tdee

The TDEE Calculator For Women In Weightlifting

Our TDEE calculator for women doesn’t just tell you what your total daily energy expenditure is. It also provides you with a suggested macro-nutrient split in order to help you (assuming a woman who lifts) achieve your long term physical goals.

If you came here for the calculator, you can get stuck in below. Alternatively, if you came here to learn all about TDEE, how it’s calculated, what it’s used for and why it’s used differently for women in weightlifting. Keep reading…

What is Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE)

Your TDEE is the ‘actual’ amount of calories your body burns throughout the day. This is calculated using your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) + a formula that ‘estimates’ calories burned based on your daily activity level.

For info; your Basal Metabolic Rate is the rate at which your body burns energy at rest. Put simply; this is the amount of calories your body needs in order to keep you alive and functioning while you do nothing.

Why a TDEE calculator for women in weightlifting matters

It is not the TDEE that needs to be treated differently for a woman in weightlifting. It is what you do with those numbers that separates female weightlifters from the rest.

Generally speaking, a woman who lifts will have a naturally higher TDEE as a result of the additional lean muscle she carries.

With that being said, all TDEE calculators use body weight as the basis of it’s calculation. And of course your ‘body weight’ does not take your body composition into consideration. There is little we can do about this, but it is worth bearing in mind that the more lean muscle you build, the more calories your body will burn both at rest and while you work out.

Ultimately, weightlifting women should primarily be looking to sufficiently fuel their lifts through their diet. And this is where your macros come into play.

Some seek maintenance, some seek fat loss, others seek muscle gain, and many go through cycles.

Check out; Bulking and Cutting for Women. Regardless of the end goal; the daily macronutrient breakdown for a woman in weightlifting needs to be calculated differently.

The above TDEE calculator will provide you with your macronutrient breakdown for fat loss, maintenance and muscle gain.

Note that your daily activity level is important to a TDEE calculator

Below you will find a description of each activity level. Choose the one that best describes you. And be honest about it!

A TDEE calculator can only offer accurate results on accurate entries. Therefore, if you spend most of your day sitting; your activity level should be ‘sedentary’ and not ‘light’. You’ll be sabotaging your own efforts if you lie to a TDEE calculator.

Activity level descriptions

Sedentary

If you work an office job, are sat down all day, drive to and from work without doing much else physical – this is your activity level.

Light

You’re on your feet most of the day, running daily errands, take the stairs instead of the lift, walk rather than take the bus. Or, if you do a light workout of less than 30 minutes each day – this is your activity level.

Moderate

If you’re the person above who partakes in a more intense daily workout of at least 60 minutes per day at a moderate level. Or if you work a physically demanding job – this is your activity level.

Very Active

If you are physically active throughout the day and train at an intense level for more than 2 hours – this is your activity level.

Which is the most accurate TDEE calculator?

There are a lot of TDEE calculators out there and it’s easy to get confused. Note that this TDEE calculator is for women only. It is not suitable for men. Sorry guys, your numbers are calculated differently, so try another calculator.

In regards to accuracy, hopefully this will help…

From a mathematical perspective most TDEE calculators will provide accurate numbers based on the chosen formula.

That said; not all calculators are equal. The mathematical formula may differ from one calculator to the next. This doesn’t necessarily make any one wrong. It just means that there are different perspectives and considerations behind each mathematical formula.

From a practical perspective, there is only so much ‘accuracy’ you can take from the numbers provided.

It would be impossible, based on the basic stats entered, to provide you with a 100% accurate calculation of your TDEE. No matter how ‘accurate’ the calculator claims to be.

Any calculator that claims to be 100% accurate is a lie and that fact is 100% true – here’s why:

No TDEE calculator can possibly know your body composition and therefore this cannot be taken into consideration. Body composition matters, because 1lb of lean muscle burns more calories than 1lb of fat or water weight. This is where the game changes for weightlifters.

Most people have no idea what percentage of their overall bodyweight is muscle/fat/water/bone density.

There are ways to find this out, but the most accurate methods are not cheap, and arguably not accurate for very long (anyone willing to invest is likely to be actively working on changing their body composition anyway, so numbers will change again).

If a TDEE calculator cannot be 100% ‘accurate’ why use it?

We have to start somewhere and this TDEE calculator is the closest you’ll get to your daily requirements for free.

Avoid this common trap

If you’re using these numbers for weight loss or gain, you should be using this calculator every 6-12 weeks. So bookmark this page right now!

The reason you need to check back is because as your weight changes, your numbers will too. So, don’t get stuck using the same numbers for too long – you’ll sabotage your efforts.

Also; try to avoid switching between calculators. While the fundamentals are the same, each TDEE calculator will use a different formula. So putting your numbers into all of them at the same time will only lead to confusion. The same applies to your daily macronutrients. Choose your calculator and stick with it for at least 6 weeks before you float off somewhere else.

Use your TDEE to find your balance

If you take anything away from this article, let it be that you should use such tools as a guide. Don’t worry about finding a definitive answer because you won’t find one. Instead you should focus on finding what works best for you.

That means you’re going to need to go through a phase of trial and error, use the calculated numbers as a starting point for 6-12 weeks. During that time you should monitor and track everything. By keeping track you will build up an accurate record of your own body’s response, this information will be invaluable to you moving forward.

Personally, I prefer pen and paper to track, simply because I can easily flick back through the pages when I need to review. If you would prefer an app, check out these suggestions from Mens Health Mag.

This may seem complex, and at first you may want to tear your own hair out, but keep in mind that nothing worth having comes easy. If you want the outcomes that few achieve, you have to be willing to do the things that the majority refuse to do.

There is nothing more powerful that taking full ownership of yourself and your goals. So go get it!