The FastDay Forum

Having looked at the workings of http://www.doyoueven.com/tdee/ I see that Light and heavier exercise all attracts the same energy value for women, whereas for men the calorie burn increases as you go down the list.

Can someone check I'm not seeing things please !

If I'm right then miovng exercise between Light, Moderate, Heavy and V. Heavy will have no effect on women, but a large effect on men.

[Betsysgr8]

You aren't seeing things, no matter how much I increased exercise it still said the same thing, tried calculate and reset and always came back to the original TDEE.

[Betsysgr8]

When I moved reset the time to 0 for very light and moved that time to 240 moderate, there was an increase in TDEE. So maybe there is something wrong with their female/very light setting?

Odd, I changed a few more things putting times in different areas and had same TDEE when using 3 highest settings no matter how i split that time, but once I put times in the very light and light the TDEE dropped significantly but stayed the same no matter how I split the times.

Not convinced about the exercise calculator on the Myfitnesspal site either.....
It seems extremely generous......

very light has a 1.4 multiplier, light and beyond 2.5. So if you move time from sleep to very light the calories go up, and from very light into light, but after that it stays the same.

I haven't seen anything that assigns lower exercise energy values to women before - is it a mistake ?

[carorees]

We need kencc...he wrote a post about the multipliers in my thread about TDEE calculators...think he had investigated a few. Think we should try to find one that accounts sensibly for different exercise levels and justifies any gender differences. I think the site Ken linked to had an explanation of their calculations...can't remember right now. Will look later (got to go cook my fast day dinner first though).

OK, as a first stab I used the RMR equations from that site and applied the male multipliers irrespective of gender. Also added a correction for when the entered times don't add up to 24h.

[carorees]

Yes, I thought the correction should be added to the 'sitting' category as we can assume people know roughly how much time they spend sleeping so once the exercise has been calculated that probably just leaves sitting (work or TV watching most likely).

I have to say I'm not convinced about tdee. Maybe someone can persuade me but I know I was eating well above it before doing 5:2 and yet didn't put on weight at the rate it would suggest. Ie 500 cals a day (2 biscuits!) and we should gain a pound a week - I really don't know anyone who's gained weight at a rate of 52 pounds a year. That's nearly 4 stone a year, just from a couple of extra biscuits and I could put away a trayful at meetings pre 5:2!! Mind you, I reckon I am actually losing a pound per 3500 cals reduced. What's that all about?!

[carorees]

I just found this:

Activity categories used for estimating energy expenditure from time-allocation data

Activity category BMR multiplier Selected examples
Sleep 1.0
Light 1.2 Sitting, eating, relaxing
1.4 Visiting friends
1.6 Washing, dressing, washing dishes, sewing, walking with no load Moderate 2. 1 Doing household chores, cooking food, feeding animals
2.8 Harvesting maize, washing clothes, picking fruit, sweeping
Heavy 3.8 Carrying firewood, carrying water, harvesting potatoes

This was from here: http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/61/5/1146.long and perhaps could be adapted for our needs.

They also say this about the comparison between using this factorial method and the results using heart rate:

The results presented here indicate that the 1985 FAO/WHO/ UNU (4) factorial method significantly underestimates TDEE relative to the HR-monitoring technique. The degree of under-estimation differed according to sex and region (ie, highland vs coast). Thus, underestimation was greater in males, who had absolutely higher energy expenditures.

So there should be a higher multiplier for men according to this paper as the factorial methods underestimate TDEE more for men than for women.

Then I also found this here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3215175/

Physical activity levels (PAL)

The ratio of total energy expenditure to resting energy expenditure (TEE:REE) referred to as PAL was used to classify activity into four categories as described in Dietary Reference Intakes for Energy, Carbohydrate, fiber, Fat, Fatty Acids, Cholesterol, Protein and Amino Acids (Institute of Medicine of the National Academies), 2002 [27]: inactive (<1.40), low active (1.40 to 1.59), active (1.6 to 1.89) and very active (≥ 1.90).

Hope that helps!

I have to say I'm not convinced about tdee. Maybe someone can persuade me but I know I was eating well above it before doing 5:2 and yet didn't put on weight at the rate it would suggest. Ie 500 cals a day (2 biscuits!) and we should gain a pound a week

500 cals is a Mars bar a day so a bit more than two biscuits !

500 cals is a Mars bar a day so a bit more than two biscuits !

I suppose you're right, but I still don't see that it's too difficult to eat well above tdee with not much extra each day. I ate a lot of carb stuff like soda bread, pizza etc that was calorific! Still, I'm not complaining that I seem to be finding it just as easy to lose as to put on in the first place!

I'm working toward "normal".....I sooo want to be "normal"....so I reckon 2000 cals on feed days and 500 on fast days, seems to work for me.

[carorees]

Phil, I just found this site: http://calorieline.com/tools/tdee

They explain how the WHO categories are wrong and they use a different system using MET values for different activities:

We base all MET values on the data provided in Compendium of Physical Activities: an update of activity codes and MET intensities (BARBARA E. AINSWORTH, WILLIAM L. HASKELL, MELICIA C. WHITT, MELINDA L. IRWIN, ANN M. SWARTZ, SCOTT J. STRATH, WILLIAM L. O’BRIEN, DAVID R. BASSETT, JR.) (published in 2000). This paper estimates how many calories are burned by various of physical activities in such a way that you can get a decent approximation of the calories burned for an individual of a given height and weight.

And here is a website that gives the MET codes: https://sites.google.com/site/compendiu ... ctivities/