Am i eating too little

rishi444

I want to lose 50 pounds(no set time). My BMR is 2048 and TDEE is 2458 (i do not know what any of these mean just was looking at other posts to answer my question and these calculations seem to be important).I use the myfitness app for the rest of the numbers(not sure if 100% accurate). My goal it says is 1340. My food is usually 1500-1600(depends). My excercise is between 1300-1350. My net is usually 150-180. My question: Is this a reasonable amount for me who is obese(trying to get rid of this status). Or should i eat more. It says I should have lost a little over 15 pounds in 5 weeks. Is that too much to lose.
Edit: Also i read article about not losing good tissue i guess, only focusing on fat. If i calculated correctly it said I can go 1800 app. below my daily calorie needs. Which i subtracted 500 from my food I eat and 1300 with excersise if that makes sense to you guys.

Ready2Rock206

Your net should be at least 1340. What exercises are you doing to get over 1,000 a day? That's really high. But if you are accurate with your food and exercise leaving your body only 150-180 calories to function on is a recipe for disaster.

thisismeraw

I think you've done some calculations wrong. Your TDEE Is not just under 2500 if you are doing enough exercise in a day where you are burning over 1000 calories. TDEE should include your exercise.

You should be netting close to your BMR. Eating too little will increase the amount of muscle mass you will lose along the way. If you are eating based on MFPs numbers you should be eating your exercise calories back. Netting under 200 calories is far far too little and will only hurt you in the long run. You need to fuel your body.

psuLemon

Your calculations seem off. Why dont you post your height, weight, age and workout routine and we can run numbers.

rishi444

I did do exercise over 1000 calories. I made a little routine for each day. Since summer, no college, so I have alot of time. It is close to 125 min. With bicycling, jogging, jumproping, and walking up stairs. I did eat less than 1500 most days so that isnt incorrect either. But i split up all the exercises into 10 or 15 minute sessions. I don't count it into the excercise but I also lift some weights(only like 20 min, but i dont think it matters). Dont want stretch marks.
Weight: Little under 200
Age 21
height 5'7
Also, readytorock206, does the 1340 represent how much my net should be. Should i eat more. People saying you should have negative net to lose weight fast

flitabout

BMR is your base metablic rate or bare minium your body needs to do basic things like keeping your heart going and breathing.
TDEE is Total Daily Energy Expenditure, which is the calories needed to maintain your current weight and complete all of your daily tasks. So when you see people telling you that you need to eat TDEE -20% for instance that should in theory cause you to lose weight. I eat more than that and I lose I just upped my calories to almost 1700 and I am a 5'3" 36 yr old female so that is not going to be enough to keep you going! I checked your on TDEE on minus 15 and 20 percent and the number for 20% was to low at 1967 the TDEE-15% was 2089. If you are that active you need those calories to fuel those hard workouts and build good muscle not have your body eat it trying to keep you where your at!

flitabout

I also wanted to add that if you don't eat enough (the human body is an amazing thing) you may actually gain weight eatting to little. Your body will go in to starvation mode. Better put, it will become more efficient at using what you give it. The trick is to find that sweet spot where your body feels feed and can power your workouts but not make it feel deprived so it wants to store fat for hungry day. Feed it and it will more able to let the extra go.

This is the TDEE calculator that I like to use. Recalculated it every 5 lbs to make sure you keep losing.
http://thefitgirls.com/tdee-calculator.aspx
I came up with a BMR of 2020 and a TDEE of 2777 with light to moderate exercising or 1-3 times a week

psuLemon

I did do exercise over 1000 calories. I made a little routine for each day. Since summer, no college, so I have alot of time. It is close to 125 min. With bicycling, jogging, jumproping, and walking up stairs. I did eat less than 1500 most days so that isnt incorrect either. But i split up all the exercises into 10 or 15 minute sessions. I don't count it into the excercise but I also lift some weights(only like 20 min, but i dont think it matters). Dont want stretch marks.
Weight: Little under 200
Age 21
height 5'7
Also, readytorock206, does the 1340 represent how much my net should be. Should i eat more. People saying you should have negative net to lose weight fast

So with that information, if your BMR is 2048, lets assume that you are sedentary outside of your exercise, your TDEE prior to exercise is 2457, you add in exercise (lets even assume with 2 hrs you can burn 1000 calories) then your TDEE would be 3557. Since you really don't have much to lose, you should be eating 2845 calories a day. So eating 1500 is going to do 1 thing: increase muscle loss. You are a young guy and extremely active, which means you need to fuel your body or you will just lose a ton of muscle. Keep in mind, the body doesn't like to maintain muscle as it's inefficient and has a huge caloric need. So if you aren't feed it, you aren't keeping it. Also, it is completely unnecessary to workout that much. Weight loss (specifically fat loss) is not about how much you can workout, it's about the quality of your exercise and the amount of fuel you eat. The more you workout, the more you need to eat... thence the reason why Olympic athletes eat 5000-8000 calories a day.

So if you continue to workout that much, you need to eat about 1000 calories more than you are. Heck, i am 10 years older than you, 5'11 and 190 lbs, have a desk job and workout 6 days a week and I lose at 2500 calories daily. Something to think about.

megsmom2

Please do some of the reading on MFP about why not eating enough is bad. You are hurting yourself this way...and ultimately making it harder to lose. Your net at the end of the day should be what MFP set as your goal, if you're following the MFP system...which I hope you are. You can do this....please do it in a healthy way.