Sooo lost, calorie wise HELP!

Allterrain_Lady

Hello there!

I have a stupid stupid question for someone who's successfully lost 30lbs so far. I did it relaying on my feelings more than knowledge. I want to finish the journey the smart way. 40lbs to go...

I have absolutely no idea what I should eat, calorie wise.

Here are my numbers:
- BMR: 1514 calories/day
- TDEE: 1810 calories/day (I didn't add the workouts, just daily life: deskjob, walking to and from it).

If I've understood well, I'm supposed to create a daily deficit of 500 calories a day to loose 1lbs a week.
Is that deficit supposed to be created from BMR or TDEE?
From less food, more workouts or both (like 250 burned by moving my lazy a** and 250 by a reduced intake of food)?
Can I create a deficit of 700 calories a day for example to loose a little bit faster?

MFP is telling me I should eat 1200 calories a day (wich I can do kind of easily) and eat back the calories burned by working out. That would mean that a daily 300 calories deficit from my BMR is gonna make me loose weight, at a slow pace I suppose.

Thank you all for any clear explanation and I apologize for the grammar mistakes you're bound to find here, English only is my second language.

Vanessa

Edit for typo

Allterrain_Lady

So far, I was on a 1200 calories/day diet. Regardless of any workouts I'm might have done on a given day.

TheDoctorDana

Bump

dynamitegalxo

Try TDEE - 15-20%, so about 1500 calories, regardless of your workout. Unless your burning in the high hundreds of calories with workouts, which it sounds like you don't tend to do because you're relatively active in the rest of your life, you'll be fine with that method. If that's not giving you the results you're after after a minimum 1-month trial period, tweak away! You may find that more exercise at the same level of calories, or eating more calories, or working out and eating back burned calories works for you. But make sure to give whatever method you pick enough time to work before you move on to something else.

You've definitely got the basics correct, now it's time to customize the concepts to your situation. Good luck

RllyGudTweetr

Hello there!

I have a stupid stupid question for someone who's successfully lost 30lbs so far. I did it relaying on my feelings more than knowledge. I want to finish the journey the smart way. 40lbs to go...

I have absolutely no idea what I should eat, calorie wise.

Here are my numbers:
- BMR: 1514 calories/day
- TDEE: 1810 calories/day (I didn't add the workouts, just daily life: deskjob, walking to and from it).

If I've understood well, I'm supposed to create a daily deficit of 500 calories a day to loose 1lbs a week.
Is that deficit supposed to be created from BMR or TDEE?
From less food, more workouts or both (like 250 burned by moving my lazy a** and 250 by a reduced intake of food)?
Can I create a deficit of 700 calories a day for example to loose a little bit faster?

MFP is telling me I should eat 1200 calories a day (wich I can do kind of easily) and eat back the calories burned by working out. That would mean that a daily 300 calories deficit from my BMR is gonna make me loose weight, at a slow pace I suppose.

Thank you all for any clear explanation and I apologize for the grammar mistakes you're bound to find here, English only is my second language.

Vanessa

Edit for typo

BMR 1514 would indicate 1200 is probably too low for you (because you did what a lot of new folks do and asked to lose 2lb/week - or the kg equivalent, while using the 'sedentary' activity level). You should definitely eat back your exercise calories on that setting, with that calorie calculation method.

smn76237

Hello there!

I have a stupid stupid question for someone who's successfully lost 30lbs so far. I did it relaying on my feelings more than knowledge. I want to finish the journey the smart way. 40lbs to go...

I have absolutely no idea what I should eat, calorie wise.

Here are my numbers:
- BMR: 1514 calories/day
- TDEE: 1810 calories/day (I didn't add the workouts, just daily life: deskjob, walking to and from it).

If I've understood well, I'm supposed to create a daily deficit of 500 calories a day to loose 1lbs a week.
Is that deficit supposed to be created from BMR or TDEE?
From less food, more workouts or both (like 250 burned by moving my lazy a** and 250 by a reduced intake of food)?
Can I create a deficit of 700 calories a day for example to loose a little bit faster?

MFP is telling me I should eat 1200 calories a day (wich I can do kind of easily) and eat back the calories burned by working out. That would mean that a daily 300 calories deficit from my BMR is gonna make me loose weight, at a slow pace I suppose.

Thank you all for any clear explanation and I apologize for the grammar mistakes you're bound to find here, English only is my second language.

Vanessa

Edit for typo

Your deficit should be from your TDEE, not your BMR. Your TDEE by definition must include all your daily exercises; otherwise, it is not your TDEE. If you are exercising, you are not sedentary for purposes of TDEE. So from here, do one of two things:

1) Recalculate your TDEE including ALL of your activity. If you workout 2-3 times a week, you're lightly active. 3-5 you're moderately active. Then eat 20% less than your TDEE. OR

2) Keep using MFP as designed by using its calorie goal and eating back some of your exercise calories, keeping in mind the database often greatly overestimates your calorie burn.

Sassyallday

I have not lost 30 pounds (and am not sure why that is required for someone to help you gain a better understanding of these terms but I’ll leave that for now). I have, however, started my scale going down rather than up by doing some of the same calculations that you are working on now.

Your BMR is your basic metabolic rate, the rate at which your body is burning calories just being alive- - -even if you were in a coma. Your TDEE is the total daily expenditure of energy that you use. So, you should be deducting calorie intake from your TDEE. Look around online for calculators to help you work out how many calories you really need.

Some people choose to add calories earned by exercise. Some just ignore them. You can try both ways to achieve a healthy balance of eating enough not to be hungry and expending enough to lose weight.

And don't feel stupid for not understanding this. It's a bit more complex than it looks at first!

Allterrain_Lady

Try TDEE - 15-20%, so about 1500 calories, regardless of your workout. Unless your burning in the high hundreds of calories with workouts, which it sounds like you don't tend to do because you're relatively active in the rest of your life, you'll be fine with that method. If that's not giving you the results you're after after a minimum 1-month trial period, tweak away! You may find that more exercise at the same level of calories, or eating more calories, or working out and eating back burned calories works for you. But make sure to give whatever method you pick enough time to work before you move on to something else.

You've definitely got the basics correct, now it's time to customize the concepts to your situation. Good luck

Thank you for pointing out that I should give any method the proper time to show if it works or not! I always tend to want see results overnight wich, of course, never happens...

Allterrain_Lady

BMR 1514 would indicate 1200 is probably too low for you (because you did what a lot of new folks do and asked to lose 2lb/week - or the kg equivalent, while using the 'sedentary' activity level). You should definitely eat back your exercise calories on that setting, with that calorie calculation method.

I agree with you. Eating back my calories burned seems the right thing to do. If I don't that means that some days I live on 800 or 900 calories. Seems really low!

Allterrain_Lady

Your deficit should be from your TDEE, not your BMR. Your TDEE by definition must include all your daily exercises; otherwise, it is not your TDEE. If you are exercising, you are not sedentary for purposes of TDEE. So from here, do one of two things:

1) Recalculate your TDEE including ALL of your activity. If you workout 2-3 times a week, you're lightly active. 3-5 you're moderately active. Then eat 20% less than your TDEE. OR

2) Keep using MFP as designed by using its calorie goal and eating back some of your exercise calories, keeping in mind the database often greatly overestimates your calorie burn.

I'll recalculate my TDEE, you're right. But, suddenly, it seems that I can eat so much calories daily. It's awful how sometimes I get basically afraid to eat...

Allterrain_Lady

I have not lost 30 pounds (and am not sure why that is required for someone to help you gain a better understanding of these terms but I’ll leave that for now). I have, however, started my scale going down rather than up by doing some of the same calculations that you are working on now.

Your BMR is your basic metabolic rate, the rate at which your body is burning calories just being alive- - -even if you were in a coma. Your TDEE is the total daily expenditure of energy that you use. So, you should be deducting calorie intake from your TDEE. Look around online for calculators to help you work out how many calories you really need.

Some people choose to add calories earned by exercise. Some just ignore them. You can try both ways to achieve a healthy balance of eating enough not to be hungry and expending enough to lose weight.

And don't feel stupid for not understanding this. It's a bit more complex than it looks at first!

Of course, nobody needs to have lost 30lbs to help me. I was just pointing out the fact that I did it, so far, without any knowledge about health and fitness whatsoever.
From what I understant, in any case, I shouldn't eat less than my BMR, so 1200 calories seems to low. I'll try to up it a little bit.
Thanks!