TDEE: The Key to Improving Your Fitness During COVID-19

By: CrossFit Fortify

Your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) estimates the calories your body burns per day. To calculate TDEE, you multiply:

Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) — the number of calories you burn at rest
Activity level — the average amount of calorie-burning movement you participate in day-to-day (rated as sedentary, lightly active, moderately active, very active)

Understanding your TDEE is crucial to your overall fitness because most goals in the gym can be directly tied to your balance of calories in and calories out. If you're trying to lose weight, your primary focus should be operating at a calorie deficit. But, if you're trying to build muscle, you need to consume more calories than you burn. Without knowing your TDEE, you can't make accurate predictions about your caloric needs in pursuit of these goals.

Impacts of COVID-19

For many of us, COVID-19 has paved the way for poor habits. Whether you're a gym rat or a weekend warrior, city closures, stay-at-home orders, and hard-to-come-by home workout equipment likely had a significant impact on your routine. To add insult to injury, you're spending more time than ever sitting behind your desk. Throw in the stress and uncertainty of the pandemic, the monotony of being home, and now those unrelenting summer temperatures, and suddenly the idea of binging a Netflix series while throwing back a few beers might sound more appealing than a hard-won sweat.

But most of us haven't considered the impact these changes are having on our TDEE — and our overall fitness is suffering because of it.

Course Correction

When you live an increasingly sedentary lifestyle (as many of us are right now), your energy expenditure naturally decreases; your body doesn't need as many calories to sit around as it does to engage in lots of daily movement. Even if you were hitting the box six days a week pre-coronavirus, if the volume or intensity of your training have changed, so has your TDEE.

If you haven't addressed the realities of your COVID-19 lifestyle, now is the time. To get started correcting your course you should:

Track your current caloric intake for several days — this will be a baseline for you to work from
Outline your fitness goals — weight loss, muscle gain, etc.
Calculate your BMR — this will be applied to the TDEE calculation
Assess your activity level — be honest with yourself about your current state, not what you aspire to or what your level was before the pandemic
Calculate your TDEE — this will give you your caloric roadmap
Develop a plan — based on your goals and your TDEE, develop a new routine to ensure your caloric needs are met

In addition to getting back to a workout regimen, you can improve your TDEE by taking advantage of things like:

Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT) — small daily movements that help keep your body stimulated. In the COVID-19 era of staying home, these could include things as simple as standing instead of sitting while you work, stretching throughout the day, focusing on precise form in your day-to-day activities (like squatting correctly to pick up an item), carrying the groceries in, etc.
Thermic Effect of Food (TEF) — the amount of energy required to digest and process what you eat. Focus your meals on foods with high TEF value — like lean proteins, whole grains, nuts and seeds, and fruit — instead of those that are highly processed or contain high-fat.

Looking for more guidance on designing a program to get you back on track? At CrossFit Fortify, we provide the workouts, nutrition counseling, and community to keep you accountable and help you reach your goals. To learn more about how we can help or schedule your 20-minute no-sweat intro, contact us today.

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