TDEE and BMR, could someone please explain....

Your BMR is basically how much you need to eat to survive.

Your TDEE is how manny calories you burn doing your daily activities.

To lose weight, you need to eat between the two.
To gain weight, you need to eat more than your TDEE.

Basal metabolic rate is what you would burn if you were in a coma just to remain alive.

Total daily energy expenditure takes your BMR and uses a multiplier based on type of lifestyle (eg sedentary/active etc) to calculate what you burn day to day when things like walking to work and all doing the washing up are taken into account.

To gain weight you would need to take in more energy than the TDEE and to lose weight you need to take in less energy.

Then on top of that if you do exercise that adds on to your TDEE to give you total number of cals burned that day.

This is why you should eat exercise calories back, because otherwise it is the equivalent of eating too little.

This is why you should eat exercise calories back, because otherwise it is the equivalent of eating too little.

But take note, that eating back exercise calories doesn't work for everyone, just try different things & see what works best for YOU & YOUR body.

One of the other MFP members built this awesome spreadsheet for calculating your TDEE and a couple different calorie and macro combinations. It can get you your TDEE (it calls it "maintenance") and your BMR.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/491087-my-gift-excel-spreadsheet-for-bmr-tdee-cut-build-and-ma

Have a look here - http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/512956-tdee-what-is-it-and-why-you-should-not-eat-below-your-bmr?

also, have a read of the stickied threads in teh general section, they are very informative.

Good luck

What do you mean by the stickied threads?:noway:

The threads at the top of the forum pages that have a pin next to them - they remain at the top of the page always.

Bump

This is why you should eat exercise calories back, because otherwise it is the equivalent of eating too little.

But take note, that eating back exercise calories doesn't work for everyone, just try different things & see what works best for YOU & YOUR body.

Agreed, but it should be taken into account initially and tweaked from there.

Here is a link to a full explanation

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/512956-tdee-what-is-it-and-why-you-should-not-eat-below-your-bmr?

It really depends on the TDEE calculator. Many of the ones you might find though google will include you exercise activity in their calculations. The MFP one does not. If you want to know what MFP calculates you TDEE from My Home click on Goals. In the right hand column it will list calories burned from normal daily activity. That number does not include exercise. Where as this one http://www.fitnessfrog.com/calculators/tdee-calculator.html does. In the case of the MFP one you eat your exercise calories, in the case of the other one, you do not.

This is why you should eat exercise calories back, because otherwise it is the equivalent of eating too little.

But take note, that eating back exercise calories doesn't work for everyone, just try different things & see what works best for YOU & YOUR body.

Agreed, but it should be taken into account initially and tweaked from there.

Here is a link to a full explanation

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/512956-tdee-what-is-it-and-why-you-should-not-eat-below-your-bmr?

It really depends on the TDEE calculator. Many of the ones you might find though google will include you exercise activity in their calculations. The MFP one does not. If you want to know what MFP calculates you TDEE from My Home click on Goals. In the right hand column it will list calories burned from normal daily activity. That number does not include exercise. Where as this one http://www.fitnessfrog.com/calculators/tdee-calculator.html does. In the case of the MFP one you eat your exercise calories, in the case of the other one, you do not.

^^this

People get REALLY confused about this. Read the blurp on the site to see whether this includes a deficit (i.e. what you should eat) or not (your true TDEE) and how/if it includes your exercise activities. If it includes your level of activity, you are automatically eating your calories back, if not (like MFP) you should eat them back.