Eat BMR or TDEE on a day of nothing?

LoLoGB

So on a lazy day where outside of walking around the house to get food, use the restroom, etc I am just watching TV or reading and not doing anything active- should I eat BMR or TDEE or the TDEE minus 15% (which I do on workout days)??

Jennbecca33

You eat your TDEE -15%. You eat this same amount everyday whether you work out or not. (Your workouts should be consistent when using the TDEE method, so your calories are spread throughout the week evenly).

LoLoGB

@Jennbecca33 Thank you. That's what I am doing but wanted to make sure accurate. I do workout consistently now (only been doing this a month but religiously for 2 weeks).

LoLoGB

@Jennbecca33 @heybales Why does MFP, when on auto choose, always put me at 1200 calories? I can choose 1 lb week to lose and it always says 1200. But my TDEE -15% is 1380. And BMR is 1220. So what gives with MFP??

Balance_Moderation

LoLoGB wrote: »

@Jennbecca33 @heybales Why does MFP, when on auto choose, always put me at 1200 calories? I can choose 1 lb week to lose and it always says 1200. But my TDEE -15% is 1380. And BMR is 1220. So what gives with MFP??

You can adjust MFP to reflect what you want your calories to be. It is easy -- just go into your 'goals' from your home screen, go to the bottom of the screen and click 'change goals', check the section that says 'custom' and from there you can set what you want your calories to reflect. You can also adjust your macros. The video in here suggests 40/30/30 (carbs/protein/fat). MFP sucks with that 1200 calories.

LoLoGB

@Balance_Moderation Thank you! All updated. Yea that 1200 cals thing needs fixed! I would eat what I should but it always showed me over calories (bc over 1200) and that RED number was disconcerting. Even though I know it wasn't right I hated seeing that lol

mymodernbabylon

That seems like a small TDEE. Are you very small/short/old? Are you sure you are including everything you do (not just exercise)?

heybales

LoLoGB wrote: »

@Jennbecca33 @heybales Why does MFP, when on auto choose, always put me at 1200 calories? I can choose 1 lb week to lose and it always says 1200. But my TDEE -15% is 1380. And BMR is 1220. So what gives with MFP??

Because MFP is estimating that your daily burn with no exercise is 1700 or less, and you selecting 500 cal deficit means the eating goal will therefore be 1200 no matter what.

Of course - that was ONLY to be on non-exercise days.
You are supposed to log exercise, which increases what you burn, which increases the eating goal.

Really, if MFP was used correctly and with a reasonable weight loss goal amount - it would work just fine.

Exercise logged may indeed be slightly inflated depending on what you would do, but that extra amount on some days would balance out the bigger deficit on other days - exactly what eating at average TDEE with deficit does.

And if your BMR is 1220, sedentary TDEE no exercise is 1525 from MFP's viewpoint.
And therefore 1 lb weekly or 500 deficit is NOT reasonable if most days you truly are sedentary.
If most days you exercised, logged it, ate those calories back, then it still wouldn't be reasonable.

MFP is merely calculating what it's provided. Garbage in, garbage out.
If you say sedentary outside exercise but actually are Lightly Active as most probably are - you just underestimated.
If you selected bigger weight loss goal than reasonable, you just caused more deficit to eating goal.
If you don't log exercise, or the common spewed thought of 1/2 the calories no matter what, you just caused bigger deficit.

All the common things people do because they are in a rush to lose weight are the killers.

The bad food logging, as much as it's thrown out, I doubt is erasing the greater than 1000 cal deficit that many have caused themselves to have.
What I'm sure it eventually does though is erase the deficit of those that have crashed their daily burn well below what is possible, and now inaccurate food logging can overcome the 250-300 cal deficit actually in place.