Which TDEE for me?
Jules190179
Posts: 57 Member
Do you all follow the TDEE given by MFP for your maintenance days? I feel that mine is very high. I weigh 161lb (after fasting twice in the week), am a teacher so am on my feet quite a bit, but do not exercise. The only time I exercise is when I have eaten (or plan to eat) too many cals and need to burn them off. I put my exercise as sedentary, and MFP still gives me 1920 as maintenance calories which is massive. Every other calculator online gives me 1650 calories. I have been on many websites, and not one allows me to eat this much. Which do I go with?
My second question is about the weight fluctuation. When you shoot up as soon as you eat, then go down as soon as you stop, how do you measure your weight? The scale over the course of the week is lower, but ranges from 161 lb to 165 lb. What do I weigh?
My second question is about the weight fluctuation. When you shoot up as soon as you eat, then go down as soon as you stop, how do you measure your weight? The scale over the course of the week is lower, but ranges from 161 lb to 165 lb. What do I weigh?
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When you are a regular dieter and used to restricting to 1200 then almost 2000 does feel like a lot but that is supposed to be averaged intake for a woman and if you are under 30 years then it seems reasonable and it is to maintain. .I know what you mean about the fluctuations tho, I get excited when I weigh after a fast and a bit demoralised when it goes up after eating I wait until I get a few consistent weights and then update progress. It helps to measure your self or have an item of clothing that is a bit small at the moment. Good luck x0
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TDEE isn't one fixed number - so on the odd days you do exercise it will be higher. Really when people say "TDEE" they mean average or typical TDEE.
It's hard to compare MFP's method (which excludes exercise) with TDEE calculators as the activity settings are different. By the way when you say "I put my exercise as sedentary" I'm guessing you mean activity as sedentary? If you are a teacher and on your feet all day thats not sedentary (meaning seated or mostly sitting down, inactive). Lightly active would be a more accurate description.
But really don't over think it too much - it's just a rough estimate to give you a start point. After 4 weeks your weight will tell you what your true (average) TDEE is. If the majority of estimates give you around 1650 then why not give that a go?
Weight fluctuations are more extreme following an intermittent fasting protocol so yes it's harder to see the overall trend. The answer to your "how much do I weigh?" question is "between 161 & 165lbs".
In a month you may be saying "between 157 & 161lbs".
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TDEE isn't one fixed number - so on the odd days you do exercise it will be higher. Really when people say "TDEE" they mean average or typical TDEE.
It's hard to compare MFP's method (which excludes exercise) with TDEE calculators as the activity settings are different. By the way when you say "I put my exercise as sedentary" I'm guessing you mean activity as sedentary? If you are a teacher and on your feet all day thats not sedentary (meaning seated or mostly sitting down, inactive). Lightly active would be a more accurate description.
But really don't over think it too much - it's just a rough estimate to give you a start point. After 4 weeks your weight will tell you what your true (average) TDEE is. If the majority of estimates give you around 1650 then why not give that a go?
Weight fluctuations are more extreme following an intermittent fasting protocol so yes it's harder to see the overall trend. The answer to your "how much do I weigh?" question is "between 161 & 165lbs".
In a month you may be saying "between 157 & 161lbs".
So I now realise what I have been doing wrong! On MFP I have put 'lightly active' for my activity, bringing me up at 1920 cals, but on the other calculators, I have been putting 'little or no exercise' which must be the equivalent of sedentary, making it lower. If I change that to exercise 1-3 times per week (to cover the active teacher role) it raises to between 1829 and 2030. So I guess 1800-1900 is the way to go. It just seems mad that I can get away with eating so much, and not particularly healthy food either.
Thanks for the help and advice.
Jules
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If it's any help I stopped using calculators/estimators guidance after the first couple of months. I simply custom set my calorie goal based on results over time.
Which usefully compensates for both logging inaccuracy and personal differences based on genetics. Calculators appear to be out by c.300 cals/day for me.
Enjoy your 1800 - 1900 calories!0 -
Online calculators are really only useful in trying to provide an educated guess as to your caloric needs. When you don't know what your caloric needs are, they can be useful, although each can give a different answer.
My best advice would be to see what a few of the more well respected ones give you, go with that educated guesstimate, and then over time see what loss rate that gives you. From there you should easily be able to work backwards and see what your actual intake should be.
Re: when to weigh - first thing in the morning before you eat anything and after you use the bathroom will give you the most consistent reading in my experience.
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By the way, once you know what your daily intake needs are, a useful figure to work out can be the number of calories per lb you need to maintain your weight when you don't do any additional exercise. That way when you lose weight you shall be able to get a good idea what your new daily intake needs are.
For example in my case, for every lb of bodyweight I seem to need 15.8 calories per day, so currently at 162lbs I know I need approx. 2560 (162 x 15.8) calories each day just to maintain my weight. If my weight changes upwards or downwards, it's then an easy calculation for me to figure out my new caloric needs 0 -
iloseityes wrote: »By the way, once you know what your daily intake needs are, a useful figure to work out can be the number of calories per lb you need to maintain your weight when you don't do any additional exercise. That way when you lose weight you shall be able to get a good idea what your new daily intake needs are.
For example in my case, for every lb of bodyweight I seem to need 15.8 calories per day, so currently at 162lbs I know I need approx. 2560 (162 x 15.8) calories each day just to maintain my weight. If my weight changes upwards or downwards, it's then an easy calculation for me to figure out my new caloric needs
Thanks, that is really useful. I am planning to see how I get on with 1800-1900 per day.0 -
Jules190179 wrote: »
Thanks, that is really useful. I am planning to see how I get on with 1800-1900 per day.
No worries, and enjoy the 1800/ 1900 calories. The most important things is a stable/ consistent starting point you can maintain I find. That way you can always adjust your intake later if you wish. I'm sure you already know this, but each 250 calories you shave off your daily intake should net a loss of about 1/2 a lb a week. Good luck with everything
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Do people find they lose more eating maintenance weight on non-fast days? My TDEE is 2290 but I have set MFP to 1290. Should I eat more to lose more?0
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Rachel - you are overrestricting. Aside from that not being fun, it's also not very healthy, if you keep it up for a longer period of time.
1290x5 + 500x2 =7450 /7 = 1065cals per day = 55% deficit
2290x5 + 500x2 = 12450 / 7 = 1780 cals per day = 22% deficit
55% deficit is double the deficit that is recommended for healthy weightloss. You should reconsider your plan, in my opinion.
In my eyes, this is unhealthy, not sustainable, a recipe for binges and failure. Go for 2000 per day on non fast days, if you have trouble eating 2300.0 -
rachel84reid wrote: »Do people find they lose more eating maintenance weight on non-fast days? My TDEE is 2290 but I have set MFP to 1290. Should I eat more to lose more?
If you mean you are limiting yourself to 1290 cals on every non fast day then you are probably missing the point of intermittent fasting. If you are going to keep to under 1300 cals every day why bother with fasting. I truly believe that in the short term you will see good weight loss doing that but not in the long term because you will become 'diet jaded' which is exactly what IF tries to guide us to avoid by being able to eat 'well' and even a bit 'naughty' on feed days. certainly if i could keep to that low a calorie daily intake long term I wouldn't be fat now!0 -
Ok thanks so much everyone - I have read so much conflicting info! I will up my calories on non-fast closer to my TDEE.
i haven't lost weight so am thinking my body storing.
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If you want to see the info/formulas behind calculating your BMR/TDEE then checkout this calculator I built a while back...there are a number of formulas people use and some work better for different body types. If you click on the help icons (?'s) then they will explain something about each factor and discuss how subjective and/or problematic they may be. I find that MFP calculates my TDEE about 15% too high...I am a special case though (started at 500+ lbs) and was exceptionally sedentary.0
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This calculator is amazing!! I can't believe you made it! Fantastic thank you.
Just wondering do you log additional exercise on top of this and use those calories too or not?
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@orlcam - That is one awesome tool!! Love the way you can integrate exercise and fast days! The numbers are close to what I have from other sites, but I've never had such a complete calculator
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However it is true, that many overweight people or people that have lost their surplus weight, have a TDEE 10-20% below someone, who never had a weight problem. Thus Rachel, work with your numbers and tweek them if need be. Just give every change a few weeks or a month to see if it's working.0 -
It is up to the individual...I don't because I don't exercise much. If you want to add all of your exercise manually then set your activity level to sedentary. I added a few extra variations of sedentary in my calculator (I use "working from home"). If you wanted to tally everything, including your daily normal amount of walking, then set the level to 1.0 (Completely Paralyzed) ...the lowest...which is basically your BMR.rachel84reid wrote: »This calculator is amazing!! I can't believe you made it! Fantastic thank you.
Just wondering do you log additional exercise on top of this and use those calories too or not?
Thanks
I came up with the Katch-McArdle (Hybrid) formula myself...it is a variation on what most people feel is the most accurate methodology (Katch-McArdle). The original did not take into consideration those with higher body fat %tages...in my opinion.
The calculator can be a little daunting, but I wanted to make it the most comprehensive available on the net...for those who wanted to take it one step farther.
Thank you (and Flumi) for the compliments.
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@orlcam - That is one awesome tool!! Love the way you can integrate exercise and fast days! The numbers are close to what I have from other sites, but I've never had such a complete calculator .
However it is true, that many overweight people or people that have lost their surplus weight, have a TDEE 10-20% below someone, who never had a weight problem. Thus Rachel, work with your numbers and tweek them if need be. Just give every change a few weeks or a month to see if it's working.
So Flumi do you mean that overweight people tend to eat 10-20% lower than they should and should eat their TDEE or that they need to eat this percentage lower? Sorry for my confusion.
I think what I'll do is log workouts and maybe eat back some of the high calorie ones - if I'm hungry.
Thanks for all the helps guys.0 -
Rachel - don't confuse estimated or calculated TDEE with your actual TDEE.
You don't know where your real TDEE sits against an average person with your stats so no point trying to secong guess it by estimating a percentage cut off an estimate!
Your TDEE is going to change over time anyway just because you have quite a bit of weight still to lose.
Go by your results.0 -
that they need to eat this percentage lower
Saw a documentary a while back, that showed these tendencies. They aren't sure if it's genetic or due to a changed metabolism. The jury is still out, but if you start gaining, when eating maintainance, just keep it in mind.
I lost really well with TDEE (lightly active) + exercise cals on 5 days and 2 fasts at 500-550. Now I'm using the fasts as a tool to allow for a bit more on non fast days and still maintain my weight. My TDEE seems to be pretty acurate, but I've heard from quite a few, that theirs is about 10-15% lower than the calculations.
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I don't know my true TDEE but put it this way, I have been exercising daily, burning off a minimum of 450 calories and all the calculators I've tried (lowest figure) say I should be able to eat around 1450 to be able to lose 1lb per week at my current activity level. I have to exercise and burn off this amount minimum though, otherwise I can only lose 1lb per week by eating 1000 calories a day and I don't want to have to do that. I have a very low TDEE of 1505 and BMR of 1297. Don't know if this is due to having a high body fat % or just because I'm very inactive and average height!
I haven't been doing 5:2 up until now and have been losing that amount of weight every week so far (1lb) but but I have just started 5:2 this week so that I can try and increase my deficit to allow me to lose 1.5lbs per week and I will be able to eat 1500 approx. on my non-fast days which isn't really so bad.0 -
I also noticed from looking at this calculator that at my goal BMI of 20 and 116lbs I will have a TDEE (sedentary) of 1373. It sounds low, but I can live with that as I will be at maintenance and will still be exerciing most days. I will be able to eat pretty much the same as I am now, or even a little more with the exercise calories as there will be no deficit required. If I stick with 5:2 or even 6:1 at that point I will still be able to eat 1500 on non-fast days or much more if I exercise.
It's nice to think I won't have to deprive myself ever again as long as I keep logging my calories though obviously there's no way to know how accurate these figures really are yet.0 -
I agree, calculators are there to give you an idea at the start, but you'll get a feel for it over time. I think that "The Number of Calories It Takes to Lose One Pound of Body Fat" is different from person to person...there are just so many variables that can affect this. Every calculator on the net uses 3,500. There are clinics out there that can figure out your "true"-ish basal/resting metabolic rate with closed environment monitoring, but once you start tossing in additional factors to get to your TDEE then the final values start to blur again.Rachel - don't confuse estimated or calculated TDEE with your actual TDEE.
You don't know where your real TDEE sits against an average person with your stats so no point trying to secong guess it by estimating a percentage cut off an estimate!
Your TDEE is going to change over time anyway just because you have quite a bit of weight still to lose.
Go by your results.
Just think about all of the types of exercises and the speculated calories burned for each. When I run/jog my gate is different than yours...my pace is different...how far do I swing my arms...how heavy are the body parts I'm using...the muscle mass in each limb...what's the weather like...altitude...etc, etc. You can see how all of this is problematic. Throw in water retention and arguable muscle vs fat densities and caloric burn rates then it's a wonder we can even get close to a real number. There is a new take on calculating calories burned using Metabolic Equivalent of Task (MET) codes. MFP uses their own variation of this. Some people think that it still doesn't go far enough as to accuracy. You can read more about it at the Compendium of Physical Activities website.
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There is also evidence that the mix of bacteria/yeasts in the digestive systems of the obese changes over time from that of normal individuals. This can create a whole slew of differences (as to the norm) with water/food retention, vitamin/mineral absorption, overall health, even allergies.that they need to eat this percentage lower
Saw a documentary a while back, that showed these tendencies. They aren't sure if it's genetic or due to a changed metabolism. The jury is still out, but if you start gaining, when eating maintainance, just keep it in mind...
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