Tdee and exercise calories. Help please!

TDEE has your exercise built in, so do not eat anything back. That would be double dipping.

I have just changed my calories to my tdee -20%. My question is do I eat back my exercise calories? Or is this the amount I've seen people say not to. A little confused. Any input would be appreciated. Thanks:)

Your TDEE value is your total caloric burn including your exercise calories so assuming you are using TDEE correctly then your TDEE value already has your exercise calories included.


For example just to make up some numbers:

BMR: 1400
NEAT: 1700
Exercise calories burned: 300
TDEE: 2000

TDEE - 20%: 1600

Some definitions:

BMR: basal metabolic rate, amount your body burns in a coma
NEAT: Non-exercise activity thermogenesis, your BMR plus the calories you burn from your normal daily activity
TDEE: total daily energy expenditure, the calorie burn for your day which is your NEAT plus any calories burned in exercise.


For the TDEE method you don't think of it in terms of eating your exercise calories back really. You figure out what your average daily TDEE is (meaning if your exercise burns 500 calories and you do it 3 days a week then you burn 1500 extra calories a week over 7 days so you add 215 calories a day to your NEAT to get your TDEE and eat -20% of that TDEE.

By the way -20% TDEE is what you do if you are over 40 pounds overweight. Are you over 40 pounds overweight?

I have over 100lbs to lose. I used an online calculator. It said my tdee is 2307 so -20% I set my calories to 1845. Which seems like a really large number to me.

Well predicting the calorie burn you get from your exercise can be tricky but a TDEE of 2300 for a woman with 100 pounds to lose and who does some exercise does not sound that outlandish. You should give it a try for a while and see after 6 weeks if you have made any progress. If not its possible you are overestimating your burn and you might drop your calories a bit more.

^^^This. Weight loss takes a whole lot of trial & error to find what works for you.

Eat 1,845 calories for several weeks, then reevaluate.

Read this: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1080242-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants

I know it feels like 1845 is a lot of calories, but you need that to fuel your exercise (that you factored into your TDEE). Get your mind out of the "I need to eat 1200 cal to lose weight" mindset.

When I started, I had about 80 pounds to lose, and I could eat 2200 calories and still lose weight. I'm about 40 more pounds from my ultimate goal, and I currently average 2000 per day (I keep track of weekly calories, so my daily amounts range from 1700-2300). Point being, trust the numbers.

I find it easier to find my TDEE if I was "sedentary", i.e. not exercising at all (then you would take off 20% of how ever much to make a weight loss deficit - I'm not doing that because I'm maintaining, but to lose weight you'd need to) and then DO eat back exercise calories.

Even though this means your TDEE is technically less than it is in reality, this takes into account varying levels of exercise, and it's kinda fun and good motivation to treat the exercise calories like a treat that you earned by doing the workout.

Also, if you do do this, some people recommend only eating back half the exercise calories because MFP overestimates the amount you burn - so maybe do that if you don't have a more accurate way of measuring and knowing for certain how much you're burning.

So basically you are doing what MFP does adding a bunch of steps to calculate TDEE that really isn't TDEE since it doesn't include your exercise calories.

Right it's NEAT...and responses like this is why people get confused.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1183428-tdee-vs-neat?hl=TDEE+vs+NEAT#posts-18476322

I'm completely confused. How do you determine your TDEE? How do you determine your NEAT? or BMR? I'm lost & I'm pretty horrible with math LoL

TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) is your maintenance calories.

Some people use online calculators to estimate their TDEE, then customize their MFP calorie goal to be TDEE minus a percentage.

Don't overcomplicate things for no good reason. Just keep following your MFP calorie goal. And read the Sexypants link: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1080242-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants

Ack Now I am even more confused....I thought I had it figured out but was douting the numbers, and now I doubt my numbers even more....
37yo, height 5'3 weight =234 and was given BMR of 1755 and TDEE of 3263 (taking 20% off and rounding it to 2600)
I used http://www.health-calc.com/diet/energy-expenditure-advanced and did not include any real exercise into it, because I have a HRM that I want to add actual exercise in on the back end rather then being credited for it every day and only meeting that time 3 times a week, etc. I'm just learning about all these things...but I feel like OP's numbers are really low, especially if she added exercise in....unless I am way off base! Any tips/suggestions/corrections would be greatly appreciated!