TDEE help

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all4yum
all4yum Posts: 43 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I've just recalculated my TDEE since i'm now exercising more and my BMR (based on body fat calculated from my scales and from various online calculators using measurements) is 1501 and my TDEE based on exercising 3 times a week is 2063...so as I understand it, in order to lose a pound a week I take off 500 calories from my TDEE and eat that everyday? so 1563 calories. And then I don't eat back my exercise calories? It just doesn't sound a lot when I'm strength training for 40 minutes followed by 30 minutes of HIIT on the elliptical 3-4 times a week (for the last 5 weeks).. Especially as I weigh 235 pounds.

iifym.com says i should eat 1880 for aggressive weight loss, but that's barely 200 deficit every day. Confused!

I just want to make sure I get this right, because I'm just not losing weight, in the last 6 weeks i've only lost 2 pounds and since i restarted dieting 155 days ago, i've lost 24 pounds, eating around 1200-1400 calories a day and more recently I've been doing 5:2 which is the ONLY time I lose weight (just after a fast and most of it goes back on). You hear of people of my weight losing 10+ pounds a month, I just want 2 pounds a week - not less than 0.5 of a pound.I don't want to be 4 years down the line and still not at my goal. HELP, I feel like giving up.

Replies

  • alereck
    alereck Posts: 343 Member
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    I like this site:

    http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/

    1600 sounds fine to me as a start, if you feel too hungry or low energy then adjust. But if you eat well it is more enough food for energy.

    There are many reasons why people stall at their weight loss but readjusting your TDEE is a good start. I kept it simple, anytime I stalled I ate 200 calories less.

    Good luck
  • Liftng4Lis
    Liftng4Lis Posts: 15,150 Member
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    Congratulations on your loss! Losing 4 pounds in 6 weeks is actually pretty good. If you're losing only 1/2 a pound a week, and have it set to 2 pounds,you are probably eating more than you think. Remember, when you are exercising that much, your body is more prone to retaining water. Also the less you have to lose (looks like you only have 45 pounds left), the less aggressive the goal should be, therefore you should be getting more calories. Look more to how your clothes are feeling and less to the scale.
  • ana3067
    ana3067 Posts: 5,623 Member
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    500 cals for a lb is a generic number. It's much better to work off of percentages instead, because what helps YOU lose 1lb might help me lose 2lbs, and someone else only half a lb. 20% from TDEE is usually enough for about a lb a week. So 1650 would actually be enough of a deficit to start off wtih. Remember it's all just an estimate, so personally I prefer to go with the higher estimates first. That way you are eating more food and can more easily tell if your weight loss stalls are due to too little of a deficit. So if you weren't losing about 4lbs a month, then you could lower it to 1600 or 1550. Calculators are not all accurate for your specific TDEE.

    I have my fave links in my profile, personally I think exrx.net is great for a lot of people of any weight but it might estimate a bit low. But it's still a really good tool. IIFYM calcultor estimates low in general unless you sleep like 12 hours a day lol.

    You are correct that 1600 does not sound like a lot for your weight. Definitely check out scoobys or exrx.net and recalculate! The latter is great because it lets you input hours spent on activity ranges. So if you say you work out 4x a week, but you really work out 5x a week according to those calculators when you just consider time spent at the gym, then that will affect your estimated TDEE. I work out about 5 hours a week, 4x a week, and any of hte 4x a week options put my estimated TDEE too low.

    Could you make your diary public? Maybe there are logging issues (like not measuring/weighing things, or logging with the wrong entries or wrong info for food if it's a user-submitted entry). But at your weight, if you've been eating 1200-1400 calories (and not just logging this amount while eating more due to improper measuring/weighing) then of course it will be harder to lose weight; you'll either need to eat even LESS food or you'll have to exercise way more, in both cases they increase the deficit. Since you've been dieting for so long, and at such a low amount of food, have you considered taking a break for a week? In the grand scheme of things a week won't stall your progress all that much. Consider eating at your estimated maintenance (recalculate from a few websites btw, just to get a better average idea) for a week or even longer. If you want to see whether these estimations are on point, then eat them for a month or so to see if you maintain your weight. If you do, then subtract 20% from them. If you gained a bit, subtract 20% and remove another 100 cals or something.

    In my opinion, 2lb/week is not sustainable or reasonable for anyone, unless they've been eating VERY high calorie. E.g. eating 10000 cals and then dropping down to 5000, which might still be enough for their current weight becuase 10000 was likely still a surplus. But for most people, the first month might easily offer 2lbs/week without even needing to eat excessively low, but after that it's probably better to go at it slow and steady. 1lb/week gives you plenty of food to eat and enough energy to perform your workouts.
  • cajuntank
    cajuntank Posts: 924 Member
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    Don't stress about what these online calculators report to you. They are general estimates only and to be only used as a guide anyways. For some, they are relatively close estimates, for others, they are wildly off. My opinion is use them as a jumping off point and go from there. What I mean is, if you want, take several sites' values, average them, eat at that number for 2-3 weeks, then whatever your weekly average weightloss was, you adjust calories from there. Your "sweetspot" goal will be between .5-1% bodyweight loss per week average, so if you are losing too much, then up calories by a small increment (say 50-100) and run that for another few weeks till you are in the sweetspot. If you aren't losing enough, then do the reverse (drop calories by 50-100 for the day) and run that for a few weeks. This is all assuming you keep your activity fairly consistent throughout. The process takes time, but in the end, you will have found "your" TDEE, so just periodically adjust your calories to keep you in that weightloss range as over time, there will be less of you, so your TDEE will be less as well.

    Also, the more weight you have, it's ok to lose at the higher range I provided. So at 235lbs, it's ok to lose 2.3lbs (1%) a week average max, but it's not necessary. As you become leaner and when you get to where maybe you only have 10-20lbs to lose, being toward the lower end of the range (.5%) will be healthier. So in essence, at high bodyfat levels, you can afford to lose more and at lower bodyfat levels, you cannot.
  • all4yum
    all4yum Posts: 43 Member
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    thanks for the help. My ticker weight goal is an interim goal. When I started the idea of having SO much weight to lose was disheartening, so I set an easier goal. In reality I have about 110 pounds to lose, but I prefer not to think about the total loss right now.

    I have a very high bodyfat (around 51%) so I think that is why my bmr is so low. I'm hoping strength training will help this?

    I made my diary public. I try to weigh every single bite, every vegetable lol. I add my own recipes and such too. This week I've been eating more because all the exercise makes me super hungry. I did a break week about 2 months ago, and ate closer to 1700 calories, I did lose weight the week after, but I gained weight that week.

    I wouldn't mind 1 pound a week, but the last 6 weeks it's been 2 pounds and really, I've been dieting for 155 days and i've barely lost a pound a week. The thought of half a pound a week (or less) when I have 110 pounds to lose...that's like 4 years!! I can't even imagine 4 years before reaching my goal.

    I'm am trying to eat 'cleaner' not just low calorie, cookies are my downfall - even if I stay within my calories. Maybe that will help!
  • ana3067
    ana3067 Posts: 5,623 Member
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    Eating "clean" won't help you lose more weight, it's all about calories overall. But it looks like you are not being totally consistent with your logging - some days you are either not logging everything or you're just not eating nearly enough, and you aren't weighing/measuring everything. If there aren't any entries available for what you want to eat with the grams/oz/ml listed, then create your own (private) entry for it. And since you are not consistent with how much you eat, it's much harder to know if things are progressing or not on your current calorie consumption. I'm kind of being hypocritical here, as I've changed mine around a lot too, but I've still usually stayed around a similar average of 1950-2050 cals. I just upped my limit to 2080 so as to have a 15% deficit if desired, but my minimum is still going to be 2000 and will be what I eat most days - 2080/2100 if needed based on hunger.

    So I'd say start weighing everything. I even weigh liquids, which is just easier than measuring it out most of the time anyways (I always do 2ml of oil on the pan for eggs, so it'd be a pain to try and figure that out by teaspoons!). I also weigh pre-packaged foods other than something like yogurt/pudding in individual cups, just because those are not worth weighing for me and in the past I have weighed before and after consumption and it was about the same weight as the label info. But as long as you weigh and measure all fresh foods at least, then it should help you see whether your calorie goal is working or not.

    And you definitely need to figure out your minimum calorie goal. If you want to log exercise and eat back 50-75% of cals, then go ahead and change your goals for 1lb/week (just so you can have a much easier time maintaining the deficit and have an easier time lowering calories if needed), decide whether you are sedentary or lightly active (most people are lightly active even if they just have a desk job), and then use that number as your daily goal. If you exercise, then meat your daily goal and eat at least half of the calories MFP spits out for you. I'm not sure how strength training will affect your BMR, but it's great for overall health/ and fitness.

    Once you are more consistent with everything it will be easier for you to figure out how to change things. Net cals is probably a good approach to choose if you are not consistent with your exercise, or if you are still changing around your routine.
  • all4yum
    all4yum Posts: 43 Member
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    The incomplete days are my fast days. I aim to eat 500 to 600 calories, but sometime it's more like 900, but everything is logged, apart from water. If something is logged without weight then that usually means I know the calories, have worked them out and have made sure they match up. Or I've eaten at a restaurant and have to guess, which isn't too often.

    I'm currently not eating my exercise calories back, I find mfp estimation of my bmr to be wildly different to my bmr based on body fat, so I just aim to eat less than 1500 a day most days. I also try to do some exercise daily, I just thought I'd see a Bigger loss by now. I don't know why, the other 50 pounds took years, I should expect it to be slow, but I'm still desperate to find a way to speed.it up lol.

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