Best site/calculator to determine tdee, calories per day

[armyr0b]

Hey folks,

looking to find the best site that can help me figure out my calories i need in a day. sorry for my continued posts. i have gone up to a hair over 3000 calories a day and i am still losing weight. i just need to find that magic number and adjust accordingly.

[SuffolkPunch]

None - or any.

Usually you can make a guess which serves as a starting point which is as good as any calculator. Obviously this takes some experience.

If you use a calculator, it's important to get such estimates in the proper context, they are just educated guesses. Only actually running a fixed calorie level for a sustained period and monitoring weight changes will give you a reasonable average TDEE.

If you are an average male who doesn't have excessive daily activity - and you are getting numbers a long way from about 2500 cals, something is wrong with the calculations.

I might add that if you are "still losing weight" at 3000 calories - but have only run that level for a few days, you might still be above TDEE but just losing weight because water weight changes are contradicting the real underlying trend.

[snailsrus]

There isn’t one

Still losing weight? Eat more
Gaining weight and not wanting to? Eat less
Try 3200 for three weeks and reevaluate if needed

[armyr0b]

ok. so here are my full on parameters.
i am currently 40, weigh in around 201. it fluctuates throughout the day with the smart scale.
i exercise 3 days on 1 day off with pretty strenuous weight lifting. i do not do cardio. according to my watch i burn around 350 calories per workout and on average throughout the day i burn in the neighborhood of 750 calories per day.

i am 6'3 so i am pretty lean and according to some pictures i am hugely estimating i am in the neighborhood of 15-17% body fat. what would you say is a good ball park figure?

[armyr0b]

There isn’t one

Still losing weight? Eat more
Gaining weight and not wanting to? Eat less
Try 3200 for three weeks and reevaluate if needed

thats what i am going to have to do, just wish i could get it keyed in a little quicker.

[armyr0b]

quick follow up. is it worth getting body fat calipers? both my wife and i are pretty fitness focused. id be curious to what we both are comign at.
from what i have seen they are just like 15 bucks.

[SuffolkPunch]

Normally I would say 2650 for TDEE.

If you really accurately measured 3k for a sustained period and your weight stayed about the same then then that's your number.

quick follow up. is it worth getting body fat calipers? both my wife and i are pretty fitness focused. id be curious to what we both are comign at.
from what i have seen they are just like 15 bucks.

Nah, they are just as subject to errors caused by hydration changes as the scales and tapemeasure. Keep it simple.

[armyr0b]

ive ran the numbers for about 5 different calculators and the average is looking like 3250. im just going to jump to 3300. time for some OJ and ice cream.

[armyr0b]

Normally I would say 2650 for TDEE.

If you really accurately measured 3k for a sustained period and your weight stayed about the same then then that's your number.



Nah, they are just as subject to errors caused by hydration changes as the scales and tapemeasure. Keep it simple.

i am very anal about my food and i measure everything. i use myfitnesspal to track everything. i have a food scale to make sure everything gets tracked.

[armyr0b]

the only thing that could have changed recently is i took off 4 days last week cause of power outage and a little joint relief. on those 4 days i did not take creatine so maybe i lost extra water weight?
sorry to be annoying, just have a great opportunity to do this right with WFH and i am trying to get it right.

[AdamWW]

This one is closest to my needs after testing it over time

https://www.trifectanutrition.com/tdee-calculator



Don't be so anal about food... it's a bad habit. Just be in the ballpark... no need to be stressed or hyper-focused.

[XinXom]

the only thing that could have changed recently is i took off 4 days last week cause of power outage and a little joint relief. on those 4 days i did not take creatine so maybe i lost extra water weight?
sorry to be annoying, just have a great opportunity to do this right with WFH and i am trying to get it right.

This should not be relevant as you track changes on average IE if one week you were 201 202 203 201 199 200 201 then the next week you went 199 198 199 200 201 197 205. Even though your last weigh in was the highest you are trending down this doesn't show a 4 pounds weight gain but a 1 pound weight loss as you add all the numbers up divide by 7 and compare one week to the next. So if you were eating say 2500 calories and this happened you would think your TDEE is 3000 since 2500 resulted in a 1 pound loss on your average weigh in for the week. You can use excel to track this stuff and get your real TDEE cals without much work.

[Mrpb]

i am 6'3 so i am pretty lean and according to some pictures i am hugely estimating i am in the neighborhood of 15-17% body fat. what would you say is a good ball park figure?

Can you upload those pictures?

At 6.3 201 pounds chances are you're closer to 20% than 15%. If so, dropping some fat before bulking might be the better option.