What is TDEE? The total number of calories you burn per day is known as your Total Daily Energy Expenditure. Your total daily energy expenditure includes all the energy, or calories, you burn sleeping, working, exercising, and eating. It also includes your BMR and your activity level. If you are trying to plan a cutting or bulking diet, this information is invaluable. This is because your TDEE is ultimately the number of calories required per day to maintain your current weight. Therefore, this is your starting point. Let’s find out more!
How To Calculate Your TDEE
Sure, you can use an online calculator – but where’s the fun in that? This article tells you everything you need to know to do it manually.
To calculate your TDEE, you’ll need the following information: your height, weight, age, and current activity level. If you are uncertain how active you are, use the following guidelines.
- No exercise – You lead a sedentary lifestyle. You work at a desk and get little to no exercise per day.
- Light exercise – You engage in light exercise or a light sport activity 1-3 times per week.
- Moderate exercise – You engage in moderate exercise or moderate sport activity 3-5 times per week.
- Heavy exercise – You engage in hard exercise or sports activity 6-7 times per week.
- Extreme exercise – You engage in intense daily exercise, sports activity, and/or difficult physical labor.
Let’s Take A Detailed Look At TDEE
As noted above, calculating your TDEE will provide you with a good estimate of how many calories you burn during the day. This includes how many calories your body burns at rest and also the number of calories you burn at work, exercising, or eating. Again as noted, this is an important starting point for either a bulking or cutting diet because it is personalized by your BMR and your specific activity levels.
Here are a few more things to know about your TDEE.
#1 – Daily Activity Levels
Part of calculating your TDEE is your daily activity levels. This determines the number you use to multiply your BMR by. The problem here is that many people overestimate how active they really are.
This is why it’s important to correctly evaluate your activity levels beyond what you do in the gym. It can be difficult, but you have to be as honest as possible. You might train with brutal intensity in the gym, but how active are you outside the gym? If you have a sedentary job and spend most of your free time on the couch, you are not very active.
#2 – Exercise Intensity
Your training intensity (if you workout) is another key factor in calculating your daily energy expenditure. This includes everything you do at the gym. It’s easy to overestimate your intensity. We all want to believe we train hard.
Still, you need to be as accurate as you can because there’s a big difference between moderate and intense exercise. If you choose the incorrect intensity level, your TDEE will also be incorrect. Taking this one step further, your calorie calculations will be off. This means you will either lose fat too slowly or gain size too slowly.
#3 – Don’t Rush Your Plan
One thing that can help you be successful in losing excess body fat is to ease into your plan. In other words, don’t just dive headfirst into a massive crash diet. Take a step back and think long term. Start by tracking your food intake and macronutrient breakdown.
Your initial goal should be to stay at your TDEE for a week and then start a gradual reduction in calories. By following this approach, you allow your body and mind to get used to a specific number of calories every day. Part of achieving your fat loss success is to be consistent. This process will help you do that.
Stimulating Fat Loss
Therefore, to stimulate fat loss, after one week of staying at your TDEE begin by cutting 250 calories from your diet. I suggest cutting sugary carbohydrates and unhealthy fats. Follow this calorie reduction for two weeks. After two weeks, cut another 250 calories, also from sugary carbohydrates. If need be, cut calories from total carbohydrates and unhealthy fats. Having said that, make sure you eat carbs in the hours that surround your workouts. At this point, you have now cut 500 calories.
Why 250 Calories?
One point I want to make is that I usually advise a 500 calorie cut, not 250. However, in this case, I’m suggesting 250 because for many of the readers I intended this article for, a 250 calorie per day is more doable.
Stimulating Muscle Growth
If your goal is to add mass, follow the same procedure. Add 250 calories preferably from lean protein sources for two weeks. After that add another 250 calories. These can include lean protein, complex carbohydrates, and healthy fats. The key here is to remember that the most important macronutrient is protein.
At this point, you should be in either a 500-calorie deficit or a 500-calorie surplus, it’s time to recalculate your TDEE and review your progress.
#4 – Muscle Gain or Fat Loss Is About Balance
As noted above, once you know your TDEE, you know how many calories it takes to maintain your current weight. By following the guidelines above, you also know how many calories you’ll need to cut to lose fat. Or, you know how many calories to add if your goal is to build muscle. Both fat loss and muscle gain is more than a simple manipulation of your calories. You will need to be more active if you want to lose fat. Likewise, you will need to lift heavier weights if muscle mass is your goal. What you don’t want to do is to drastically cut or increase calories hoping for a faster result.
Don’t Reduce Calories Too Fast!
Decreasing calories too fast will lead to muscle loss. In fact, this is a great place to clear up a common misuse of terms. Is it weight loss, or is it fat loss? Weight loss is the common mainstream term for people going on a diet.
Weight vs Fat
However, “weight” means just that – you aren’t losing fat, you are losing overall body mass. That means muscle folks! If you are a little heavy and you drop 50 lb of “weight”, you will simply be a smaller version of your current self. You will still look overweight. However, if you drop 50 lb of fat, you will look lean, trim, and more muscular. Do not think in terms of “weight loss”, always think in terms of what it is: fat loss.
Now having said that, if you cut calories too drastically, you will lose too much muscle. On the other hand, if you increase your calories too much, you will have the opposite problem. The calories your body cannot use will be stored as fat, regardless of your goal. The bottom line? Stick with the plan.
How TDEE Is Calculated
You burn calories every day by simply being alive. All the normal daily functions of the body require calories for energy. As you become more active, you burn more calories. As we have seen, TDEE takes the calories you burn for basic functions and adds the calories required to fuel your physical activity levels.
Here is a breakdown of what exactly goes into calculating the basic functions of the body:
- Your basal metabolic rate, otherwise known as BMR
- The thermic effect of food
- The thermic effect of activity
- Non-exercise activity thermogenesis
Basal Metabolic Rate
Here’s the most common formula for calculating your BMR. There are a couple of variations, so let’s look at each one:
Harris-Benedict Original And Revised Equations
This is the original Harris-Benedict equation, published in 1919.
Harris-Benedict Original Equation
- This is the original equation for men: BMR = 66 + ( 6.2 × weight in pounds ) + ( 12.7 × height in inches ) – ( 6.76 × age in years ).
- The is the original equation for women: BMR = 655.1 + ( 4.35 × weight in pounds ) + ( 4.7 × height in inches ) – ( 4.7 × age in years )
A newer revised version was published in 1984. Of the two, the newer 1984 version is more accurate.
Harris-Benedict Revised Equation
- This is the 1984 revised equation for men: BMR = 88.362 + (13.397 × weight in kg) + (4.799 × height in cm) – (5.677 × age in years)
- This is the 1984 revised equation for women: BMR = 447.593 + (9.247 × weight in kg) + (3.098 × height in cm) – (4.330 × age in years
The Thermic Effect Of Food
One of the daily functions of the body that requires the use of calories as energy is known as the thermic effect of food. This refers to the calories used by the body to process, use, and store food. It’s believed that this is approximately 10% to 15% of your TDEE.
One of the considerations here is that each macronutrient has a different thermic effect. For example, proteins account for 20-30% of the calories used for this purpose. Therefore, since one gram of protein equals four calories, approximately one calorie will be burned as part of the digestion process. Carbohydrates account for 5-15% and fats 3-4%.
The Thermic Effect Of Activity
This refers to the number of calories you burn through exercise. In this context, “exercise” can be defined as walking, running, hiking, lifting weights, or any sport that requires activity.
Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis
What about when your body is moving but not exercising? This includes fidgeting, shivering, performing light cleaning, and walking around at home or work.
Choose The Right Activity Level
To get the best result from our calculator, be sure you choose the activity level that most accurately reflects your lifestyle. Choosing the proper activity level will provide you the best estimate of the calories you actually burn.
Use Your TDEE To Lose Body Fat
If your goal is to lose excess body fat, you will need to track your food intake. As you track your intake, you can decrease your daily calories as described earlier.
You should start to eat smaller portions and make clean, healthy choices. If you are having a hard time eating clean, one option is to use the 80/20 rule. This rule states that 80% of your food choices should be clean, while 20% of your daily calories could come from any food you’d like.
So, If you are eating 1,750 calories per day, 1,400 of those calories could come from clean sources such as chicken, beef, brown rice, fruits, vegetables, and healthy fats. The remaining 350 calories can come from whatever you want. One point to be made here, however, is that you should still be mindful of what you’re eating. Additionally, eating this way requires some degree of will power – don’t fall back to bad habits.
This concept may not be for everybody, but can help you start a cleaner, healthier eating plan. However, continuing to eat nothing but 350 calories of sugary junk will ultimately not help you achieve your ultimate goal of losing excess fat.
Use Your TDEE To Build Muscle
As noted, building muscle requires more calories. In this case, you will need to track your food intake. Don’t make the mistake of guessing how much you eat. Track it so there is no room for error. Also, this should not be an excuse to eat anything. As mentioned above, adding more protein is the best place to start. Additionally, adding quality carbohydrates around your workouts also makes sense.
Eat To Build Muscle
Many people have a problem building muscle because they don’t eat enough. They might think they are, but if they aren’t tracking their food intake means they don’t really know. If you want to build muscle (or lose fat), there’s no room for guesswork.
Example
So, if you are eating 250 calories per day, just like above, those calories should come from clean, healthy choices such as chicken, turkey, lean ground beef, brown rice, vegetables, fruits, and olive oil. Don’t think in terms of eating junk calories. You want your muscle gains to be lean, not a combination of fat and muscle.
Is TDEE Accurate?
The inherent problem with TDEE accuracy is that it relies on the individual. You need to be accurate in your responses, and consistent in your approach. When you track your calories, be as accurate as possible. Use nutrient labels to help you track accurately. If you are off as little as 10%, that’s 225 extra calories or 1575 calories per week. In terms of fat loss, that can be huge.
Summary
Use TDEE to track your calories and follow the guidelines presented here to either lose fat or gain muscle. If done accurately and consistently, you will find that this is an excellent tool to help you reach your goals. To help you reach your goals, check out illpumpyouup.com for all your supplements. We have the products you need to help you lose fat or gain serious size!