Confused about TDEE and calories consumption

ClairePear14
ClairePear14 Posts: 47
edited November 12 in Health and Weight Loss
Okay, so ive been trying to work out how many calories i need to eat a day to maintain my weight. And from that, take 500 calories to lose weight. Ive been on numerous amount of sites with calculators for it but they all say different numbers...

Im 18 years old, Female. 150LBS (Yes, overweight. But I did weigh 224lbs) and im 5ft3". I am 29% fat, 34% muscle and I have a 27" waist. (I dont know if thats relevant)
I exercise 6 days a week - General walking, lifting weights (occasionally), boxing, HIIT, Pilates, Cardio, Kickboxing, running, cycling. I want to lose 10 lbs and im in no great rush. I just need to know how many calories and what ratio of Carbs;Protein:Fat i should have. Slow and steady is what i want as i dont want to lose any muscle.

I have tried to figure it out but i keep ending up with different numbers. i Just need a good, knowledgeable opinion from someone.

Thanks guuys :smiley:

Replies

  • sherbear702
    sherbear702 Posts: 650 Member
    What does MFP say? I'd go with that. It seems to be working well for most of us.
  • ClairePear14
    ClairePear14 Posts: 47
    sherbear702 wrote: »
    What does MFP say? I'd go with that. It seems to be working well for most of us.

    They recommend the ridiculous low of 1200 or just above and as i said, i dont want to lose muscle. Plus, ive had experience with a very low cal 'diet' and it didnt make me feel my best.
  • kcmccormack
    kcmccormack Posts: 71 Member
    I was confused about the same thing. MFP recommended 1200 for me too. I used this:http://iifym.com/iifym-calculator/

    It's obviously an estimated calculation, but still more detailed than other calculators. I found it helpful. It'll tell how how many calories to aim for while taking into account your activity level.
  • segacs
    segacs Posts: 4,599 Member
    ClairePear14 wrote: »
    They recommend the ridiculous low of 1200 or just above and as i said, i dont want to lose muscle. Plus, ive had experience with a very low cal 'diet' and it didnt make me feel my best.

    What did you enter as your goal? 2lbs/week? 1.5? Try dropping it to 1lb/week (500 calorie deficit) or 0.5lbs/week (250 calorie deficit) and see what that says.

    Also remember that the number MFP gives you is a baseline *without* exercise. When you do all that HIIT, cardio kickboxing, running and cycling, you need to be logging that exercise and you'll "earn" back those calories on top of the baseline.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    ClairePear14 wrote: »
    sherbear702 wrote: »
    What does MFP say? I'd go with that. It seems to be working well for most of us.

    They recommend the ridiculous low of 1200 or just above and as i said, i dont want to lose muscle. Plus, ive had experience with a very low cal 'diet' and it didnt make me feel my best.

    MFP is not a TDEE calculator...with MFP, you get your base calories and then you account for exercise activity after the fact and get calories to "eat back"...so in fact, you would consume more than 1200 calories if you were exercising.

    It should be roughly 6 of 1 if you're doing it right...the only difference between MFP and TDEE (provided you are comparing apples to apples rate of loss goals) is where you account for your exercise activity. You account for that activity up front in your activity level with TDEE and after the fact with MFP.

    Just pick a calculator and go with it...all of these calculators are just reasonably good starting points...they aren't gospel...nobody has a TDEE of exactly XXXX calories. You start somewhere and make adjustments as per your actual results.
  • kcmccormack
    kcmccormack Posts: 71 Member
    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10081313/mfp-vs-tdee-what-works-best-for-you#latest

    This thread was interesting, I was curious what everyone prefered using mfp or tdee, and ppl totally helped clarify it for me.
  • StaciMarie1974
    StaciMarie1974 Posts: 4,138 Member
    The methods are just different guesses. The only real way to move on for here: pick one, be consistent and evaluate your progress after 4-8 weeks.
  • davis978
    davis978 Posts: 103 Member
    I found this to be the most helpful TDEE resource I have come across, courtesy of Mr. heybales here on MFP. It worked really well for me. You have to be willing to take the time to customize it, but the results are tremendously informative.

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/user/heybales/profile/heybales?target=&redirected=true

    Scroll down to the link to his spreadsheet.

    Also, if you only want to lose 10 pounds, I recommend you try for only .25 to .5 pounds loss per week. The leaner you get, the harder it is. Since you said you aren't in a hurry, I would go s --- l --- o --- w .....
  • terbusha
    terbusha Posts: 1,483 Member
    What I do and what I recommend to people is to eat at a calorie level that allows you to make good progress towards your goal. If you are trying to lose weight, eat so you drop 1 lb/week. This assumes an average calorie burn from you getting in all of your workouts. This will be different for everyone, so you'll have to do some trial and error to figure it out. I'd start ~1600 cal/day. Hit this goal, along with your macros and getting in your workouts, for a week. If you lose 1 lb, you're good to go. If you lose too much, increase your intake and repeat. If you don't lose enough, reduce your intake a bit and repeat. After a few weeks, you'll figure out what works for you in your situation.

    As for macros, here is what I suggest as a good place to start.

    Protein: 0.8-1 g/lb, If you are doing more weight lifting, you’ll want to be to the upper end of this range
    Fat: 20-30% of your total calories
    Carbs: the rest of your calories
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