Do I have this right?

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ftsolk
ftsolk Posts: 202 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I set my profile saying I want to lose 1 lb per week before changing my calorie goal to my estimated BMR. Does this mean that as long as I don't go over my current goal PLUS activity calories, I'll stay on track? Or does changing my calorie goal mess that up?

I want a bit of a range where I eat at least ny BMR, but still habe the flexibility to eat exercise calories as needed.

Replies

  • queenliz99
    queenliz99 Posts: 15,317 Member
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    BMR is the calories that keep you alive if you were bedridden.

    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1058378/oh-noes-i-am-eating-below-my-bmr
  • Lleldiranne
    Lleldiranne Posts: 5,516 Member
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    Are you saying you manually set your calorie goal to the BMR? That's completely different than using the app's algorithms to determine 1 lb per week. (Your BMR is not dependent on how much you want to lose).

    In general you don't want to go under you BMR - that's what your body uses just for functioning (breathing, digestion, heart beat, temperature regulation, etc etc). You want to be under your TDEE, or total daily energy expenditure.

    I would suggest you re-set your profile to lose 1lb a week. MFP uses NEAT (which is BMR plus daily activity but not exercise) to calculate your goals and works your needed deficit in already. It allows you to eat back your exercise calories, but be careful because those are estimates and you may need to eat only 50%-75% of those calories.

    HTH
  • cnbbnc
    cnbbnc Posts: 1,267 Member
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    I would just set mfp to lose 1lb/wk, eat that, and go easy on the workout calories. Don't over complicate it. :wink:
  • bpetrosky
    bpetrosky Posts: 3,911 Member
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    Put your stats and your weight loss goal in MFP and use the calorie target it gives you. Log purposeful exercise and eat back a portion of the extra calories that gives you. Your deficit is factored in already. You don't have to worry about BMR, it's not really the number that matters.

    After some time you can learn to estimate your true TDEE and use that to manually tweak your goals, but if you haven't grokked how MFP works yet it is better to start with the basics first.
  • zoeysasha37
    zoeysasha37 Posts: 7,088 Member
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    Maybe my friend @Alluminati knows the answer ;) ( lol ally !)

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