BMR and weight loss.

aimos87

Hi, is it true that you should never eat below your BMR? My BMR is 1653 so if I ate a 1200 calorie diet that's way below what all the calcs suggest my body needs to function? Any advice would be appreciated i find a lot of the info out there very conflicting. I understand it's CICO but how do I determine this and see the deficit? Is linking my Fitbit to MFP help to see CICO?

duddysdad

So if your BMR is 1653, then your sedentary TDEE would be 1984 calories. To lose one pound a week, you would cut 500 calories to put you at 1484 calories, which is below your BMR. So no, it's not true that you shouldn't eat below your BMR. You just don't want to go below 1200 calories for a woman, unless you are either very short, or elderly. According to the NIH.

Francl27

As a rule, it's not healthy to eat under your BMR unless you have a lot to lose. Most of the time, if it's the case, your deficit is too large.

trigden1991

BMR is an arbitrary number for weightloss. TDEE is the CO portion of the CICO equation.

seska422

BMR is just a number you use to figure out other numbers. It's not a special cutoff for calorie intake.

If you eat below BMR, your body will use your fat reserves to bring you up to your TDEE just like it will if you eat above BMR.