I'm new to the group and I want to say thank you for helping me understand I need to eat. I'm not getting in all of my calories and have gained and lost same weight for year and half. I now have more to eat with you program, wish me luck.

Apologies for resurrecting this thread, but I'm new to this site and would really appreciate some advice! These are my stats:

Age: 25
Height: 157cm (~5'2")
Weight: 56kg (123.5lb)
BF: 28.7%

I want to get down to about 110lbs, but becoming healthier is far more important to me at the moment. My question is regarding my activity levels; I work a desk job and but have recently started weight training 3 times a week, along with 3 Pilates Classes and 1-2 Yoga classes as well. Other than that, my activity levels vary wildly from day to day.

On the scooby site I calculated my numbers using '1-3 hrs of light exercise' and 'Lose fat - 10% calorie reduction' and got the following numbers:

BMR: 1256
TDEE: 1727
Goal: 1555

Since my cardio activities are so different on different days, would it be ok if I had 1555 as a baseline number (to take into account the strength training and yoga/pilates) and ate back my exercise calories on the days I do extra activities (usually cycling, dance etc), so as to always end up with a NET of around 1555?

Many thanks!

Edit: Should probably add that the strength training sessions are about 1.5 hours and the yoga/pilates ones are about 45 minutes each. I put them down as light exercise because I'm thinking they don't actually burn that many calories?

I am also new to this forum although I have used mfp briefly in the past. I've spent the last 2 hours reading this thread! I really want to check that I've got it right as Ive put my tdee-15% in the net calorie goal on mfp and it says I am going to gain weight!?
Age 28
female
height 177cm
weight 64.7kg
I am not interested in getting skinny I just want to lose body fat and tone up/gain muscle. I am always on my feet at work but I am only part time but I am often on my feet anyway. I try to go to the gym every day (where i do classes for 1-2 hrs) and I usually make it 6 times per week, or 5 at worst. I do body pump where i try to useweights that i am struggling to lift by the end of the track and body combat. I do each of these classes 2-3 times per week and i also do pilates 2-5 times a week. Less regularly i do spin or jog or do an interval training class (tabata).
Scoobys workshop gives me
Bmr 1453
tdee 2507
-15% 2131
does this seem correct? I put in 5-6 hours of strenuous exercise. would that be right? So as i understand it my mfp goal is 2131 GROSS every day if possible, but definitely no less than 1453 GROSS especially on workout days. if i think i have burned more than 680 cals then i should eat more to top it up to 1453 GROSS minumum? Will this still pan out with the exercise I am doing?
thanks in advance!

sorry, i didnt really phrase it right. what i meant to say was that i aim to get to the gym every day but i never actually manage to go 7 days per week, it is always 5-6 times per week. is that too much? i am still learning how to do everything right so maybe I need to adjust things. i do sleep 7-8 hours every night and i rest during the day too, before i go to the gym i normally chill out for an hour or so. or is that not what you mean? sorry if this sounds stupid. the last few days since i wrote the last post i have been eating a lot more (and it works out as 40% carbs, 30% protein, 30% fats) - i hope i'm getting it right. is the following part of my previous post correct?........
Scoobys workshop gives me
Bmr 1453
tdee 2507
-15% 2131
does this seem correct? I put in 5-6 hours of strenuous exercise. would that be right? So as i understand it my mfp goal is 2131 GROSS every day if possible, but definitely no less than 1453 GROSS especially on workout days. if i think i have burned more than 680 cals then i should eat more to top it up to 1453 GROSS minumum?

thank you for your time and sorry to be a pain

sorry, i didnt really phrase it right. what i meant to say was that i aim to get to the gym every day but i never actually manage to go 7 days per week, it is always 5-6 times per week. is that too much? i am still learning how to do everything right so maybe I need to adjust things. i do sleep 7-8 hours every night and i rest during the day too, before i go to the gym i normally chill out for an hour or so. or is that not what you mean? sorry if this sounds stupid. the last few days since i wrote the last post i have been eating a lot more (and it works out as 40% carbs, 30% protein, 30% fats) - i hope i'm getting it right. is the following part of my previous post correct?........
Scoobys workshop gives me
Bmr 1453
tdee 2507
-15% 2131
does this seem correct? I put in 5-6 hours of strenuous exercise. would that be right? So as i understand it my mfp goal is 2131 GROSS every day if possible, but definitely no less than 1453 GROSS especially on workout days. if i think i have burned more than 680 cals then i should eat more to top it up to 1453 GROSS minumum?

thank you for your time and sorry to be a pain

Familiar with intervals? Hard effort, easy effort, repeat. Simple concept. Applies to big picture too.

Why is there an ability to go hard? Because you had an easy effort.

You can probably imagine what would happen to the hard effort if the easy effort was not there but instead another hard effort.

How many hard efforts would you get at the same level of hard, what would start to happen to the hard effort? (never mind it may "feel" the same when pushing hard, but based on speed say)

If you can't picture it - go do it, it'll be evident really quick. Run as fast as you can for 30 seconds, then again, then again, then again - you know what will happen to the speed.

The body can only give a hard effort if there is an easy effort.

Again, exercise if done right tears the body down. The rest builds it back up stronger. If you kept trying to make each effort max, eventually the exercise would not be done right and tear the body down, you'd just be at a maintaining level because body isn't being asked to improve, and when it was asked earlier, it was never given the time or diet to do so (even harder when in a deficit).

Look at your schedule, 7 days, or even 5-6 days can be done poorly.
Where is the hard day, where is the easy day (which could include a day off, if proceeding day was really hard, or next day will be)?

Sleep will help with recovery, resting an hr before going again won't. But the recovery from lifting correctly can last 24-36 hrs, longer when in a deficit.
In a deficit your body is already going to have problems with recovery as best it could from a hard effort, meaning lifting in this case.

So the only reason I mention this is you do have only 1 thing that is going to help with your goal of more muscle - the lifting class as you do it. The other stuff won't.
But some of the other stuff can interfere with getting the best results from that lifting class.
You go in to that class tired from a hard spin class the day before, or interval tabata - you won't lift as much as you could otherwise. And it's ONLY the overload nature of lifting that asks the body to improve by building more.
Or you do the lifting class well, and then kill the repair process the next day by having another hard effort with same muscles.

So with above info, you should be able to look at your schedule and figure it out. This is a bigger deal to you, because those classes with lifting in it won't give the same results as normal lifting would. Still beneficial, but you'll have to get the best results from the effort spent at the class.

That is indeed the correct method of doing TDEE deficit method.
But, since you said more muscle and not much weight to lose, only fat, you need less deficit, 10 or 5% only.
More deficit means less lifting improvement, less body changes.
Less deficit means more lifting improvement, more body changes.

You might also use this to assist in guessing which of the 5 levels is right. Best to start with Katch BMR, incase you have more or less Lean Body Mass than expected for your age, weight, height.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1018770-better-rough-tdee-estimate-than-5-level-chart

The eating aspect is correct, gross eating goal, unless you do an extra workout from what you included in your TDEE estimate, extra workout would be total eatback. Miss an hour workout would be skipping 100 calories that day.

The trying to NET BMR (not gross BMR, not correct on that aspect) on bigger burn days I disagree with, as that assumes you have an accurate calorie burn, you've subtracted the calories that were accounted for already during that time so using calorie burn only above what was planned, and that your body stops dealing with calories at midnight (which it doesn't).
But it can be telling if you selected the right TDEE level.
If every single day is under BMR - you chose poorly.
If rest days are well above, mild workout days are slightly above, and big workout days are slightly below - then you got it right.

BUMPY

bump

I"ve been trying my best to eat the 1700 calories for the TDEE. I work out about 6 days a week/45 minutes and doing some weights.
I haven't changed weight on the scale or size in clothes. I cannot figure out what I'm doing wrong. I'm so frustrated...

hello everyone!
newbie here trying to understand. here are my #'s
bmr 1826.95 x activity (1.55 for moderate = 2831.75 to maintain my weight.
goal is to lose up to 2 lbs a week so with that being said, i think my new bmr is 1831.75 on days i work out and 1461.56 on days i dont. SO million dollar question.... Do I set my mfp daily goal at 1461.56 and days i work out eat up to 1831?
help!!

You need to reread the topic, you got some points right, but then totally off on others that shows you might not understand the principle correctly.

2lbs a week may be reasonable, but likely is not reasonable for weight loss goal.

For instance, reread your sentence above. What is BMR again?

Only wanting to help you understand, because without understanding you will not be willing to follow through with what is better for you, and you won't be able to make required changes when that time comes.

thanks for the response. i'm not understanding how to calculate. when i added my weight, height, and age 1826.95 is what i was given as bmr. i believe that will change as i lose. with that # i multiplied it with my excercise activity (1.55) and got 2831.75 - I am lost trying to understand what to do after. I took the 2831.75, multiplied it by days of the week (7) and subtracted 7000 (2 lbs) and then divided by 7 to get 1831.75 on days i work out. on days i dont work out, not sure if i calculated correctly. do i take 2831.75 and multiply by 1.2? i did and used that same formula (multiplied it by days of the week (7) and subtracted 7000 (2 lbs) and then divided by 7 ) and got 2098.33 - where am i off track? ( i am 5'6, 237 lbs, f, 36yr)
this is the site i used
http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/harris-benedict-equation/