How Many Calories Do I Need?

TDEE = Total Daily Energy Expenditure

Your TDEE is the amount of calories you need to maintain your current weight. It is important to know your TDEE at the beginning of a weight loss journey as it gives you a starting point to get into your calorie deficit.*

Your TDEE is made up of 4 aspects of your daily life.

BMR: Basal Metabolic Rate. This is your body’s most basic of functions... The stuff that you don't have to think about but keeps you alive such as heartbeat, breathing, circulation etc.

TEF: Thermic Effect of Food. When you eat, your body has to break the food down and digest it, it then has to put the fuel from the food to good use. All this takes calories and energy.

NEAT: Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis: NEAT for short is everything out with a planned gym session or sporting activity. Walking, taking the stairs, standing, right down to pushing and pulling open doors & fidgeting.

EAT: Exercise Activity Thermogenesis.  This is your gym sessions, workouts, runs, hiit whatever it might be (1).

So we now know why it's important to calculate your TDEE and what it is made up of.  But how do we make it work for us in regards to our weight loss journey?

BMR is done all in the background because you do it without thinking about it. After all we would not get much done if we had to tell our heart to beat every time you needed it too. Although we don't have much control over it, it’s responsible for the majority of our calories burned through a day. It can burn as much as 60 to 75% of your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (2).  As you lose weight your Basal Metabolic rate will start to drop. This is not a bad thing, it just means as you lose weight your body needs less energy to keep it running as it should be. It's always worth keeping that in mind when it comes to adjusting your calories.

Temptation for quick results has led to people eating & drinking just the calories in their BMR or under this figure, but remember there are 4 aspects that make up your TDEE.  Eating just or under your BMR and not taking into account your TEF, NEAT or EAT can have a negative effect on the body.
TEF: The Thermic Effect of Food can be affected by both things in your control such as meal size, meal frequency, what you eat and your body composition and also things out of your control such as age, gender, hormone levels and genetics. For the purposes of this we will focus on the things within your control (4).

TEF has its uses but in weight loss we tend to look at the quality of foods and the quantity of it rather than its calorie burn. A meal of 500g of chicken, some potatoes and veg will cause the body to expel energy to break this down.  Doubling the size of the meal will mean the TEF reaction in the body is greater but also the calories consumed will be greater and, when we know to lose weight our energy balance is key (calories in vs calories out), it's not in our best interest to try and increase the size of each meal for the thermic effect of food as a means to burning calories.

The type of foods consumed have an effect on the amount of TEF reaction produced by the body. Pure Protein for example can burn up to 25% of its total calories. If you eat a pure protein source of 400 kcals up to 100 kcals could be burned from the pure protein source in digestion, absorption & storage, whereas only around 5% of pure carbs and fats are burned during TEF process. (4)

Having a regular meal pattern can also help with TEF (3 meals per day, 5 meals per day etc) and as you become leaner your TEF will go up! Studies have shown that in leaner individuals the Thermic Effect of Food is 2 to 3 times greater than in the obese population during rest (5).

N.E.A.T: Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis is the easiest way to boost your TDEE! It doesn't have to hugely impact your daily life to fit it in a bit of extra NEAT! If you take the lift, take the stairs! If you sit still, fidget! It all adds up.

You can take advantage of the calorie burn through NEAT right now by just standing up or if you are lying down, sit up! Compared to laying, sitting can increase your energy expenditure by 4% and if you fidget whilst you’re sitting it can be as high as 54% in comparison to lying down (6).     

Studies have shown that obese individuals sit on average an extra 2 hours per day in comparison to lean individuals.  If the obese individuals stood for this time they would increase their TDEE by approximately 350 Kcals per day. (6)

Parking further away from the shop front, getting off the bus a stop earlier or on a stop later, standing instead of sitting, sitting instead of lying down, taking the stairs etc. are all simple ways to increase your NEAT output and it really is neat (excuse the pun).

EAT: Exercise Activity Thermogenesis is the amount of calories your workouts or sporting activities burn. The time you spend in the gym, home workouts, tennis, football etc. You might be able to see from the pie chart at the top of the blog it's not as much as you might think.

The type of exercise you choose can affect your TDEE. You will burn calories during your workout but the type of training you do can affect the amount of calories you burn after a workout. This is sometimes called the afterburn effect but the official name of the post workout calorie burn is ‘Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption’ or ‘EPOC’ for short. This means you owe your body a debt of oxygen from your workout, a debt that has to be paid back.

Both resistance training and cardio have been shown to create the ‘EPOC’ effect to various different degrees but a lot of factors come into play such as intensity, duration, exercise selection etc.

Whichever way you look at it, you can add to your TDEE by EAT but it's more important that you are doing something you enjoy and can stick to, to utilize the EAT over a longer period of your life, rather than throw yourself into something you dislike for the sake of increasing the EAT affect on your Total Daily Energy Expenditure.

Hopefully now you will see the importance of knowing your TDEE and ways that you can make it work for you, and that is the key, what works for you. NEAT, TEF & EAT are just tools in the box on your way to weight loss. You can manipulate them all to your advantage to get the best out of your day!   

You can use our free TDEE calculator to get you started:

Enjoy the journey :)

Team Train