Calculating TDEE with Apple Watch

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92019start
92019start Posts: 80 Member
edited June 2018 in Health and Weight Loss
Hi there! I had my basal metabolic rate measured with a breathing machine at a sports performance facility and it was 1,100. Can I take that number plus my Apple Watch activity calories to get my TDEE? Is there a more accurate way to do this?

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  • nowine4me
    nowine4me Posts: 3,985 Member
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    active and resting energy calories (from health kit) add up to TDEE. But yes, your idea should be accurate for an average, rather than real-time daily info. With health kit, you can run the data by day, month or YTD.
  • ITUSGirl51
    ITUSGirl51 Posts: 192 Member
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    I don’t think so.

    The Apple Watch resting calories includes additional calories while you move around or exercise.

    For example, my resting calories when my watch is not on me is about 59 calories an hour. If I wear my watch and exercise, my resting calories can go up to 89 calories for that hour PLUS the additional active calories I earned during that time. So my resting calories change day to day depending on the amount of intentional or unintentional exercise I get.
  • snemberton
    snemberton Posts: 175 Member
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    My resting calories average out to be pretty much within 40-50 calories each day. I've used a spreadsheet that calculates my resting and active calories in relation to my caloric intake. Even with some occasional lax food logging and accounting for my TOM water retention, it's been awfully accurate at the expected loss in comparison to my actual loss. (less than half a pound difference when I wasn't back to retaining some water during ovulation this week).

    I was surprised at the overall accuracy honestly.
  • Maxxitt
    Maxxitt Posts: 1,281 Member
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    If you have an AW, use the total calorie estimate ("resting" plus "active") for your TDEE. After you have a month's worth of data - calories in according to your tracking and calories out according to AW you will know if you need to make adjustments somewhere.
  • annaskiski
    annaskiski Posts: 1,212 Member
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    ITUSGirl51 wrote: »
    I don’t think so.

    The Apple Watch resting calories includes additional calories while you move around or exercise.

    For example, my resting calories when my watch is not on me is about 59 calories an hour. If I wear my watch and exercise, my resting calories can go up to 89 calories for that hour PLUS the additional active calories I earned during that time. So my resting calories change day to day depending on the amount of intentional or unintentional exercise I get.

    The watch can give you both activity and total calories. The activity calories don't include the resting calories...
  • 92019start
    92019start Posts: 80 Member
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    I guess I should clarify: I’m referring to the active calories only here. So if I run 7 miles, and it says I’ve burned 350 active calories, and then I do a ton of walking, chasing kids, etc, I usually see my daily active calories end up around 600 calories on average according to health kit. Can I add that active calorie to my nasal rate from my measurement at the lab of 1,100 to get my approximate TDEE? The reason I want to know is so I can set an appropriate calorie goal on MFP.
  • annaskiski
    annaskiski Posts: 1,212 Member
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    I think that would work for your maintenance calories.
    Are you trying to lose, gain, or maintain?
  • 92019start
    92019start Posts: 80 Member
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    I would like to lose maybe 1/2 a pound a week.
  • snemberton
    snemberton Posts: 175 Member
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    92019start wrote: »
    I guess I should clarify: I’m referring to the active calories only here. So if I run 7 miles, and it says I’ve burned 350 active calories, and then I do a ton of walking, chasing kids, etc, I usually see my daily active calories end up around 600 calories on average according to health kit. Can I add that active calorie to my nasal rate from my measurement at the lab of 1,100 to get my approximate TDEE? The reason I want to know is so I can set an appropriate calorie goal on MFP.
    What's the watch say is your average resting calories? Is that close to 1,100? I'm sure the lab basal rate was accurate enough, but the watch has a different algorithm for calculating resting and active calories. If resting calories is close to 1100, then you probably are fine to look at it the way you planned.

    (BTW, are you just throwing out numbers for a 7 mile run? 350 seems awfully low for that.)

  • ITUSGirl51
    ITUSGirl51 Posts: 192 Member
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    Apple is not using a BMR for resting. If it were it wouldn’t change based on exercise. Here are my charts for Monday. ns0lrzkvot30.png
    5qb67e9upwle.png
  • Maxxitt
    Maxxitt Posts: 1,281 Member
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    Again, your AW total can do all the work with this. My "total" # of around 1800/day puts me at the "lightly active" setting on MFP and I take my deficit from that. Checking the maths, the MFP "lightly active" plus my planned 250 deficit per day puts me right at my AW daily total most days, and some days the AW deficit shows as being larger than 250.
  • ITUSGirl51
    ITUSGirl51 Posts: 192 Member
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    Maxxitt wrote: »
    Again, your AW total can do all the work with this. My "total" # of around 1800/day puts me at the "lightly active" setting on MFP and I take my deficit from that. Checking the maths, the MFP "lightly active" plus my planned 250 deficit per day puts me right at my AW daily total most days, and some days the AW deficit shows as being larger than 250.
    I understand that, but the OP didn’t want to use the AW resting calories but the lower number BMR given to her plus AW active calories. I was demonstrating that AW resting calories is more than BMR, so that wouldn’t work.
  • collectingblues
    collectingblues Posts: 2,541 Member
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    The resting calories are actually a sedentary factor -- not just the BMR, but BMR x 1.2 (or 1.25 -- I haven't quite worked that out).

    So OP, you'd take the 1100 x 1.2, and *then* add your active calories on top of that.
  • snemberton
    snemberton Posts: 175 Member
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    collectingblues wrote: »
    The resting calories are actually a sedentary factor -- not just the BMR, but BMR x 1.2 (or 1.25 -- I haven't quite worked that out).

    So OP, you'd take the 1100 x 1.2, and *then* add your active calories on top of that.
    1.2 is a little lower than my average and 1.25 is a bit higher than my resting average, but it's pretty close either way.
  • collectingblues
    collectingblues Posts: 2,541 Member
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    snemberton wrote: »
    collectingblues wrote: »
    The resting calories are actually a sedentary factor -- not just the BMR, but BMR x 1.2 (or 1.25 -- I haven't quite worked that out).

    So OP, you'd take the 1100 x 1.2, and *then* add your active calories on top of that.
    1.2 is a little lower than my average and 1.25 is a bit higher than my resting average, but it's pretty close either way.

    Yeah, I figure it's in the ballpark. :D I know for me, my RMR (had it lab-tested) came back 20 percent higher than what the Watch predicted it should be (when I reverse calculated the RMR based on the resting calories), so I just add 20 percent on to the resting calorie figure and call it good.

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