I burn 1600 cals/day , so I can eat 2700?
lcdodorkrkddie
Posts: 5 Member
If I burn 1600 calories , that’s bmr plus exercise, then I should be able to consume 2700 calories per day and net 1200 calories , which would then have me losing 2 pounds per week ; correct ?
5
Replies
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What is your starting weight? How tall are you? M/F? Age?2
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I’m a female , age 23, 5’6 and 1301
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No.
If you burn 1600 calories total, you'd have to eat 600 calories a day to lose 2 pounds a week, which would be a Really Bad Idea.
But you left out daily life activity. BMR is more or less what you'd burn in a coma. Exercise is exercise. Your work, chores, non-exercise hobbies, and generally everything you do in daily life, burn calories on top of your BMR, even before exercise. You need a deficit (i.e., need to eat fewer calories) compared to BMR + daily life stuff + exercise.
If you don't weigh over 200 pounds, and you don't have at least 50-75 pounds to lose, don't be trying to lose 2 pounds a week. Shoot for no more than 1% of your current body weight weekly, and less if you have less than 50 or so pounds to lose, in most cases.
Just set your MFP goal to lose weight at a rate less than 1% of your current body weight per week, get a pre-exercise calorie goal, log exercise (conservatively) in addition if you do any and eat that back, and monitor results for around 6 weeks. Adjust after that if you aren't losing at the expected rate.
It'll work. No need to overcomplicate things.22 -
No.
If you burn 1600 calories total, you'd have to eat 600 calories a day to lose 2 pounds a week, which would be a Really Bad Idea.
But you left out daily life activity. BMR is more or less what you'd burn in a coma. Exercise is exercise. Your work, chores, non-exercise hobbies, and generally everything you do in daily life, burn calories on top of your BMR, even before exercise. You need a deficit (i.e., need to eat fewer calories) compared to BMR + daily life stuff + exercise.
If you don't weigh over 200 pounds, and you don't have at least 50-75 pounds to lose, don't be trying to lose 2 pounds a week. Shoot for no more than 1% of your current body weight weekly, and less if you have less than 50 or so pounds to lose, in most cases.
Just set your MFP goal to lose weight at a rate less than 1% of your current body weight per week, get a pre-exercise calorie goal, log exercise (conservatively) in addition if you do any and eat that back, and monitor results for around 6 weeks. Adjust after that if you aren't losing at the expected rate.
It'll work. No need to overcomplicate things.
I didn’t leave out exercise
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As Ann has said, your BMR is what you burn doing nothing. Are you getting confused with TDEE (total daily energy expenditure)? Or are you talking about total exercise calories as opposed to net exercise calories?
What sort of exercise are you doing? It sounds like you're a healthy weight so you probably don't need to change much and 2700 calories sounds like a lot.
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lcdodorkrkddie wrote: »If I burn 1600 calories , that’s bmr plus exercise, then I should be able to consume 2700 calories per day and net 1200 calories , which would then have me losing 2 pounds per week ; correct ?
This is confusing. What is your BMR, and how many calories do you think you burn from exercise?4 -
You have it backwards. If you burn 1600 cals and eat 2700, you will GAIN 2 lbs per week. You need to eat less than you burn to lose weight.
Unless you have at least 75+lbs to lose, it's unrealistic to expect to lose 2 lbs per week. If your TDEE (which is BMR + normal daily activity + exercise) is really 1600, and you are 1200 calories, you would have a 400 cal deficit and lose a bit less than 1 lb per week.20 -
OP: all around not the best idea both in intent and implementation!
You are already at a BMI of 21 which is at the lower as opposed to upper end of the healthy weight range. You don't seem to be unusually short, so chances are high that BMI is a fair representation of your body composition... which would be: HEALTHY!!!
So what is your real goal? Lose weight? Tone and be "ripped"? Get stronger? Lose weight to get into a particular weight class for a competition?
Even if weight loss is the goal, given your current starting point a goal of 0.5lbs a week would probably be the maximum suggested by most! And in any case creating a deficit that is more than 1/5 of your TDEE would probably not be a great idea for you at this time.
As to the rest of it I think your OP is either confusing some terms or adding them up wrong.
TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) = NEAT (non exercise activity thermogenesis) + EA (exercise activity) = BMR (Base metabolic rate) * AF (daily activity factor) + EA (exercise activity which in MFP is separate; but in TDEE calculators gets added to the AF making it higher than the one MFP uses)
Now Energy Balance = Calories In - Calories Out. Calories In is what you eat. Calories Out is your TDEE (see above).
If energy balance is negative, you lose weight, at the APPROXIMATE RATE OVER A LONG ENOUGH period of time of about 1lb per 3500 Calories.
In any case I doubt that any of this will be useful because what you PROBABLY want is a structured strength training program and enough calories to sustain it.
At your weight, height, age, 1636 Cal is an estimate for your TDEE ONLY if you do NO EXERCISE WHATSOEVER.
I.e. if you move around about half an hour a day. FOR EVERYTHING.
This includes brushing your teeth, walking to your car, shopping, cooking, going to the bathroom. IN TOTAL no more than say 30 to 40 minutes a day.
Does it sound like you? If it doesn't you are NOT that sedentary.
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If I burn 1600 calories through bmr and exercise why wouldn’t I subtract the 1600 calories from my calorie intake of 2700? That would have me netting 1100, the ACTUAL intake of the day10
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I scratch my head at the thought process on this website16
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lcdodorkrkddie wrote: »I scratch my head at the thought process on this website
Well, it sounds like we're a bit slow and you're way ahead of the rest of the pack. Why don't you explain in small words of few syllables (so that we understand) what exactly you said in your OP.
Here to help you along:
In a day I think I burn _ _ _ _ Calories.
In a day I think I eat _ _ _ _ Calories.21 -
When you say BMR and exercise are you talking about your total (gross) exercise burn in a session? Or are you talking about your whole day BMR and some exercise?1
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I’m scratching my head also... but for a different reason.
OP you are over thinking it. BMR is basically irrelevant. Put in your current stats, an activity level, how much weight you want to lose, and choose 0.5 lb/week for your rate of loss.
MFP will give you a goal. That’s the number of calories to aim for if you do NO exercise at all. If you do exercise, you log and eat back those calories. That’s why it’s a NET goal.
For example:
MFP estimates you burn 1850 calories per day based on your stats and activity and because you select 0.5 lb/week for your goal you’ll be given a calorie target of 1600 cals/day. Eat that much if you do no exercise. If you do exercise, and let’s say you estimate you burn 400 cals, then eat those in addition to the 1600 which would have you eating 2000 cals, netting 1600, but still at a 250 cal deficit to lose your 0.5 lb/week.
Oh and by the way it’s a good idea to idea food scale for all solid foods for logging accuracy.
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lcdodorkrkddie wrote: »If I burn 1600 calories through bmr and exercise why wouldn’t I subtract the 1600 calories from my calorie intake of 2700? That would have me netting 1100, the ACTUAL intake of the day
If you are eating 2700 calories and you subtract an energy expenditure of 1600 from them you would be indeed netting 1100 calories and you would gain about 2.2 pounds per week. Is that your intention?14 -
lcdodorkrkddie wrote: »If I burn 1600 calories through bmr and exercise why wouldn’t I subtract the 1600 calories from my calorie intake of 2700? That would have me netting 1100, the ACTUAL intake of the day
You are misunderstanding a big part of the equation. @kimny72 explained it well, but I will try to reiderate for emphasis. There are three things that make up how many calories your body burns in a day. BMR (the calories you burn just from existing) activity level (calories from daily activity like sitting, walking to the bathroom, around the office, to the store, etc), and deliberate exercise (calories you burn from doing execise like going to the gym or running). The first two, bmr and activity, are already accounted for in your daily goal equation. So if you burn 1600 calories from them, that means that you maintain by eating 1600, and lose by eating less. The lose/gain number is not 0 there. You only add deliberate exercise back to you goal. So let's say you burn 300 calories in exercise. That means your total burn is 1900. If you eat less than 1900, you lose weight, and more than 1900, you gain weight. You would eat 300 more calories than normal to maintain the same rate of loss in this scenario.10 -
OP where are you getting these numbers from?2
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If you burn 1600 calories a day total, you'd need to eat 1600 calories to stay exactly the same. If you eat MORE than that, it will likely be stored as fat and you will gain weight. If you want to lose weight you need to burn more than you eat....not eat more than you burn...11
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Ok let me use me as an example:
My BMR + Activity + Exercise = about 3000 calories.
Because I am still much heavier than you I eat an average of 2000 calories.
This creates a 1000 calorie deficit meaning I lose 2 pounds per week.
If I ate MORE than my BMR + Activity + Exercise I gain weight.10 -
Keep it simple
You eat 2700cals/d - (+2700cal)
You burn 1600cal/d - (2700cal - 1600cal = 1200cal surplus)
Your body takes those extra unused 1200 calories and stores them as 2lbs of extra fat on your body.
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lcdodorkrkddie wrote: »If I burn 1600 calories through bmr and exercise why wouldn’t I subtract the 1600 calories from my calorie intake of 2700? That would have me netting 1100, the ACTUAL intake of the day
BMR + exercise would be the total amount of calories you burn for the day. I am also wondering where you are getting these numbers from.
Seems there are a lot of confused people in this thread.5 -
Lots of head scratching. LOL3
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You have it backwards. If you burn 1600 cals and eat 2700, you will GAIN 2 lbs per week. You need to eat less than you burn to lose weight.
Unless you have at least 75+lbs to lose, it's unrealistic to expect to lose 2 lbs per week. If your TDEE (which is BMR + normal daily activity + exercise) is really 1600, and you are 1200 calories, you would have a 400 cal deficit and lose a bit less than 1 lb per week.
Yes.. this.7 -
OP, I can assure you that you would need to be doing a considerable amount of exercise to be able to eat 2700 cals a day and lose 2 lb a week with your stats.
And as others have pointed out, you shouldn't be aiming for such aggressive weight loss anyway.8 -
lcdodorkrkddie wrote: »If I burn 1600 calories through bmr and exercise why wouldn’t I subtract the 1600 calories from my calorie intake of 2700? That would have me netting 1100, the ACTUAL intake of the day
Yes. Which will have you GAINING about 2 lbs per week. If that's your goal go for it.4 -
lcdodorkrkddie wrote: »If I burn 1600 calories , that’s bmr plus exercise, then I should be able to consume 2700 calories per day and net 1200 calories , which would then have me losing 2 pounds per week ; correct ?
Not correct.
On MFP, 'net' calorie intake means your calorie intake minus your exercise. Your calorie goal has already taken into account your BMR and your NEAT (general activity).
So if your 1600 calories burned (your TDEE) is composed of, say, 1400 BMR, 100 NEAT, and 100 from purposeful exercise, and you consume 2700 calories, you are actually netting - in MFP terms - 2600 calories.
The principle is very simple, but you seem to have complicated it and confused yourself. In order to maintain weight, you need to eat the same number of calories that you burn in metabolism and exercise. If you burn 1600 calories total in a day, you need to eat 1600 calories in order to maintain weight. If you eat less than 1600 you will lose weight. If you eat more than 1600 you will gain weight.
You've added your BMR+NEAT onto the goal a second time for some reason. If your body only needs 1600 calories, and you're eating 2700, what do you think is going to happen to the extra?
tldr: You need to be eating more like 1350 calories to lose weight. Not 2700. I mean, I so wish!5 -
lcdodorkrkddie wrote: »If I burn 1600 calories through bmr and exercise why wouldn’t I subtract the 1600 calories from my calorie intake of 2700? That would have me netting 1100, the ACTUAL intake of the day
I think I understand what you are saying. If your total daily burn of calories from just living AND exercise is 1600, then you eat 1600 per day to maintain your weight... to stay the same. Your calories in matches your calories out.
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At your stats your maintenance (BMR x Activity Factor, see below) would be around 1700 calories if you're Sedentary, as you're at the lower-middle end of a healthy range for your height you should not be aiming for any more than 0.5lb loss per week (a deficit of 250 cals), which would put your intake for weight loss at 1450 + exercise calories or perhaps should be considering recomp.
You most definitely cannot be eating 2700 calories per day for weight loss, unless you're running a marathon daily?
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OP, it seems to me that you never answered to the question: what is your goal? Weight loss, weight gain, or maintenance?3
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lcdodorkrkddie wrote: »If I burn 1600 calories through bmr and exercise why wouldn’t I subtract the 1600 calories from my calorie intake of 2700? That would have me netting 1100, the ACTUAL intake of the day
What is your Goal? start by getting some macros and follow those. in order to lose weight you have to be in a calorie deficit. there is no way around that2
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