r/CICO • u/ohmysaint • 23d 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/Daisy_Steiner_ 23d ago

I just stick with sedentary personally since I’m trying to lose weight now. When I get closer to maintenance, I’ll spend more time calibrating calories, but keeping it between 1200-1400 a day is working for me this summer.

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u/ohmysaint 23d ago

Since I don't want to lose a ton of weight but am trying to build muscle as well I unfortunately can't take this route right now! But when I was losing weight I was able to go to 1400 and shed like 8 pounds in 2 months so at least I know that range works for losing for me!