Finding your BMR

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  • Paschen81
    Paschen81 Posts: 150 Member
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    Spliner1969 wrote: »
    The calculation is high because of your weight. Go back to the site, enter all your stats and put in your goal weight and it'll tell you what your BMR for a normal weight is, probably in the 1500's. With your weight being 297 your body requires more energy just to power your cardiovascular system. I started at 305 with MFP and IIFYM and I'm 6'2" tall so my BMR was similar (actually a tad higher). Keep in mind that BMR number is the amount of calories you need to simply exist and keep your weight. If you want to lose weight without any exercise, you'll have calculate a deficit into that BMR number. So if your BMR was 2148, and you wanted to lose 2lbs a week max, that's 7000 calories a week you need to deduct, so 7000/7 = 1000 calories a day, puts you at 1148/day goal, and by MFP standards no less than 1200 per day is what it will assign you, so it would set you at 1200 (I wouldn't honestly go that low at your height). Also, if you're gaining weight at 1400 calories a day and your stats are correct, then there's something either wrong with your exercise calories you're eating back, or the way you're logging your food, or there may be a medical problem. Just my opinion.

    Also when I plug in your stats at iifym, it gives me:

    Your BMR Is: 2148
    Your TDEE Is: 2470

    So your TDEE, set at light activity and sedentary with no exercise means you burn those extra calories just getting up going to the bathroom, fixing food, etc. No real exercise calculated in. So setting yourself at a deficit of 1000 cals per day would mean 1470/day with no exercise. If that gains you weight, again, there's something wrong with the logged food amounts or you could have other issues (thyroid, etc.).

    I had my thyroid checked... It was normal. Low side of normal but still within normal range. That was my first thought when I was gaining so quickly and suddenly. Yes I still have many symptoms like always being cold when I'm not exercising, hair loss, brittle nails ect. But my blood work is all normal (except GTT showing slight intolerance)
  • Spliner1969
    Spliner1969 Posts: 3,233 Member
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    Paschen81 wrote: »
    I had my thyroid checked... It was normal. Low side of normal but still within normal range. That was my first thought when I was gaining so quickly and suddenly. Yes I still have many symptoms like always being cold when I'm not exercising, hair loss, brittle nails ect. But my blood work is all normal (except GTT showing slight intolerance)

    Then seriously consider a food scale on Amazon. They really are cheap. Mine has a glass top that screws off easily for cleaning and takes regular AA batteries. I love that thing, every time I sit at a table to eat dinner it gets sat right next to my plate. Family thought I was weird at first with it, but now they don't even notice it. Wife uses it too from time to time, especially when making recipes for me.
  • Spliner1969
    Spliner1969 Posts: 3,233 Member
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    Anyway, biggest offenders for me, were sauces, oils, and salad dressings. Those things alone were throwing me off up to and over 500 calories a day until I started weighing them. I almost never fry anything these days because of the calories in oils (canola, olive, etc. all are 120 cal per tbsp). I do bake a lot of veggies and meats, and I'll sometimes toss them in 1 tbsp of oil just so they crisp up, but I measure and weigh it with my scale so I know how much to add to my diary.
  • LAWoman72
    LAWoman72 Posts: 2,846 Member
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    I've tried calculating my RMR (since I don't think BMR is going to be useful) and it's always what MFP says maintenance is for me, which doesn't make sense...I'll be honest, this entire thing confuses me. Every calculation seems different, they conflict...I believe no matter what mathematical formula you use and what science it's based on, there will always be so many variables that tweaking may ultimately be involved.

    JMO.
  • Paschen81
    Paschen81 Posts: 150 Member
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    VintageFeline wrote: »
    And again. You are missing the point. This is not about your logging accuracy but that you are losing 2lbs per week currently. Meaning your current maintenance level is 2200 at least. Not the 1400 you seem to think it is. because if that were true you wouldn't be losing 2lbs per week on 1200 calories.

    1400 not counting exercise yes if I eat more than that consistently I would gain weight. I don't count my exercise in my calories unless I eat them back. I usually try not to eat back calories used for exercise but sometimes I do... Especially if I get post exercise crash as I call it. I'm sure everyone has experienced the teeth chattering can't get warm even though it's 80 degrees inside (summer no ac) and you get so tired that the only reason you have t passed out is because your shivering so violently... Yeah sometimes when I get those crashes really badly I end up eating more than I should at my next meal
  • Paschen81
    Paschen81 Posts: 150 Member
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    VintageFeline wrote: »


    Orrrrr, spring $20 for a food scale and know you're eating every last morsel you can?


    Right now every morsel I don't eat is one less morsel to end up on my thighs.

    Yes accuracy will become very necessary once I'm closer to my goal weight. But I can easily reduce the amount I eat currently I just have to be careful I don't end up hypoglycemic. If I do that one again I fear my doctor will kill me lol.
  • Paschen81
    Paschen81 Posts: 150 Member
    edited November 2016
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    But yes... Maybe my Christmas present can be a pampered chef scale this year .
  • not_a_runner
    not_a_runner Posts: 1,343 Member
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    But were you logging accurately when you think you were maintaining on 1400? (hint- no)
    You said when you "crash" you would eat more than you should at your next meal.
    One meal of "more than I should" (aka cheat meal or whatever you wish to call it) for me is nearly enough to counteract eating in a deficit all week. So when you figure that in, you surely were not averaging 1400 cals to maintain your weight.
  • AnthonyX150X
    AnthonyX150X Posts: 293 Member
    edited November 2016
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    Paschen81 wrote: »
    VintageFeline wrote: »
    And again. You are missing the point. This is not about your logging accuracy but that you are losing 2lbs per week currently. Meaning your current maintenance level is 2200 at least. Not the 1400 you seem to think it is. because if that were true you wouldn't be losing 2lbs per week on 1200 calories.

    1400 not counting exercise yes if I eat more than that consistently I would gain weight. I don't count my exercise in my calories unless I eat them back. I usually try not to eat back calories used for exercise but sometimes I do... Especially if I get post exercise crash as I call it. I'm sure everyone has experienced the teeth chattering can't get warm even though it's 80 degrees inside (summer no ac) and you get so tired that the only reason you have t passed out is because your shivering so violently... Yeah sometimes when I get those crashes really badly I end up eating more than I should at my next meal

    I can guarantee you if you properly measured your food after you get a food scale, you would NOT gain eating more than 1400 calories. If you think you are gaining while eating more than 1400 calories, this is due to calorie estimates being way off.
  • Paschen81
    Paschen81 Posts: 150 Member
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    Oh... Lightbulb moment! I get it... It's my weight currently that is why it's so high... When I changed the weight to be for maintenance then it's showing what I was expecting. Duh! But it was also so good to have this discussion as I didn't realise how grossly inaccurate proportioned servings could be. So perhaps a scale will be my Christmas present. Wasn't going to get anything this year but seeing that portioned food can be more than twice the calories listed... Guess that 400 calories in that one cup of pasta was probably more calories than what was listed for the entire box! Ugh. I probably should eat dinner tonight now...
  • Spliner1969
    Spliner1969 Posts: 3,233 Member
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    Some of the scales on Amazon are as low as $8 delivered (if you have Amazon prime). Of course the better ones are the ones with glass tops or glass bowls that come with them but hey.. I started with a cheapo and upgraded later.
  • jessiferrrb
    jessiferrrb Posts: 1,758 Member
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    Paschen81 wrote: »
    Oh... Lightbulb moment! I get it... It's my weight currently that is why it's so high... When I changed the weight to be for maintenance then it's showing what I was expecting. Duh! But it was also so good to have this discussion as I didn't realise how grossly inaccurate proportioned servings could be. So perhaps a scale will be my Christmas present. Wasn't going to get anything this year but seeing that portioned food can be more than twice the calories listed... Guess that 400 calories in that one cup of pasta was probably more calories than what was listed for the entire box! Ugh. I probably should eat dinner tonight now...

    i love the AHA! moment. the food scale is an awesome investment. i'm currently lamenting not having one at work because i don't know how much pre-packaged salad i ate (the leftovers were packed by a relative and i forgot to weigh them on my way out of the door today).

    when i started weighing food i was amazed by the difference in the portions compared with measuring cups, scoops and eyeballing portions.
  • Paschen81
    Paschen81 Posts: 150 Member
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    Spliner1969 wrote: »
    Some of the scales on Amazon are as low as $8 delivered (if you have Amazon prime). Of course the better ones are the ones with glass tops or glass bowls that come with them but hey.. I started with a cheapo and upgraded later.

    Yes but those cheap ones are known for been inaccurate too. I'll pay the uncharged for a guarantee and accurate scale. Now I'll just have to fit all the measuring and personalized diary entries into the 30 minutes I get to prepare and eat my food.

    How long does it take for you guys who do precise entries to weigh and enter each item of your meals?
  • Spliner1969
    Spliner1969 Posts: 3,233 Member
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    When fixing my plate at night.. maybe 2-3 minutes tops. Once you get good at it it's not hard at all. I simply put my plate on the scale, tare it out to 0, toss on the meat, write that down or log it in MFP, tare it out again, add my veggies, write it down or log it, tare to 0, rinse and repeat for everything I put on my plate. Takes not much more time than it does to simply log food in the first place.
  • Paschen81
    Paschen81 Posts: 150 Member
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    Spliner1969 wrote: »
    When fixing my plate at night.. maybe 2-3 minutes tops. Once you get good at it it's not hard at all. I simply put my plate on the scale, tare it out to 0, toss on the meat, write that down or log it in MFP, tare it out again, add my veggies, write it down or log it, tare to 0, rinse and repeat for everything I put on my plate. Takes not much more time than it does to simply log food in the first place.

    OK... For some dinners yes I can see that being easy. 2 boneless skinless unbreaded baked chicken tenderloin weigh, entered, scale zeroed, add single medium baked red skin potato, weigh, enter, scale zeroed, add steamed broccoli spear (usually 2) weigh, add and done meal entered...

    But what if your meal is more of a mixed bag. Like veggies are mix of corn, asparagus, carrots, onion. And what if your protein is not straight meat but a casserole or meat mixture like my Italian meatloaf which uses hamburger, sausage, bread crumbs, eggs, onions, tomato sauce, tomatoes, mozzarella, and ricotta cheese all in one loaf?

    And salads?! Good lord I like to put all kinds of veggies in my salads 3 or more kinds of lettuce, cucumber, carrot, celery, broccoli, cauliflower, green onions, radishes, tomatoes, peas, edamame... You get the idea lol.
  • VintageFeline
    VintageFeline Posts: 6,771 Member
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    you just get quicker at zero-ing and tossing the next thing on and logging it. For your meatloaf write down the ingredients then enter it as a recipe. Once cooked, weigh it cooked and enter the weight as the number of servings. Then when you serve yourself up a piece you enter the weight as number of servings and voila, accurate entry.

    It can take a little longer on some things but I have to ask, were you just logging salads as some generic user entered option for salads? Because my salad might just be lettuce and tomato, your salad might be all those things and throw you way off. I can see where you're easily adding a lot of extra calories unwittingly.
  • cerise_noir
    cerise_noir Posts: 5,468 Member
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    gebeziseva wrote: »
    Must have been your TDEE.
    BMR does not include activity and digestion.

    This... IIFYM most likely gave you your TDEE, which makes sense as you mentioned losing 2lb per week on around 1200 a day.

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