TDEE and Macros? help!

Hey!

You're right, TDEE is how much you burn in one day, doing anything and everything. It includes your body's need for calories for bodily functions like digesting food, thinking, maintaining muscle mass, etc as well as anything you do that is not you being in a coma - moving, eating, cleaning, walking, etc. It includes working out on the days that you do this.

If you eat your TDEE every day then you will maintain your current weight.

Things I've learned:
you can gain strength without gaining actual muscle (lean body mass). I don't think I've gained much in the way of actual muscle mass over the past year of lifting, but my lifts are much higher than they were when I started.
While lifting, you will lose body fat and your muscles will tighten up, making you lose inches but not necessarily weight. I have stayed basically the same weight for a year but have lost 11 inches all over (I'm 5'8" and 133ish lbs)

To gain actual muscle mass, you have to eat at a surplus from your maintenance, maybe 20% more than your tdee. You would do this for a little while, maybe 3-6 months eating high protein as well and lifting heavy. During this time you will gain both fat and muscle. Then you would do a cut, maybe 20% below your TDEE where you will lose both fat and muscle but hopefully more fat than muscle, resulting with more lean body mass than you started with a year prior.

Another option is to do a "slow body recomposition" where you slowly lose body fat and hopefully gain small amounts of lean body mass over time. I imagine the rate is like maybe 1-2 lbs per year in muscle mass. To do this, eat high protein, eat around your maintenance and lift heavy. This is what I do.

There are two options for caloric intake methods on MFP. You can either set your MFP diary to 2500 (your tdee INCLUDING exercise) and eat that every day, either not logging exercise or logging it as burning "1 calorie" just to keep track of it but not actually gain the caloric burn from it. Then you will eat the same amount every day although your nets will be different on days you workout, it will even out on a weekly basis.

Another option is to set your MFP diary to your maintenance TDEE (not including exercise, just daily life) - 20%. I find this way less confusing, then on days I workout I just eat slightly more, whatever I think I burned from working out that day.

Macros I usually go by percentages, and that's how mfp does it too. So if you add in exercise calories, your macro amounts for that day will increase accordingly. Good percentages for lifting include 40/30/30 (carbs/fat/protein), 45/25/30, or 40/25/35.


If you want an easy way to calculate how much to eat check out this link (these are instructions on calculations for new rules of lifting for women, it is a pretty good rule of thumb)

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/538943-how-to-calculate-calorie-goals-according-to-nrolfw

Let me know if you have more questions

I've read much on the subject as well. Take a look at the following thread - it's very well written.

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=156380183

TDEE seems to be what I burn in a given day doing anything and everything. I calculated that to be around 2500 calories (from sleeping, to working out, cooking etc).

Correct. And 2500 sounds pretty reasonable, especially if you're pretty active.

I used a website that gave me an output of eating about: 180 g protein, 60 g fat, 187 g carbs per day. Does this seem right? I honestly have no clue what I am doing. In the end I really want to have more lean muscle. TIA for anyone who understand what the heck I am talking about lol

Macros will vary a bit person to person based on goals and preferences. In most cases, a good starting point is:
Protein - minimum of 1g per lb of lean body mass
Fat - minimum of .35g per lb of total body weight
Carbs - can be pretty much whatever you want as long as it A) doesn't impact your protein and fat goals, doesn't impact total calorie goals, and C) doesn't impact long term adherence.

People looking to gain muscle will generally have slightly higher protein and fat goals. People with higher cardio-based goals will generally set their carbs a bit higher. People simply looking to lose a little weight and look a little better will often be fairly well balanced across the 3.

science to back it up, my friends. do some research.

And I said it leads to higher insulin levels, which can lead to hyperinsulinemia, which won't *always* lead to people getting fat...but why would you want your insulin levels out of whack regardless if you're gaining weight or not?

the point of the ratio is how it balances hormones

Here's a quick little synopsis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_diet. Do further research if you don't trust that source.