LoLoGB wrote: »

So I followed Scooby and heybales spreadsheet and all had me at TDEE 1700 eating (with 15% cut...showed my burn closer to 2000 with activity level). Yet I got the Fitbit Charge HR and it shows my daily burn at only 1800. Which means I've been eatin too much!! So kinda losing faith in the EM2WL bc all calculations I've been shown and told are wrong. And that's with my working out for 45 min 3x week heavy lifting and walking 5k-8k steps a day. So I'll eat 1530 now but how could the sheets be so far off?!

Are you manually logging that weight lifting?
HR-based or step-based calorie burns are both incorrect for weight lifting.

You have a misunderstanding of EM2WL if you think the numbers being wrong means the principle is wrong.

It's never wrong to take the most reasonable deficit you can from whatever you can figure out your TDEE is.

MFP method was also estimating a daily non-exercise TDEE, when exercise was done it was added in, by a 4 level activity system.

Other sites will use a 5 rough level TDEE system that talks of exercise but not daily life.

Perhaps outside of exercise - you are less active than average they are expecting. 5-8K isn't that great.

I know my spreadsheet for the sedentary base it's built on says the time of various daily activities.
If you don't actually spend that time, well, lower calorie burn.
Is your weight lifting showing good progress - which shows really working out near maintenance?
You should have had great performance increases on the bar.

On the spreadsheet, if you had been doing the Progress tab, and the TDEE calculator on the far right, you would have been monthly adjusting your Activity Calc based on actual eating levels and actual weight loss.
And it would have told you to enter in negative hours of time to compensate for a lower TDEE.

Of course you don't do that if you've never increased your calories up to estimated TDEE to begin with.
Great way to run your daily burn right back in to the ground.

LoLoGB wrote: »

I guess it gets confusing and overwhelming

I understand that! I feel the same
Since you started a new thread, I cant remember your story.... Whens the last time you had a break from caloric cut and just eaten at maintence for awhile? If you are loosing inches and gaining strength, this is something that IS working well for you.

Have you ever tested your TDEE by going up and up and up? Thats how I found my number. I accidently was going off of mens numbers but that worked out well for me bc I was able to increase w/o being worried that my numbers were getting high.

Acticity trackers and spreadsheets just give an estimate... Its up to you to play with numbers and really figure it out. A good way to figure out true TDEE is to increase to maintenence and hang out there awhile then take a cut. If you arent gaining weight/inches at the estimated maintenence, you increase more. Your TDEE is even higher so thats good news! Means you can eat more! Nom nom.

I had the Charge and it told me my average TDEE was only 1800 - way too low. I sent it back and got the Charge HR a month ago. It's a little better with the HR feature, but still only gives me an average TDEE of 2000. Still way too low for me. I know from lots of experience that I can eat 2100 cals daily and lose between 1/2-1 lb a week. So it without a doubt it estimates way low for me. Not saying it's like this with everyone, but I've heard from many who say the same thing. I've already got my Charge HR boxed up to return - my main reason for trying it was the HR feature giving a more accurate calorie burn and I'm still unimpressed. I wouldn't lower your cals especially if you were losing inches where you were at before! 1530 is really low!

With performance going up, great workouts, losing inches - you were recomping.

You can't get that except as very newbie for a very short bit - if you have a suppressed TDEE.
Other than short time at very start - a body that has slowed down to conserve calories because of under-eating too much, isn't going to build more muscle that requires more energy needs and higher eating.

That means eating at maintenance while doing something that calls for more muscle to be added.

You were likely eating at maintenance. You thought you had a minor deficit in place, label and logging food inaccuracies could have wiped that out.
So even if in reality you were eating more than you logged or could be accurate with - that just means you eat less by a given amount.

So while you may be logging you are eating 1700 calories - with inaccuracies with how you log, or what you eat and inability to log accurately - you could be eating say 2000 in reality. Or more even.

Well that 15% of estimated TDEE was going to be 300 calories.

So you lower eating goal to 1400 calories - and don't change your eating habits or accuracy at all.

In reality - you'll be eating 1700 calories or more - right where you need to be.

You will not keep getting the same performance increases after a bit unless you are still in the 6-9 month newbie phase.
But even then, you may notice recovery takes longer now - allow for it and take it.
Your body is trying to make great changes with less food now to lose fat, things will take longer now.