Maintenance Calculator

MaxPrinz
MaxPrinz Posts: 33 Member
edited November 15 in Goal: Maintaining Weight
Has anyone found a calculator that is more or less accurate? I strugle to find my maintenance calories....
thx

Replies

  • lauraemily84
    lauraemily84 Posts: 140 Member
    I think from what others have said to me on here it's very much trial and error! The calorie calculators seem to give me all sorts of different daily cal amounts. I was told to gradually increase your cals by say 100 cals a week until you stabilise your weight x
  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
    scooby was pretty accurate for me, but then so is MFP....
  • cathipa
    cathipa Posts: 2,991 Member
    Scooby is probably the most accurate
  • MaxPrinz
    MaxPrinz Posts: 33 Member
    what activity lvl do you suggest, i am working as an engineer, so basic office job, i workout 5 to 6 times a week for about 45min, weight training
  • powered85
    powered85 Posts: 297 Member
    See if @heybales will respond with the tdee spreadsheet. Quite helpful and allows you to get really granular with your activity level. If you go by bf% to calculate things it has that too.
  • TimothyFish
    TimothyFish Posts: 4,925 Member
    None will get it exactly right because what one person considers light activity is different than what another person considers light activity. Pick one and then adjust your intake up or down based on whether you are gaining or losing weight over a month or so.
  • nowine4me
    nowine4me Posts: 3,985 Member
    Start with Scooby or TDEE Calculator as a base. Exercise calories burned are the wild card in these things because who knows if "moderately active" is based on 250 calories burned or 1000.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    Just TDEE Please spreadsheet - better than rough 5 level TDEE charts.
    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1G7FgNzPq3v5WMjDtH0n93LXSMRY_hjmzNTMJb3aZSxM/edit?usp=sharing

    The problem with live data is how variable many peoples lives are in 4 weeks - compared to the next 4 weeks.
    Throw in seasons with daily activity changes, can get real interesting trying to make adjustments.
    But it does provide best bet eventually with a rolling avg system.

    The problem with the tables based on the Harris (of BMR calc) 1919 study for 5 rough TDEE levels - is daily activity isn't a factor, only exercise.
    Is the desk jockey and the mailman with equal stats both doing 5 days of 1 hr of workouts really having the same TDEE?
    Or is the runner @ 3 hrs weekly and lifter @ 3 hrs weekly really the same TDEE if same jobs?
    Is the single person at work and the mom with 3 kids with work at home really equal if same aerobics classes?

    If your body is far from average, like much higher fat %, or opposite actually, then going by Katch BMR could be needed to create a deficit.
    My profile page has more detailed spreadsheet - just stick on Simple Setup and Progress tabs (which allows doing that live data adjustments as mentioned above).
  • MaxPrinz
    MaxPrinz Posts: 33 Member
    thank you very much, looks awesome, unfortunately i cant edit the sheet...
  • powered85
    powered85 Posts: 297 Member
    MaxPrinz wrote: »
    thank you very much, looks awesome, unfortunately i cant edit the sheet...

    Believe you need to save a copy in order to edit
  • MaxPrinz
    MaxPrinz Posts: 33 Member
    right, it worked... never thought my tdee is that low 2400... i am 6'2, 170lbs an workout 5 to 6 times a week... sedentary though
  • mattyc772014
    mattyc772014 Posts: 3,543 Member
    @MaxPrinz Try this one. It gives all the formulas and averages them. I found this to work the best for me pretty accurate. I got it from another member/moderator.

    http://www.sailrabbit.com/bmr/
  • rosebarnalice
    rosebarnalice Posts: 3,488 Member
    I've been maintaining on what MFP gives me just fine.
  • kgirlhart
    kgirlhart Posts: 5,165 Member
    None will get it exactly right because what one person considers light activity is different than what another person considers light activity. Pick one and then adjust your intake up or down based on whether you are gaining or losing weight over a month or so.

    This has been my experience with the TDEE calulators. I find the them all to be kind of confusing. I have a desk job. I do 30-35 minutes of yoga 5 days per week and I walk 3 days per week and jog 3 days per week. I don't ever know quite how to set my activity level on the TDEE calculators. I know I'm not really sedentary, but I don't really know how vigorous my activity is. Scooby gives me 1771 and sailrabbit gives me 1727. @heybales spreadsheet gave me 1970 which I think it probably the closest. Although I really didn't know how to judge my exercise. I use yoga as strength training but it isn't weight training. I walk about 3 miles per hour, but not flat. I walk at a park that has lots of hills. And I jog at the same park, but it takes me about 30 minutes to go a little more than 2 miles. My fitbit says my average burn about 1850-1875 per day, but when I eat that much I still lose weight. That's why I think the spreadsheet was closest. Mfp gives me 1700 plus my exercise adjustment which usually puts me at about 1900 for the day. I don't know if I'll ever really figure it out. Every time I think I have hit my maintenance level I will drop some more. So far I have dropped 10 below my goal so I just keep resetting my maintenance range.

    I do think the best thing is to just pick one and use it for a while and see how your weight goes and adjust as needed. It just sometimes takes a while to figure out what your maintenance calories are.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    MaxPrinz wrote: »
    right, it worked... never thought my tdee is that low 2400... i am 6'2, 170lbs an workout 5 to 6 times a week... sedentary though

    It does show, as many people discover with motivation activity trackers - that increased daily activity many times trumps the specific calorie burn of exercise.

    But guess which one transforms the body more eventually. Sooner or later.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,225 Member
    +1 to the idea that any calculator is not as good as your own results, as long as you're logging consistently for a month or so to get a range of data (throw out the first two weeks of losses at the start of a deficit, IMO, though, because of the water weight weirdness).

    At best, an estimating calculator gives you a starting point for your own experimentation. They can be close for a lot of people, but by definition will be far off for a few percent of the population, because that's how normal distributions work.

    There's also this piece of spreadsheet-y awesomeness to help with that "own results" thing - as far as I know it still works: myfitnesspal.com/blog/EvgeniZyntx/view/mfp-data-export-tool-the-overview-659927.

    Pulls your MFP history, turns it into useful info. Seriously amazing.
  • kzooyogi
    kzooyogi Posts: 121 Member
    I tried finding it with a calculator, but ended up setting my own number after weeks of continued, unintended weight loss. When I got close to my goal, I added 100 calories every 10 days until I started to see my weight stabilize. Then I changed my workout routine to add in a heavy lifting program, so I'm back to trying to find it. I seriously doubt your TDEE is 2400, because MY TDEE is approximately 2400, and I'm only 5'8", female, and 140 lbs.

    So, another vote to ditch the calculators and go off of your own, real-life data.

    PS, if you're working out 5-6x per week, you're not sedentary ;) Maybe you have a desk job (which I do, too), but the fact that you're active the rest of the time that you're not sitting at your desk means your activity level is higher than you're giving yourself credit for. As an example - I sit at a desk all day. But when I'm not sitting at my desk I'm doing yoga 6x per week, spinning 1x per week, and lifting weights 3x per week. If I use a TDEE calculator and say I'm sedentary, it gives me 1,800 calories per day. If I say I'm very active, it gives me 2,400 calories per day. My real life data also shows that 2,400 is my maintenance number. So obviously sedentary is not reflective of your activity level, as it wasn't for me.
  • macchiatto
    macchiatto Posts: 2,890 Member
    Many calculators seem to over-estimate for me. However, I have PCOS and have seen studies that women with PCOS tend to have slower metabolisms on average than other women so that might be the difference for me.
  • Rachelmilloy
    Rachelmilloy Posts: 159 Member
    Bump
  • ChelzFit
    ChelzFit Posts: 292 Member
    I have my Fitbit hooked up to MFP and my TDEE has been pretty spot on with maintaining. I am 5'7 133 and maintain between 2,200-2,400 depending on my activity for the day.
  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,522 Member
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    That one is using the same formula from the Harris 1919 study as the others listed, or the ones that normally get linked like Scooby or whatever.

    And it only discusses exercise, not increased daily activity. Actually, it's the worse version because it says days/week, not even hours/week.

    Because a desk jockey doing 5 hrs of exercise weekly and a mailman doing the same with equal body/age stats obviously won't have the same TDEE.

    But that 1919 formula would make it the same.
  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,522 Member
    MaxPrinz wrote: »
    right, it worked... never thought my tdee is that low 2400... i am 6'2, 170lbs an workout 5 to 6 times a week... sedentary though

    First of all, what are you trying to do? Gain weight? Your weight is fine as is.

    I am very similar in that I have a desk job, but I was overweight (by most standards). What I did was fill out the MFP profile for "sedentary" and then track my food and workouts. For running and cycling outdoors, you can get the calories from various apps. For elliptical or treadmills, you can get the calories from the machine itself. For swimming, I just use the MFP estimate based on time. For weightlifting, I use MFP's Cardio-- "Circuit Training." This last one is very crude since there is a lot of variation in how hard your lift and how much rest you take between lifts.

    How accurate is all this? Well, I have lost 20lbs in 19 weeks. That indicates that MFPs calculations were pretty darn accurate!
  • sgt1372
    sgt1372 Posts: 3,997 Member
    There lots of different TDEE calculators that use different mathematical algorthims to arrive at a TDEE number.

    The following website allows you to compare the results from 6 different methods at one time and will give you a range that can vary widely.

    See: http://www.sailrabbit.com/bmr/

    I used this website to calc my maintenance level and found that the lowest result was most accurate for me. So, some trial and error is still required to determine the right TDEE level for you regardless of which calculator you use.
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