should I eat at or below my BMR to lose weight?

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Barbosas77
Barbosas77 Posts: 100 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hello, I'm 150 5'0 and I started weight lifting about a month ago and I'm so confused on how many calories should I eat to lose weight. I want to get down to 125 where I use to be before I had my daughters and I started lifting cuz I read it's a great way to lose weight and tone. My BMR is 1412. Should I eat at or below that? I also lift 5 days a week and heavy with 3 set of 8-12 reps including 15 min of cardio.

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  • futuremanda
    futuremanda Posts: 816 Member
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    Your BMR is a fairly irrelevant number. You don't really do anything with it. It's just what your body burns as a baseline, like if you were in a coma. Since you're not, you burn more than that in a day, and need to look at the whole picture when deciding your appropriate calorie target.

    Set up MFP correctly and eat what it says to. 1 lb a week would be a good starting goal, I think. When you exercise, log it, and eat back about 50% of the calories it says you burned. Log strength training under cardio (it's a quirk of MFP).

    Re-evaluate in a month or so, to see if you're getting the projected results, or thereabouts. If not, you may choose to lower your calorie target a bit, try to be a bit more active, eat back more or less of the exercise calories, or tighten up your logging (ensuring you're weighing solid and semi-solid foods, remembering everything, guessing as carefully as possible when you need to, and choosing the correct database entries, which can be tricky).
  • nosebag1212
    nosebag1212 Posts: 621 Member
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    BMR is irrelevant, set your calories either on MFP's recommendation, or calculate your TDEE and eat at a deficit form that
  • SezxyStef
    SezxyStef Posts: 15,268 Member
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    as a note Lifting is not "a great way to lose weight"...it is however "A great way to preserve muscle while losing fat".

    Lifting heavy is relative of course but 8-12 reps is not heavy...you should be able to just complete 5 reps for each set...

    •1-5 Reps Per Set = Mostly Strength
    •5-8 Reps Per Set = Strength AND Muscle Equally
    •8-10 Reps Per Set = Muscle With Some Strength
    •10-12 Reps Per Set = Muscle With Some Endurance
    •12-15 Reps Per Set = Endurance With Some Muscle
    •15-20 Reps Per Set = Mostly Endurance

    So you really are in the endurance area of lifting.


    To lose it's about your calories in. Let MFP do it's thing and it will give you the answers.
  • earlnabby
    earlnabby Posts: 8,171 Member
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    Barbosas77 wrote: »
    Hello, I'm 150 5'0 and I started weight lifting about a month ago and I'm so confused on how many calories should I eat to lose weight. I want to get down to 125 where I use to be before I had my daughters and I started lifting cuz I read it's a great way to lose weight and tone. My BMR is 1412. Should I eat at or below that? I also lift 5 days a week and heavy with 3 set of 8-12 reps including 15 min of cardio.

    Ignore BMR, it is an irrelevant number. Either plug your stats into MFP and use their numbers, eating back at least 50% of earned exercise calories (exact amount depends on what method you use to calculate them) or calculate your TDEE, subtract 500 calories for each pound per week you want to lose, and eat that number without eating additional exercise calories.

  • Ready2Rock206
    Ready2Rock206 Posts: 9,488 Member
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    Eat above your BMR but below your TDEE.
  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
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    MeganMoroz89 wrote: »
    Barbosas77 wrote: »
    Hello, I'm 150 5'0 and I started weight lifting about a month ago and I'm so confused on how many calories should I eat to lose weight. I want to get down to 125 where I use to be before I had my daughters and I started lifting cuz I read it's a great way to lose weight and tone. My BMR is 1412. Should I eat at or below that? I also lift 5 days a week and heavy with 3 set of 8-12 reps including 15 min of cardio.

    I'm pretty certain you're meant to eat in between your BMR and your TDEE. Your BMR is the energy your body requires to properly function throughout the day and your TDEE is the net amount you can eat without gaining weight.
    Ready2Rock206 wrote: »
    Eat above your BMR but below your TDEE.


    Nope doesn't matter if you eat above, at or below your BMR

    The only reason to calculate it is to get to your TDEE and then eat below it

    Or to get to your NEAT and eat below that plus eat back exercise
  • SezxyStef
    SezxyStef Posts: 15,268 Member
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    Ready2Rock206 wrote: »
    Eat above your BMR but below your TDEE.

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1058378-oh-noes-i-am-eating-below-my-bmr
    jsut gonna drop this here.
  • futuremanda
    futuremanda Posts: 816 Member
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    MeganMoroz89 wrote: »
    Barbosas77 wrote: »
    Hello, I'm 150 5'0 and I started weight lifting about a month ago and I'm so confused on how many calories should I eat to lose weight. I want to get down to 125 where I use to be before I had my daughters and I started lifting cuz I read it's a great way to lose weight and tone. My BMR is 1412. Should I eat at or below that? I also lift 5 days a week and heavy with 3 set of 8-12 reps including 15 min of cardio.

    I'm pretty certain you're meant to eat in between your BMR and your TDEE. Your BMR is the energy your body requires to properly function throughout the day and your TDEE is the net amount you can eat without gaining weight.

    Don't think so. "Don't eat below BMR" is something I see a lot, but I don't think there's any real basis to it. If my body can fuel my workouts and my work day on body fat, it can (and is) fuel(ing) my heartbeat and whatnot on body fat. Bodies dip into deficit and out of it throughout the day, and so anything my body needs to accomplish will be fueled by body fat (and other tissues) at some point. (And that's not to say we don't need some fuel from food, it's just to say that what we need isn't tied to BMR.)

    The major problem that people run into is believing that you cut from BMR, so they subtract 500 or 1000 from BMR, which is dangerous.

    But someone small / older / more sedentary etc with a low TDEE may actually have to eat below BMR to lose. It's not any magic number that your body knows about, and eating below it isn't necessarily dangerous. (Or this is my understanding.) The 1200 minimum that's recommended for women (as flawed as that is) would be below the BMR of most women, yet it is recommended as a general safe starting point.
  • G5beauty
    G5beauty Posts: 17 Member
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    Multiply your bmr by 1.5 your activity level. Which would put you at 2118 to maintain your weight. Since you want to lose you need to create a deficit. If you eat your bmr because we never want to go under what our body requires to survive. You will have a deficit of about 700 calories and would lose about 1.2 bls per week. Good luck:)
  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
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    G5beauty wrote: »
    Multiply your bmr by 1.5 your activity level. Which would put you at 2118 to maintain your weight. Since you want to lose you need to create a deficit. If you eat your bmr because we never want to go under what our body requires to survive. You will have a deficit of about 700 calories and would lose about 1.2 bls per week. Good luck:)

    And what do you know about her activity level that you can give her a multiple? Maybe she's sedentary and in which case that multiple is way out!
  • G5beauty
    G5beauty Posts: 17 Member
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    rabbitjb wrote: »
    G5beauty wrote: »
    Multiply your bmr by 1.5 your activity level. Which would put you at 2118 to maintain your weight. Since you want to lose you need to create a deficit. If you eat your bmr because we never want to go under what our body requires to survive. You will have a deficit of about 700 calories and would lose about 1.2 bls per week. Good luck:)

    And what do you know about her activity level that you can give her a multiple? Maybe she's sedentary and in which case that multiple is way out!

    Lol you seem really smart... read her post again and do your research. Please don't reply to my post again. Thank you!
  • SezxyStef
    SezxyStef Posts: 15,268 Member
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    G5beauty wrote: »
    rabbitjb wrote: »
    G5beauty wrote: »
    Multiply your bmr by 1.5 your activity level. Which would put you at 2118 to maintain your weight. Since you want to lose you need to create a deficit. If you eat your bmr because we never want to go under what our body requires to survive. You will have a deficit of about 700 calories and would lose about 1.2 bls per week. Good luck:)

    And what do you know about her activity level that you can give her a multiple? Maybe she's sedentary and in which case that multiple is way out!

    Lol you seem really smart... read her post again and do your research. Please don't reply to my post again. Thank you!

    sorry you can't dictate who responds and who doesn't...public forum

    and all she gave in her OP was her exercise not activity level...is she a teacher? Desk jockey? on her feet all day or just with exercise...

    15mis of cardio 4-5x a week and lifting 3x8 sets of what? how much weight? how many exercises....

    you have no idea what her activity is...based on the op...and multipliers are rough rules of thumb and a lot of things (size, BF%, amount of muscle, etc.) shifts the multipliers up or down.
  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
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    G5beauty wrote: »
    rabbitjb wrote: »
    G5beauty wrote: »
    Multiply your bmr by 1.5 your activity level. Which would put you at 2118 to maintain your weight. Since you want to lose you need to create a deficit. If you eat your bmr because we never want to go under what our body requires to survive. You will have a deficit of about 700 calories and would lose about 1.2 bls per week. Good luck:)

    And what do you know about her activity level that you can give her a multiple? Maybe she's sedentary and in which case that multiple is way out!

    Lol you seem really smart... read her post again and do your research. Please don't reply to my post again. Thank you!

    Thank you. I am relatively smart.

    :)
  • G5beauty
    G5beauty Posts: 17 Member
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    I have shared what has worked for me and what I have learned through research and nutrition . By no means am i an expert, but I do hope that my experience and what I have learned on my journey can be of help to someone. Best wishes on your journey. :)
  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
    edited May 2015
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    According to your ticker you're at the start of your weight loss journey

    The information you shared was clearly well meant but not based in any knowledge of the OPs activity level, perhaps she is active, she could be a ward nurse, or manual laborour in which case it might be appropriate

    Your understanding of BMR is also incorrect

    There is no need to take offence or get cross at other people for correcting your mistakes. That's how people learn
  • galgenstrick
    galgenstrick Posts: 2,086 Member
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    G5beauty wrote: »
    I have shared what has worked for me and what I have learned through research and nutrition . By no means am i an expert, but I do hope that my experience and what I have learned on my journey can be of help to someone. Best wishes on your journey. :)

    If it worked for you, great. But how does something working for you lead to you saying you need to eat above your BMR to survive? This is totally false.
  • PeachyCarol
    PeachyCarol Posts: 8,029 Member
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    Well, this got interesting. I've been eating below my BMR since I started to lose weight. It's irrelevant.

  • Barbosas77
    Barbosas77 Posts: 100 Member
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    Thanks everyone for all of your inputs and advice's, I should take them all into consideration.

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