Understand your true TDEE. Adjust calories in or calories out.

That's it. Everything else is noise.

Not familiar with that at all. I'll look into it. Thanks

TDEE = Total Daily Enegry Expenditure. Basically the amount of calories you burn in a day.

Track the calories you eat vs this number. If you operate in a daily deficit of 500 calories, you'll lose roughly 1lb per week.

TDEE Calculator: Calculate Total Daily Energy Expenditure | Legion

I'd start here. The formulas are pretty good. If you want to get really specific about your TDEE, probably the best way to do it accurately is to be religious about tracking your weight and your calories IN.

- Weigh yourself every day.
- Track your calories in religiously. If you're ever in a spot where there's no barcode to scan or nutrition info, take a picture, describe what it is and where it is to ChatGPT.
- Keep your calories and weight in a spreadsheet.
- Your "official" weight is the average from the last 7 days.

Your weight will decrease by 1 lb for every 3500 calories of deficit. This is not 100% of the story but it's close enough for what you're doing.

Take your official weight from 7 days ago. Compare it to your official weight today. However many pounds you lost, your calorie deficit was the number of pounds you lost times 3500.

You can use that number to calculate how much energy you were expending.


Even when you're looking at averages, day to day you'll have outliers. But in the long run, this math will hold up.

How's everyone doing? Quick check in since we're almost halfway through the year…

25 pounds down. Two pant sizes dropped. Lots of fat burned and lots of strength gained.

Doing well. Adjusting my macros. Staying at a pretty steady weight, gaining lean mass and some fat. I'll likely cut calories in July/August and bulk again Sept-Dec.