BMR and TDEE help?

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kballeste
kballeste Posts: 19 Member
edited November 2014 in Health and Weight Loss
After 3 weeks of working out 6 days a week and eating healthy with no results, I realized that I needed to start calorie counting and it's been much more complicated than I anticipated, because I still don't really understand the science behind it. (I've been calorie counting for a little over a week so its been a little over a month in total and still no results, on the scale or in the mirror)

I am 20 years old, 5 ft tall (small frame) and I currently weigh 129 pounds. I don't necessarily have a "goal weight" because I just want to look good no matter what I weigh, but I would like to be around 115 pounds because it seems like a nice healthy weight to be at.
I work out 6 days a week and I do a mix of cardio and strength training so the amount of calories I burn a day are all different. I use a heart rate monitor (Polar FT4) to track calories burned. Aside from working out 6 days a week, I'd say I'm mostly sedentary.
First question, should I be listing myself as sedentary despite the fact that I workout 6 days a week for 40 mins to an hour? I wasn't sure if that included the workouts or not.

Anyway, MFP has set me at a net of 1,200 cals a day (400 calorie deficit) and so far I've been eating back all of my exercise calories, and I have a projected weight loss of 0.8 pounds a week. Obviously something hasn't been working and I think my diet is the culprit. I eat mostly clean, and as natural as possible when it comes to packaged items. I've also been weighing and measuring my food. But I've just been maintaining my weight rather than losing it. So then I thought, am I eating too many calories? Say I ate 1,200 cals one day but I burned 500 while working out, that would leave me with a net of 700 cals and I've heard that's not good, which is why I eat back my calories.

My BMR is 1,404 and my TDEE is 2176.2 (multiplied my BMR by 1.55 since I would fall under moderately active with my workouts).
My question is, how many calories should I be eating to lose weight?
Should I be netting my BMR? Should I stick with 1,200 calories and not eat back my exercise calories, or should I continue eating them back? Should I subtract at least 500 from my TDEE and eat whatever amount of calories that is?
I'm mostly concerned for my health because I don't want to eat too little and cause metabolic damage and I don't want to to eat too much and not lose weight at all/stay the same.

Replies

  • peachyfuzzle
    peachyfuzzle Posts: 1,122 Member
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    You should be eating a few hundred calories less than your TDEE. 1200 calories is too low since it is lower than your BMR. You want to make sure that you're keeping very good, honest track of your calories.

    Also, using TDEE, you don't eat back the calories you work out since TDEE takes work out calories into consideration already.
  • indianwin2001
    indianwin2001 Posts: 296 Member
    edited November 2014
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    I use the TDEE method from IIFYM and I typically eat about 200-300 cals less than my TDEE and it is working like a charm. I also work out 6 days a week so it should work out for you also. Maybe try 1600-1700 cals a day and see how that works
  • kballeste
    kballeste Posts: 19 Member
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    indianwin2001 wrote: »
    I use the TDEE method from IIFYM and I typically eat about 200-300 cals less than my TDEE and it is working like a charm. I also work out 6 days a week so it should work out for you also. Maybe try 1600-1700 cals a day and see how that works

    Do you use MFP to track your calories? I can just manually set the amount of calories I want to consume a day but it really throws me off after a workout when it says I've earned X amount of calories and all the numbers change. Should I still log my exercise even if my TDEE takes it into account?
  • peachyfuzzle
    peachyfuzzle Posts: 1,122 Member
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    kballeste wrote: »
    indianwin2001 wrote: »
    I use the TDEE method from IIFYM and I typically eat about 200-300 cals less than my TDEE and it is working like a charm. I also work out 6 days a week so it should work out for you also. Maybe try 1600-1700 cals a day and see how that works

    Do you use MFP to track your calories? I can just manually set the amount of calories I want to consume a day but it really throws me off after a workout when it says I've earned X amount of calories and all the numbers change. Should I still log my exercise even if my TDEE takes it into account?

    I'd still log it, but log it at the end of the day when your journal is complete so you're not thrown off.
  • kballeste
    kballeste Posts: 19 Member
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    peachyfuzzle wrote: »
    You should be eating a few hundred calories less than your TDEE. 1200 calories is too low since it is lower than your BMR. You want to make sure that you're keeping very good, honest track of your calories.

    Also, using TDEE, you don't eat back the calories you work out since TDEE takes work out calories into consideration already.

    That makes a lot of sense! Thank you!
  • kballeste
    kballeste Posts: 19 Member
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    peachyfuzzle wrote: »
    kballeste wrote: »
    indianwin2001 wrote: »
    I use the TDEE method from IIFYM and I typically eat about 200-300 cals less than my TDEE and it is working like a charm. I also work out 6 days a week so it should work out for you also. Maybe try 1600-1700 cals a day and see how that works

    Do you use MFP to track your calories? I can just manually set the amount of calories I want to consume a day but it really throws me off after a workout when it says I've earned X amount of calories and all the numbers change. Should I still log my exercise even if my TDEE takes it into account?

    I'd still log it, but log it at the end of the day when your journal is complete so you're not thrown off.

    That's a great idea! I hope upping my calories works, because of course eating even more is kinda scary, but I've heard nothing but great things about following your TDEE
  • indianwin2001
    indianwin2001 Posts: 296 Member
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    Yes I use MFP to track my calories. I just stopped logging my exercise into MFP because I want to just use my macros from IIFYM and MFP will add those calories. I have a Garmin 15 which is a HRM and an activity tracker,so it tracks all my cardio and steps taken during the day and tells me how many calories I burn each day. I than put that data into an excel spreadsheet so I can track all of it. The only problem is I lift heavy 6 days a week and cannot get an accurate calorie count for that,so I add that into Garmin,being very very conservative with those calories burned while lifting.--Hope this helps
  • indianwin2001
    indianwin2001 Posts: 296 Member
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    You are on the right track and don't add your exercise into MFP. I find MFP overstaes the calorie burn and than you eat back too many calories. If you could get a HRM and an activity tracker that is your best bet
  • Lasmartchika
    Lasmartchika Posts: 3,440 Member
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    kballeste wrote: »
    indianwin2001 wrote: »
    I use the TDEE method from IIFYM and I typically eat about 200-300 cals less than my TDEE and it is working like a charm. I also work out 6 days a week so it should work out for you also. Maybe try 1600-1700 cals a day and see how that works

    Do you use MFP to track your calories? I can just manually set the amount of calories I want to consume a day but it really throws me off after a workout when it says I've earned X amount of calories and all the numbers change. Should I still log my exercise even if my TDEE takes it into account?


    I log my exercise during the day and I just make sure at the end of the day I net my BMR. It's worked for me like that.
  • peachyfuzzle
    peachyfuzzle Posts: 1,122 Member
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    You're welcome!

    TDEE definitely works, it's just that you have to figure out what is best calculated for you because there are a few different ways it is calculated which all give different results. Mine is between 3300 - 3700 depending on which calculation, so going I'm going in the middle of the road, and it appears to be working so far.

    Just like everything else with weight loss, it's trial, and error. If it isn't working for you, decrease your calorie intake little by little until you notice the scale going down.
  • kballeste
    kballeste Posts: 19 Member
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    indianwin2001 wrote: »
    You are on the right track and don't add your exercise into MFP. I find MFP overstaes the calorie burn and than you eat back too many calories. If you could get a HRM and an activity tracker that is your best bet

    I have one! :) I have a Polar FT4 and it's helped me out a lot. Thanks so much!
  • indianwin2001
    indianwin2001 Posts: 296 Member
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    You're welcome and good luck
  • ljashley1952
    ljashley1952 Posts: 273 Member
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    I found that guess-timating on the calories was horribly inaccurate and I was eating more calories than I was logging. Once I began to weigh and calculate everything manually it made a huge difference. For example: I found out that my super healthy, low cal salad was not low cal at all when I added in the 1/2 sliced avocado. That addition to my salad was 355 calories all by itself. I also discovered that the bread that I bake myself was more than twice as much as the 40 calorie listing I chose from the database. Things are not always easy to figure out. Today I had lunch with my sister and ordered a Honored Guest Cobb Salad at Shari's. I had no clue what the calorie content was and I was going to just call it 500. Then I searched the database and found it and it is listed at 630 calories. No clue if that is accurate or not, but it was over 100 calories more than I'd guessed. A few of those inaccuracies in a day and it adds up. It could make the difference in whether I lose wt or maintain the same weight over time. Also coffee creamers add up. I probably use 3 tbsp of creamer in a 16 oz travel mug and that adds up to around 100 extra calories. Just be aware of the hidden calories that creep in that can sabotage a diet.

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