BMR/TDEE question

jlcbooth

I've been exercising 6-7 days a week for 4 weeks and have seen about a 3% body fat loss, but the scale goes up and down between 152 and 156. I read another thread here in which someone said that they calculated their BMR and TDEE and found out that they weren't eating enough, and when they increased their calories, weight loss became faster. I just calculated my BMR/TDEE and found similar results - I calculated with 3 sites and all three said I needed to eat 1800 cals to lose, 1430 if I wanted "extreme weight loss." I've been eating 1500-1700 per day, lots of protein (typically 25g or more at each meal, and snacks total about that much as well), low carb, low saturated fat. One drink a day, usually wine, 6oz, and my only vices are sugar and a splash of half and half in my tea/coffee (1 per day), and a little cheese with my eggs in the morning. I measure these things. I am often hungry between meals and snacks.

Do I need to eat more? Less? I'm doing a DailyBurn program - True Beginner - which is a lot of lunges right now, with some HIIT (very little) and some core workouts. I'm halfway through an 8 week program. 30 min per day.

Any advice is helpful. I'm seeing my clothes fit a little better, but while I really don't care what the scale says if I feel better (I do), I feel that I should be seeing more results.

jlcbooth

My diary is public if anyone would like to take a look.

cwolfman13

1500-1700 calories per day is pretty low for a male. to put it in perspective, when I did MFP my net calorie goal was around 1850 calories...that was with zero exercise. With exercise I was grossing around 2200 - 2300 calories per day and losing about 1 Lb per week.

There are a lot of other variables and inherent issues to look at though...how accurate is your logging? Many entries in the database are erroneous and people notoriously just pick one and go with it without double checking that entry.

Add to that, people are generally unreliable when it comes to accurately logging their portions...people tend to underestimate, particularly if they are eyeballing...just as an example, when I started out I was having a serving of almonds most days for a snack...someone told me that a serving was about a handful so I went with that. I was having issues losing weight and someone implored me to start using a food scale (which I had in a cabinet somewhere because it was a wedding gift)...turns out that the serving of almonds that I was logging (1 ounce) was really about 2 ounces...so I was logging 160 calories and eating 320. When I started weighing my portions out I quickly realized that my issue was that I was just eating significantly more than I thought I was...and this is often the case.

Beyond that, severe calorie (energy) deficits are a major stress on the body...this stress raises your cortisol levels and messes with your hormones in general...your hormones are largely responsible for your metabolism...feck with your hormones, you feck with your metabolism and *kitten* just doesn't work right basically.

But really, first and foremost lock in your logging...make sure it's as accurate as you can make it and you are consistent as possible.

ETA: just saw you are female...how tall are you that you are getting a BMR of around 1800 calories? That's very close to the BMR of the average male...or am I misunderstanding something here? Are you saying 1800 is just your cut from TDEE? How much of a cut? Your cut from TDEE is what is going to influence your rate of loss...if it's a very small cut, it will be difficult to see on the scale in the short run. Other than that, my advice stands.

yarwell

cwolfman13 wrote: »

1500-1700 calories per day is pretty low for a male.

"but the scale goes up and down between 152 and 156" and profile says female.

If you're eating 1700-1800 as per the diary and not losing weight then eat less.

jlcbooth

Haha yes I am a female. BMR is 1550. TDEE is 2100. 20% less than that is 1680, without exercise. DailyBurn says the workouts I am doing will burn abour 350-400 cals - I do not know if I am burning that much, or more, so I am alloting less (I will say I burned 300 if DB says I burned 350, etc) to be on the safe side.

I have a scale and I weigh things at home often, but maybe I need to weigh more things - like an ounce of almonds. I am counting them out and eating 28 bc the bag says "about 28" is one ounce. Maybe that is not correct? And I will start weighing fruit. I typically go with what MFP says a "medium apple" or a "small banana" weighs - maybe it's wrong. I need to eat less fruit and more veggies, too, I think.

jlcbooth

I am 5'7" BTW

kami3006

jlcbooth wrote: »

Haha yes I am a female. BMR is 1550. TDEE is 2100. 20% less than that is 1680, without exercise. DailyBurn says the workouts I am doing will burn abour 350-400 cals - I do not know if I am burning that much, or more, so I am alloting less (I will say I burned 300 if DB says I burned 350, etc) to be on the safe side.

I have a scale and I weigh things at home often, but maybe I need to weigh more things - like an ounce of almonds. I am counting them out and eating 28 bc the bag says "about 28" is one ounce. Maybe that is not correct? And I will start weighing fruit. I typically go with what MFP says a "medium apple" or a "small banana" weighs - maybe it's wrong. I need to eat less fruit and more veggies, too, I think.

Unfortunately all those things add up even if they're just off a little. I have never had any prepackaged food that came out to what it is supposed to weight wise. If it's a calorie dense food like nuts then it can definitely make a big difference.

kami3006

This is a good example video of weighing vs measuring

https://youtu.be/JVjWPclrWVY

yarwell

almonds are about a gram each indeed.

If you average x calories per day of food over a month and don't lose weight then x is too much. Try 300 calories a day less perhaps.

jlcbooth

Thank you kami3006 for that video. I will start weighing more things!