TDEE and calories....HELP

"Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) quantifies the number of calories you burn in a day. This measure is best estimated by scaling your Basal Metabolic Rate to your level of activity. TDEE is critical in tailoring your nutrition plan to desired fitness goals."

Fitness Frog explains it way better than I can

Go here...

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/538381-in-place-of-a-road-map?error_user_id=5770182&error_username=modernmom70&hl=road+map

Do you want to understand the concepts, or just be told what to do?

I found this in search.

*TDEE in a nutshell can be figured out by multiplying your weight in lbs x 15. To lose weight, subtract 20-35% off your TDEE. A target weight loss per week to aim for would be your weight in lbs x 1% Like with everything else, including MFP, these are just estimations. Follow whatever caloric estimate you want and do it consistently for about 3 weeks. Depending on results, adjust accordingly. It's not rocket science.

Not quite, TDEE will be different for most people and is based on activity level. It is usually BMR times a multiplier, and to lose weight you should eat 10-20% below, not >20% below unless you have 75+lbs to lose.

so right now I'm 197. TDEE would be 2955? And I take 35% off and it's 1920. Should I be eating 1920 calories to lose weight?

No, I would suggest eating 80% of TDEE to lose weight, which if you TDEE is 2955 would be 2365 to lose weight.

What this means it that to maintain your current weight, with your current workout routine you would have to eat 2955, to lose weight you should eat 20% below which would be 2365 which would lead to a 1.2lb/week weight loss (a 590 cal deficit/day). Eating too far under TDEE can lead to the loss of a large % of lean muscle.

If you find it hard to eat 2365, I would suggest lowering the amount of exercise you do, which would lower your TDEE, but still eat 80% of that lower TDEE.

I found this in search.

*TDEE in a nutshell can be figured out by multiplying your weight in lbs x 15. To lose weight, subtract 20-35% off your TDEE.

That's a pretty terrible way to estimate it. TDEE stands for "Total Daily Energy Expenditure"; it's how many calories you've burned each day. It's different every day, depending on how active you were. To lose weight, just eat fewer calories than your TDEE; doctors recommend between 500 and 1000 calories less (which should result in around 1 to 2 pounds of weight loss per week).

The trick is to get a reasonable estimate of your TDEE, and that's what MyFitnessPal tries to do for you. When you enter the information into your fitness profile (height, weight, age, gender and activity level), MFP uses that information to estimate your TDEE before adding in any workouts. When you log entries in your exercise diary on MFP, you're increasing your TDEE estimate for that particular day (though instead of increasing your target, MFP subtracts calories from what you've already eaten, showing you a "net calories" number. You still wind up eating more calories on that day to reach your target).

Just multiplying your weight by a number is silly, and if it happens to be accurate for you, it's pure coincidence. Using that formula, I would think that my TDEE was over 4500 calories (it's actually around 3000).

OK, here's the primer course...

by joejvcca71 in this thread:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/510406-tdee-is-everything

1. BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate): This is the amount of calories you need to consume to maintain your body if you were comatose (base level).

2. NEAT (Non-Exercise Associated Thermogenesis): The calorie of daily activity that is NOT exercise (eg: washing, walking, talking, shopping, working). ie: INCIDENTAL EXERCISE! It is something that everyone has a good amount of control over & it is the MOST important factor in your energy expenditure. It is what helps keep 'constitutionally lean' people LEAN (they fidget)!

3. EAT (Exercise Associated Thermogenesis): The calorie requirements associated with planned exercise. Unless someone is doing a whole heap of exercise (eg: two or more hrs training a day) it usually doesn't add a stack of calories to your requirements (30 minutes of 'elliptical training isn't going to do it')

4. TEF (Thermic effect of feeding): The calorie expenditure associated with eating. REGARDLESS of what myths you have been told - this is NOT dependent on MEAL FREQUENCY. It is a % of TOTAL CALORIES CONSUMED (and 15% of 3 x 600 cal meals is the same as 15% of 6 x 300 cal meals). It varies according to MACRONUTRIENT content and FIBER content. For most mixed diets, it is something around 15%. Protein is higher (up to 25%), carbs are variable (between 5-25%), and fats are low (usually less than 5%). So -> More protein and more carbs and more fiber = HIGHER TEF. More FAT = LOWER TEF.

5. TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expedenture): Total calories burned. BMR + NEAT + EAT + TEF = TDEE

There are the definitions. Most people only care about the first and last, but it's good to have at least a general awareness of them all.


The next step is to estimate your BRM and your TDEE. A quick google search will give you a ton of calculators for this. They generally use pretty similar formulas, so the numbers you get should be pretty close from one site to the next.

Once you have that, you can move on to your weight loss goals.

To lose weight you need to be in a healthy caloric deficit. There are 2 ways to accomplish that:

1) Set your daily caloric intake at a deficit
This is what most people do, and is how MFP is designed to work. You figure out your daily caloric need then set your calorie goal lower than that. For example.. if your daily caloric need is 1800, you might set your daily calorie goal to 1400. That puts you in a caloric deficit and you will start to lose weight*. When you exercise you burn additional calories. These burned calories are not accounted for in your daily need or the calorie goal you set based on that need. So exercising increases that caloric deficit. The thing to watch here is how big that deficit gets. Every body responds differently, but the larger the deficit the worse it is for your body (the assumption is that the larger the deficit gets the harder it is to properly fuel your body). And this is why people recommend eating back exercise calories.

2) Use exercise to create the deficit
With this method you set your daily caloric intake to equal your daily caloric need. Then you exercise and burn calories. Those burned calories are not accounted for when you set your daily goal equal to your daily need, and thus you end up in a deficit. The size of that deficit is dependent on your workouts. You burn 75cals walking the dog and your deficit is 75 cals. You burn 500 cals running and the deficit is 500.



*This is VERY simiplified and makes A LOT of assumptions, but is good enough for this conversation.



As with everything, there is some variance here. Every body resonds differently to diet, exercise, nutrition, etc. so there is some trial and error required to find your body's "sweet spot". Pick one of the above methods, do it for a couple of months and see what happens. Then you can make a couple of subtle changes here and there, do that for a month or two and see if you body responds better or worse. But always start with one of the above methods, then go from there.

One of the biggest problems I see is people mixing elements/strategies from different programs. They want to use MFP's calorie calculations with weight watcher's zero point foods combined with what they heard from their coworker's brother's personal trainer. It doesn't work that way. Unless you really understand the ins and outs of nutrition and exercise (and if you did we wouldn't be having this conversation), you need to pick ONE method and do it. Don't mix them up, don't do a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Pick one, commit to one.


How's that for starter?

Actually, Livin_Large, you need to eat 1034 calories a day to lose weight. After you multiply 197 * 15 = 2955, you multiply 2955 by 0.35 (that's 35% in decimal) to get 1034.25 calories a day. You WILL lose weight eating only 1035 calories a day. You will loose it quickly. I've been eating less than 1000 cal/day and have lost between 2-3 lbs a week on average.

Try it; you may do well, especially if you eat a high protein diet while on this restricted amount of calories.

Cheers and all the best!

Carla