Thinking of Switching to TDEE Guidelines

Grumbers
Grumbers Posts: 111 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi All

I keep reading how inaccurate the exercise calculations can be on here, so I'm thinking it's going to be easier to set a custom target based on TDEE, then just ignore the exercise input part of the equation.

My TDEE is 3297 at Lightly Active or 3717 at Moderately active. I generally exercise at least 3 times a week, usually 4 (I mean properly sweaty, not just walking the dog. I do that daily!!!). However I spend my days sat at a desk. Apart from going up and down a flight of stairs 4/5 times a day, it's pretty sedentary.

So I'm thinking of sticking my Daily Target at approx. 2500. So thats a mid point between the two TDEE number - 1000 calories for a 2lb weight loss.

Does anyone else do this? What are you thoughts/experiences? Also should I consider sticking my daily figure 100/200 calories lower to be on the safe side?

I'm not looking for a fool proof answer as I know it varies person to person. Just your thoughts would be good.

Thanks

G

Replies

  • 89nunu
    89nunu Posts: 1,082 Member
    the TDEE calculators are also just guessing what you actually do. And your daily activity can be different too as you might go food shopping the one day and not the other. So it's all trial and error.

    You say you walk your dog daily and do the worjouts 3-4 times a week. I don't think you should go an extra 100/200 lower because of this. Also if you sometimes do 3 and sometimes 4 workout why not eat 2600 on workout days and 2400 on non workout days? This way you got a small way of putting in the changes of whether you got a 3 or a 4 workout day week.

    But generally I think, 2500 should be fine. See how it goes an reevaluate when you get closer to your goal.
  • Grumbers
    Grumbers Posts: 111 Member
    the TDEE calculators are also just guessing what you actually do. And your daily activity can be different too as you might go food shopping the one day and not the other. So it's all trial and error.

    You say you walk your dog daily and do the worjouts 3-4 times a week. I don't think you should go an extra 100/200 lower because of this. Also if you sometimes do 3 and sometimes 4 workout why not eat 2600 on workout days and 2400 on non workout days? This way you got a small way of putting in the changes of whether you got a 3 or a 4 workout day week.

    But generally I think, 2500 should be fine. See how it goes an reevaluate when you get closer to your goal.

    Cheers for that. In fairness to MFP I've only been doing this 5 weeks and 2 days and I've lost exactly a stone, so the MFP system does seem to be working, but I've notice the last 10 days or so it's slowing right up. Believe this is pretty standard.
    Also I'm finding the psychologically I'm using exercise now just as a way to earn more calories so I'm going along doing 30/40 minutes of moderate exercise to get 500 calories then eating most of it back. Don't feel I'm really pushing myself at the gym the last couple of weeks as I'm purely thinking numbers, not in terms of amounted sweated!!!
  • Samstan101
    Samstan101 Posts: 699 Member
    I use my Fitbit One as a guide to my TDEE. I use a HRM for cardio and log the actvity & calorie burn on the Fitbit website. I've found that if I let the Fitbit website estimate calories for an activity its pretty close to my HRM (if anything Fitbit is on the low side) so I'm reasonably comfortable in the accuracy of the data. I work on a rolling 8 week average (I have created a spreadsheet) and eat approx 1000 calls a day under the average. Every half stione lost I revisit my BMR and average TDEE and adjust my goal in MFP accordingly (recently dropped from 1900 a day to 1850 based on this). I'm losing around 1.5-2lbs a week. its difficult to be more precisie as only swithced to this method in early Dec and the Xmas holidays through the stats out slightly. However, as a method its working for me. the biggest benefit is I'm not worrying about what exercise I've done in a day as its averaged over the week in effect.
  • neandermagnon
    neandermagnon Posts: 7,436 Member
    it's all estimates, but at least with TDEE you're estimating one number, i.e. the total number of calories burned in a day, and it's a lot easier to adjust one number up or down if you're not getting the results you want, than trying to figure out what's going on with different calorie numbers for each workout and your calories for when you're not working out, etc.
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,294 Member
    2lbs/week is much too aggressive for the amount you have to lose. Set your goal to TDEE - 20%, which would be somewhere about 1.5lbs/week give or take a few ounces
  • Grumbers
    Grumbers Posts: 111 Member
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