i dont understand why my TDEE is so high?

sounds pretty reasonable to me. it's about the same as the calculations mfp has done for you because they don't factor in exercise, and you do quite a lot of exercise

It's 'high' (If that's the word you wanna use) because of your activity level. I'd say your reported 3.5 hours of exercise puts you at lightly active, from a TDEE standpoint, and with that in mind 2151 calories is totally reasonable (and not at all high)

The different between TDEE and the MFP method (NEAT) is that MFP is working with a deficit (I'll assume a 500 calorie one) already worked in. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say when you eat back exercise calories it had you around the 1700-1800 mark, right? The numbers usually aren't all that far off, assuming your putting in your information honestly.

really it hought 2151 was extremley high and more in terms of maintance!! i learn something new every day...my day ended up on 1625cal i tracked everything and i ate 1420 x

2151 is your maintenance level. That's what TDEE means.

And it's not high. I'm 5'3" and 135 pounds and mine is much higher.

You're doing approximately 6 hours and 5 minutes of exercise each week, so I'd say moderate activity level. Depending on what your job is. If your job is also very active, then you may need to up it even. If it's completely sedentary, then you may want to aim for between light and moderate as others have suggested.

Everything is an estimate of some sort.

If you want the best possible estimate, you need to log your food and daily weight as consistently as possible for at least a month. Then you take the average weight from the first week, the average weight from the last week, and find the difference. That's your change in weight from days 4 to 25 (assuming you logged for 28 days). Add up all the calories from days 1 through 28. Divide by 28 (the number of days). Diff_in_weight * 3500/21 + Average_calories = TDEE.

Take these 28 days of weights.
Week 1: 171.38, 169.40, 171.16, 168.30, 168.96, 171.16, 169.40
Week 2: 171.16, 170.28, 170.06, 169.84, 166.98, 169.18, 169.84
Week 3: 171.16, 170.72, 170.57, 168.30, 167.86, 168.96, 169.18
Week 4: 168.96, 168.08, 168.08, 169.84, 169.40, 167.42, 168.52

My average weight for week 1 is 169.97.
My average weight for week 4 is 168.61.
For a loss of 1.35 pounds -- Hey, it's been a slow few weeks for me.

That's 4,725 calories I am short. That's 225 a day. If I averaged 2,084 calories a day during that time, my TDEE would be about 2,300 calories.

This takes a lot more work than most people want to do. And, it still suffers from a wide range of possible errors (in measurement mostly--like if you have to estimate a portion size). It also assumes that your average activity level will remain about the same as it was. As it happens, this last month as been particularly bad at work. Normally, I do a lot of walking around during the day (average 9k steps at work). I have been in meetings and doing paperwork for the past month. I have seen a 200/calories a day drop in my TDEE because of this lowered activity level.

Of course, who wants to do this much work? And, it takes a month or longer to get any reasonable results (you can't just use one week's worth of data or less because there's just way too much error in those numbers). If you log everything daily, which I do, you can eventually get a much better estimate. My long term average is currently around 2,425 calories a day (this last month's drop has lowered that a bit from the 2,500 it was before).

Edit: This is the best possible estimate because it is based on your actual body and the results it is seeing. It isn't based on assumptions that may not apply to you. In fairness, the difference between what I get from doing this and the results from the BMR/TDEE calculators is rarely off by more than a few hundred calories.

and do you lose eating this much?

Some days I do a minimum of 45 minutes power walking, mostly I do a minimum of 90 minutes power walking and on Saturday's I'm currently up to 3.5-4 hours power walking (I'm in training for the Moonwalk and walk to and from work most days - I haven't just gone crazy with power walking! lol). Oh, and Sunday is my rest day. I'm 5'7", 168lbs and have a sedentary day job. The minimum I eat is approx 1600 calories per day. Most days, I average about 2,000 calories, and more on the Saturday. And over the last 2 weeks I have lost 2 lbs.

and do you lose eating this much?

I lost my weight eating 2000-2300 calories over an eight month period. I'm 5'4" also.

and do you lose eating this much?

I have a desk job too. So my only real activity is my workouts.

Like I said I eat 1696 a day.

I've lost almost 15 lbs in a little over 3 months. I'm also not trying to lose a lot so it comes off slower than it might if you have more to lose.

i think its becuase i heard women eat 2000calories to maintain the weight and men 2500?

That's an average, which includes women much older than you, as well as a wide range of heights and hormones levels, etc. As you age, you will have to either get more active or eat less Also, your maintenance is only 151 calories about that. 151 calories is nothing really.

Definitely start off with 1700. That's sounds like a good number based on the info in this thread. Be consistent for a few weeks and make adjustments later if necessary. :flowerforyou:

i think its becuase i heard women eat 2000calories to maintain the weight and men 2500?

At 5'8" you are closer to the average man than the average woman.