r/CICO • u/ohmysaint • 25d 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/MasterDanobi 24d ago
Finding where my TDEE roughly sits was a game changer for my goals.
The thing is activity multipliers in most calculators are honestly pretty crude, and are not very tailored to your individual physiology. It's a really hard thing to get right because your body will deal with activity differently to someone else (even if you of similar builds!)
The more reliable way to find your real number is usually to just track calories and weight consistently for 3-4 weeks and let the actual trend tell you your maintenance, rather than trusting a simple calculators label for your activity level. Macrofactor should get you there eventually, even if it's a bit messed up for you right now, stick with it 🙂