r/WegovyWeightLoss • u/Frequent-Advisor6986 • 2d ago

How to confirm TDEE

How can you scientifically confirm TDEE? Where would you go? The reason I ask is that as a lean adult (F) 15 years ago, when I tracked calories daily to maintain my weight, my maintenance calories were 1750. I was in my early 30s and was in the best shape of my life, lean but muscular, and beautiful and healthy. Even though I wasn’t an athlete, people always assumed I was due to my build.

Whenever I’ve needed to lose weight in the past, I’d always need to cut back to about 1200 calories, which makes it about a 500 calorie deficit to the old maintenance calories. That makes sense.

But even now when I weigh almost 100 pounds more than that (!!!), even a 1500 calorie/day diet has me modestly gaining weight. None of the TDEE calculators that account come close to that, even for just the basal rate.

I’m thinking that maybe I need to target 1000-1200 calories or less while on Wegovy to see a gradual loss. However, I feel like if I say that out loud then all the naysayers will come out of the woodwork and scream about starving myself and killing my metabolism, yada yada.

I just think those calculators do not reflect reality for me and I’d like to confirm that, but how/where?

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u/Gilowyn 2d ago

There is a closed medical lab setting where things are measured, including... what you breathe out, I think, and body heat? So let's go with... no.

I would tighten my tracking. Recheck the calories in your tracking app (i just caught ramen being for some reason 200kcal below reality per portion in my app.) Weigh every morsel for a week or two. Then drop calories. Usually 200 below whatever the tdee calculator is guesstimating. Don't eat back your exercise calories. Prioritize protein. Get enough sleep. Reduce stress.

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u/Frequent-Advisor6986 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yes, all the things I have done. If anything I’m overestimating any thing that’s eyeballed and I weigh everything on the scale. I know the nutritional labels can’t be guaranteed to be perfectly accurate, but over a variety of foods it’s supposed to average out.

My body temperature is always on the low end, like 96.8 instead of 98.6. I’ve never correlated that to metabolic rate, but that sure does make a lot of sense.

The TDEE calculator believes my sedentary maintenance intake is 1900 calories, but I have demonstrated average 1500 calories/day intake has me gaining a pound every month. That would lead me to believe my maintenance is close to 1400 calories.