TDEE - 20%: Goal or Net Calories?

The way I understand it is, when using TDEE (in your case 1680 calories) those are the amount of calories you should eat in a day regardless of how much activity you do. You ignore MFP's recommendation to eat back calories. If however you start exercising more than normal you would want to recalculate your TDEE. You also want to recalculate it after every 5-10 pounds you lose.

BMR is what you would need if say you where in a coma in order for your body to function properly. Going below that is dangerous and unhealthy.

If you set your activity level at anything other than sedentary, the calculation is taking your estimated calorie burn from exercise into account so your calorie goal for the day is what it is and you don't need to eat back exercise calories. That means if you are logging any cardio in mfp, you should put in 1 for calories burned (it will make you put in a number when logging), or else mfp will show you that you need to eat more.

Personally, I calculate my TDEE as sedentary because I have a desk job and a long commute and then I wear a heart rate monitor to get my approximate calorie burn and I eat anywhere from 50% to 100% of that back. Just a matter of preference.

Edit: Looking at your photo, you look pretty lean already. Listen to your body as 20% may be too big of a deficit depending on your activity level. If you find yourself feeling tired or drained you may want to bump it to a 10% deficit. See how it goes.

Hi folks,

I have a quick question regarding using IPOARM to set calories on MFP.

My BMR is 1400 and my TDEE minus 20% is 1680 calories. I have reset my daily calories on MFP as 1680.

Does this mean that (seeing as TDEE already incorporates my activity level) that I should be eating 1680 or under regardless of my calorie burn each day? Or is 1680 my NET calorie goal?

I'd really appreciate if someone could set me straight on this, please.

Thanks! :flowerforyou:

Yes that's the point of TDEE. It's already an average of your daily expenditure so you just eat the same amount whether it's a workout day or not.

Lets say someone works out three days a week burning 500 calories. If they follow the MFP Eat Back strategy they might eat 2000 calories on workout days, and 1500 on rest days. At the end of the week they have eaten 12000 calories and done say 4 hours of exercise.

TDEE looks at the average of your daily expenditure. So with that they would just eat 1715 per day every day. At the end of the week that's 12000 calories too. But if they "Ate back" on workout days they'd be taking credit for those workouts twice, adding 1500 calories per week to their diet. Resulting in eating 13500 calories and still doing 4 hours of exercise.

When I calculated my TDEE -20% I said a was sedentary and so when I do exercise I know that I can eat back those calories. xx

Oh well in that case you need to read up on TDEE because you are not doing it right. Your not going to calculate it correctly if you're not actually accurately portraying your activity level...

Do it again & put in the right info, then rework your calorie goal. Once you have your actual TDEE minus 20 percent THEN you don't eat back to those exercise calories but right now because you didn't do it correctly it's likely you would be eating too much of a deficit.

If body recomp is your goal then it would really negatively effect that.

When I calculated my TDEE -20% I said a was sedentary and so when I do exercise I know that I can eat back those calories. xx

Since you didn't seem to understand the first time...

You are doing it wrong

Using TDEE you don't eat back exercise calories...

If you want that option go with the standard MFP way.

When I calculated my TDEE -20% I said a was sedentary and so when I do exercise I know that I can eat back those calories. xx

Since you didn't seem to understand the first time...

You are doing it wrong

Using TDEE you don't eat back exercise calories...

If you want that option go with the standard MFP way.

Tell me I'm doing it wrong when I do the exact same thing and have dropped 15 pounds of body fat to 1 pound of lean body mass over two months and have the DXA scans to back it up.

The way I understand it is, when using TDEE (in your case 1680 calories) those are the amount of calories you should eat in a day regardless of how much activity you do.

This is correct...

There are many different ways to lose weight and to determine how much food you should eat to do so.

What they are doing Stef is fine although technically a little bit around the wrong way. In some respects they are doing it more precisely because they are better determining their activity level rather than guesstimating how active they are in any given week but they are only counting calories I assume during workout periods. This works since they are estimating their TDEE initially to cover their sedentary lifestyle. It can be more motivational for some people to do it this way too because they feel that the exercise they do is rewarded with extra food.

You are right Stef in saying that technically speaking with TDEE you determine your BMR (height, age, weight etc) then guesstimate activity levels which gives you your TDEE and THEN you decide how much weight to lose and reduce your calories by a percentage or an amount to meet this goal - i.e. 20% but as I said there are many different ways to lose weight.

BMR is what you would need if say you where in a coma in order for your body to function properly. Going below that is dangerous and unhealthy.

Why? Based on what science? Oh wait, there actually isn't any. There's no scientific evidence that eating below BMR is detrimental.

When I calculated my TDEE -20% I said a was sedentary and so when I do exercise I know that I can eat back those calories. xx

Since you didn't seem to understand the first time...

You are doing it wrong

Using TDEE you don't eat back exercise calories...

If you want that option go with the standard MFP way.

If she sets MFP to TDEE -20%(sedentary) and then eats her exercise calories back, all she is doing is making sure she maintains the TDEE-20%. It isn't wrong, it's simple math...

When I calculated my TDEE -20% I said a was sedentary and so when I do exercise I know that I can eat back those calories. xx

Since you didn't seem to understand the first time...

You are doing it wrong

Using TDEE you don't eat back exercise calories...

If you want that option go with the standard MFP way.

If she sets MFP to TDEE -20%(sedentary) and then eats her exercise calories back, all she is doing is making sure she maintains the TDEE-20%. It isn't wrong, it's simple math...

well in the strictest sense yes it is. TDEE already has exercise factored in. TDEE=Total Daily Energy expenditure.

What she is doing is called NEAT I believe and when new people come in and see somone saying they do TDEE and they aren't it confuses them so call it what it is...NEAT (Non Exercise activity Thermogensis)

Bottom line call it what it is...if it's NEAT it's NEAT not TDEE...

The total daily energy expenditure (TEE) is an important calculation in the determination of the overall dietary and exercise practices of any person. The amount of energy needed by anyone to meet the daily physical demands will have two components: the amount of energy needed to maintain the body's needs at rest, the basal energy expenditure, expressed as the base metabolic rate (BMR), and the needs generated by the daily activity levels, which include employment, sport, and any other activities.

<snip>
Nonexercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT) is the energy expended for everything that is not sleeping, eating, or sports-like exercise. It includes the energy expended walking to work, typing, performing yard work, undertaking agricultural tasks, and fidgeting