightly active and stalled after a while. Turns out I am moderately active and needed mroe food. As I get more involved in heavy lifting my activity level goes up so my calories must also go up to stay properly fueled.

    Pick a number, test it out for 30 days, re-eavluate. I had to do this repeatedly. Trial and error is probably the only way to get it right and while it is time consuming and pretty frustrating when you haven't picked the right number (or when trying to decide whether to add or subtract calories), you will figure it out and eventually find what works for your body. Remember, we are learning how to eat for the rest of our lives and it is totally worth the process.
  • t2kburl
    t2kburl Posts: 123 Member
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    What has been very helpful to me is to use my 'observed' TDEE over the last eight weeks.

    Total your calories eaten for the last eight weeks. Take your pounds lost in that time frame and multiply by 3,500, and add the two numbers together. Divide by 56 and that is your maintenance TDEE.

    Then you can take the appropriate % cut from that number and have what you should eat to lose weight. Of course, if the number is too low, then maybe you need to look at other factors -- are you trying to take too deep of a cut, are you logging your food accurately enough, etc.

    Since you said you eat more on the weekends, I think that I would make it a weekly total calorie goal and target that.

    Hope that helps. :flowerforyou:

    I just calculated all that and got a TDEE-20% value within 50 cal of my current goal :)
    I used the exrx.net TDEE calculator, IIFYM and Scoobys and averaged them.

    ETA: I completely agree that trial and error is the best method to find what works best for YOU. It took me months to come up with my current calorie goal. Coincidentally, it is the highest goal I've used. And it has worked the best.
  • tom_olech
    tom_olech Posts: 139 Member
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    TDEE is vague because it is an estimate, you would need to wear a mask which measures oxygen uptake over several days to get an accurate estimate of real world TDEE. What you need to do is set it to the level most appropriate to what your current activity level is and make little adjustments it from there (i.e. add 150 calories if you feel overly tired or run down)
  • tom_olech
    tom_olech Posts: 139 Member
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    What has been very helpful to me is to use my 'observed' TDEE over the last eight weeks.

    Total your calories eaten for the last eight weeks. Take your pounds lost in that time frame and multiply by 3,500, and add the two numbers together. Divide by 56 and that is your maintenance TDEE.

    Then you can take the appropriate % cut from that number and have what you should eat to lose weight. Of course, if the number is too low, then maybe you need to look at other factors -- are you trying to take too deep of a cut, are you logging your food accurately enough, etc.

    Since you said you eat more on the weekends, I think that I would make it a weekly total calorie goal and target that.

    Hope that helps. :flowerforyou:

    YAAAAA....i dont think this is an accurate measurement of TDEE. Weight changes on a daily basis and if you do any sort of weight training, you gain muscle and lose less weight overall....this is, at best, an rough estimate like TDEE
  • aleesh_
    aleesh_ Posts: 137 Member
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    No TDEE calculator is going to be exact, it's all trial and error. I go by weekly averages of my net calories, I try to keep the average above my BMR. If I'm under my BMR then I adjust my calories for the next week since I'm doing Insanity and basically doing the same exercises every week. Next week is my last week of Insanity though so I'll have to figure out a new workout plan and adjust my calories accordingly!
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,871 Member
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    The incredible vagueness is why I calculated myself as sedentary and then add my activities to it.

    I vary a lot from day to day (some days training intensely, some easily, some not at all, and then variations within each of those) so I would be off if I went with one of the semi-defined options.

    I generally recommend people use the NEAT method (or MFP method) as you've described above in such a scenario. It is difficult to use the TDEE method when you're all over the place. My exercise varies in intensity day to day, but averages out to something consistent over the course of a week...once you've got that dialed in, TDEE is nice because you can just plan your day around a set number of calories rather than having to worry about bumping up what you're having for dinner or adding another unplanned snack or something.
  • Cyclink
    Cyclink Posts: 517 Member
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    The incredible vagueness is why I calculated myself as sedentary and then add my activities to it.

    I vary a lot from day to day (some days training intensely, some easily, some not at all, and then variations within each of those) so I would be off if I went with one of the semi-defined options.

    I generally recommend people use the NEAT method (or MFP method) as you've described above in such a scenario. It is difficult to use the TDEE method when you're all over the place. My exercise varies in intensity day to day, but averages out to something consistent over the course of a week...once you've got that dialed in, TDEE is nice because you can just plan your day around a set number of calories rather than having to worry about bumping up what you're having for dinner or adding another unplanned snack or something.

    It works well for me to log every day because I'm a data junkie and will later compare my results with my logs and see what I can do better.

    Not everyone is that obsessive.
  • Rhonnie
    Rhonnie Posts: 506 Member
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    It really seems like you've got your numbers worked out, and may just need to be patient.

    I see 2 possible places where things are getting mixed up, and unfortunately (or not, depending on how you look at it) they are kind of opposite issues. One is you seem pretty active so maybe have your calories set to low. The other is that you go over on your calories one or two days. Now, there is nothing wrong with going over one day a week, but you still need to keep track of what you are eating that day and make sure you are still at a calorie deficit for the week.

    In general I'd say stick with what you are doing a little longer, see how the numbers on your HRM work into the equation, and then tweak things in a few weeks if you still don't see any changes you are happy with.
  • notbenz
    notbenz Posts: 1
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    I totally agree with this. Why can't it say if you burn between a certain amount of calories per day through exercise your activity level is active or moderately active or whatever? The criteria now is not realistic. People exercise hard some days, light others. And 1 persons hard is another person's light. Is it really too hard to put a number range on the activity factor, would make things much more accurate.

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