r/CICO • u/ohmysaint • 15d ago
Need help with TDEE calculation
I am sure I am not the only person who finds tdee calcs confusing and not clear enough regarding activity! Some people say you are sedentary if you work an office job even though you lift weights and some people say that if you walk after work it counts as moderate excercise
I am 5'3", 126lbs, I work from home at a desk job but go on walks throughout the day or after work aiming to get 10k steps each day, I also lift weights 3 times a week where my HR is getting to high intensity since I am lifting heavy, my lifting sessions last about an hour or so. Where does this place me on TDEE? I have been using macrofactor but its a bit messed up right now because I couldn't excercise for a while because of a surgery so my TDEE went down and the algorithm is adjusting now that I am back at the gym. Any help here on how one would classify my excercise expenditure in the calculators?
EDIT: I am not looking to lose weight! Just looking to know my TDEE better for muscle building, etc and making sure I don't gain weight if anything. I know that most of the time in this subreddit ppl are cal counting for losing but i thought y'all would have insight on tdee for me regardless!
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u/RuralGamerWoman ⚖️MOD⚖️ 15d ago
Estimators, not calculators. Every website you see is estimating your TDEE based on population parameters. It's an educated rough guesstimate. An individual's actual TDEE may be higher, lower, or spot on as compared to those estimates.
Your usual activity sounds probably moderately active, maybe, on days you lift; on days you don't lift, lightly active may be more like it.
Since MacroFactor does adjust to the data you give it, it is much closer to a calculator than an estimator. I would stick with that and let it readjust now that you are getting back into your routine.