would like some clarification on TDEE and MFP

Hey there Andy, happy to help.

BMR is your basal metabolic rate, that is the amount of calories your body burns every day just being alive even if you are in a coma. It consists of things like your heart beat, brain function and body temperature...things your body requires to be alive. Most of your burn comes from BMR.

NEAT is your non-exercise activity thermogenesis or the amount of calories you burn from daily activity added to your BMR. This includes things like sitting, standing, walking for a bit. When you set your "Activity level" you are setting your NEAT basically. If you are sedentary it likely slaps 300 calories on your BMR but if you are "lightly active" maybe it adds 600 to your BMR.

TDEE is Total Daily Energy Expenidture, it is the number of calories you would have to eat to be in maintenance (neither losing nor gaining weight). This is your NEAT plus any calories you burn from exercise.

Macros refer to macronutrients which are protein, fat and carbs...the three categories where calories come from (ignoring alcohol). Generally speaking for a balanced healthy diet during weight loss you want to get about 1 gram of protein per pound of lean mass and for fat you should be getting a certain minimum amount which I forget at the moment but isn't to hard to hit. Past that you can just eat the rest of your calories from carbohydrates or you can play with your macros to find out what makes you feel the most satiated for your calorie goal. Right now I eat about 40% of my calories from carbs, 40% from protein and 20% from fat.

So using myself as an example my BMR is about 1800, I have a desk job but I walk around a fair amount so I am what i'd say lightly active so my NEAT is about 2300. I exercise 6 days a week probably burning on average 400 calories a pop so I'd average something like 300 calories a day from that so my TDEE is about 2600. To lose one pound a week I would want to eat 500 less than my TDEE on average daily so I'd eat 2100. TDEE-20% is 2000 calories so 2100 isn't overly aggressive.

It looks to me like you are putting in a rather aggressive pound lost per week into MFP so it is giving you a rather drastic caloric deficit of 1,100 calories per day which is really pushing it, not sure I would recommend that unless you are morbidly obese. I would think eating 2100 calories per day would be safe for you but eating 1400 calories a day is not enough in my opinion.

Aaron pretty much nailed it. For further info on macros and stuff you can check out this link

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

For macros specifically this one explains it well (included in above link)
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/819055-setting-your-calorie-and-macro-targets

I had set a target a 1kg a week. i will change that to 500g a week as i was looking to be aggressive to start with to shed a few then balance out.

in eating 2100 calories a day, exercising for 1 hour a day (burning 700 calories) does that mean that i should be eating 2600 a day? or only eating back some of those calories?


appreciate the help.

Honestly 700 calories per hour sounds like an overestimate to me but I suppose that is possible. If you are using the TDEE method then your exercise calories are already counted meaning your TDEE should already include them ant the TDEE-20% should reflect that.

So if your BMR is 1800 and your NEAT is say 2100 and you exercise and actually burn 700 calories then your TDEE is 2800. To lose 500g a week would be something like 600 calorie deficit I think (sorry if my metric is off) which would mean eating 2200 calories.

So honestly I think that 2100 calories a day already includes your exercise so by eating 2100 calories you are in fact eating back your exercise calories to maintain your deficit. That means though that you have to stick with your routine and if you skip exercise you should eat less.

Let us not overcomplicate this for you. Just eat 2100 calories every day and exercise regularly. Give that a go for 6 weeks and see how that feels and see if you have lost weight. It can take a while to see true weight loss past water retention so don't expect necessarily to see the kg's coming off in the first few weeks.

Thanks for the help.

with the calories burnt i am just going off what the treadmil is saying, i do question the accuracy of these things.

i am starting to understand this a little more.

Honestly I wouldn't believe the number a treadmill tells you. You might want to consider it half that amount just to be on the safe side.

You want me bro?

hah hah.....took me far to long to get that.