Are a lot of us miscalculating our TDEE?

I would bet that over half the people here are over estimating there TDEE.


95% of the people should be setting their activity level to "Sedentary".



This is an example of the biggest mistake people make:

Someone is fairly active. He/She will workout 3-5 times a week. So, definitely he/she DOES NOT fit the "sedentary" category. So, they put themselves in the "Lightly or Moderately" active level. So far so good.

HERE IS THE PROBLEM:
They do one of their workout and they log it in MFP. All of a sudden, they get to eat an extra 400 or so calories. If you didn't put your activity as "Sedentary" you are DOUBLE DIPPING.

When you put your activity level as lightly or Moderate, it already accounted for your 3-5 workouts for the week.


Unless you truly have an active life style without counting your "workout" you need to put "sedentary" as your activity level.

Ahhh good already had mine as "Sedentary".

I've always had mine at sedentary too; better to underestimate than over estimate in my opinion!

and then there are people who work out three hours a day and set their activity level to sedentary and don't eat back exercise calories. that's pretty common here as well.

the most important thing is to be honest and accurate about your activity level. It should take into account everything you do for the whole 24 hrs, so someone with an active job where they're lifting things and/or on their feet all day will have a higher activity factor than someone who's at a computer all day. And how often you work out does count, but not as much as some calorie calculators would put you at, e.g. if you work out for 30 mins 5x a week and sit at a computer all day, selecting the category "working out 5x a week" will probably overestimate your TDEE.

Additionally, using the TDEE - x% method, you *must* observe real world results and adjust your calories based on them, if you overestimate your TDEE and don't lose (give it 3 weeks at least first though), maybe try again with a lower activity factor, or subtract 200 calories and try again. Similarly if you underestimate it and you're hungry all the time, adjust your calories upwards as necessary.

If you're doing TDEE - x%, then you don't eat back exercise calories because they're already counted in the TDEE number.

If you're doing the MFP default method, then you must eat back most of your exercise calories. (around 80% is probably good as the MFP database tends to overestimate calorie burns)

I set mine at sedentary so my TDEE is about 1950. I am currently eating at my BMR which is about 1650 calories, and any extra ones I 'earn' from proper exercise. I eat most of them back, but not always all.

I only log proper exercise, but at times during the day I can be quite active, running up and down lots of stairs at work, moving heavy stuff around. I don't eat those calories back because I see them as a buffer for the inacuracies of these online calculators and the inacuracies of calorie counts.

I made mine lightly active, I work out usually 3-5 times a week for 30mins to an hour. Then I started a new job at a convenience store and I was light headed and hungry all the time. Then I realized I'm still working out 3-5 times a week and I have a job where I am constantly moving, bending, stocking heavy gallon jugs. If I put my TDEE as moderately active it bumps up my daily allowance 100 calories. That's not going to break my weight loss and I'm pretty sure I burn at least 100 a day at my job any given day, and if I can sneak another egg, or cottage cheese or something into my lunch I'm not going to be sick and starving at my job. Everyone wins.

Oh, and my BMR is about 1300 and my TDEE at moderately active is 1400.

That calculator doesn't calculate your TDEE. It says to enter your activity level without exercise, then calculate your exercise separately. That's similar to the MFP system.

Using that kind of calculation, Person A who has a desk job and workouts for 7 hours a week would be sedentary. Person B in a retail job who doesn't do any exercise would be lightly active. Person B would have more calories to start with, using this system. But when the exercise calories are added in they would have less.

That's different to the calculators which are working out your TDEE (i.e. your TOTAL daily expenditure). Obviously Person A would NOT be remotely sedentary according to one of those calculators.

To be honest, I think the problem is with the calculator calling itself a "TDEE" calculator.

Having said all that, I have a similar situation - I have a job which is mostly sitting, but not for the full day. I don't think it takes me up to the next category - I'm more of a "sedentary plus" than a lightly active :laugh: . There are so many other variables as well according to how active you are in general (walking up and down stairs a lot at home, housework, etc. - varies from person to person). If I was using the MFP system I would still put myself down as sedentary because I think that's the closest, but if I wanted I could try out "lightly active" and just measure how fast I lost weight. I think it can involve a bit of trial and error, however you do it. If you're losing weight at the expected rate at "lightly active" then you've got it right.

If I take back data from the past 6 months and factor in weight loss, then my 'coefficient' back-calculates to 1.50 which is close to the 'moderate exercise'

For frame of reference - I work a desk job, most weeks I workout 6 times, 3 times weights and 3 times 10 km runs. On weekends I will walk around the city, but during the week I'm pretty much locked to my desk

I was set at 1200, I upped to 1400 and eat back my exercise calories - we'll see what happens! I just know if I don't HAVE to log exercise it gives me a chnace to skip it.

Thanks for sharing the site, I calculated mine and it turned out to be the same as what MFP came up with, I have mine set as sedentary with 1/2 pound a week weight loss it works fine for me, I work out for 30 mins everyday and eat back my 1/2 my cal burn as I don't have a HRM and unsure on the estimates from site. So far so good.