How does this work? (BMR)

weight3049

Let’s say I ate 3500 calories today and my BMR is 1900. Would I need to consume 1600 (3500-1900) more calories to gain a pound?

MikePTY

Your BMR is how many calories your body burns if it was in a coma. It's not how many calories you burn in a day. Your TDEE, which your total daily energy expenditure, takes into account your daily activity as well as your exercise. Whatever that number is, you need to eat 3500 calories over it to gain a pound of fat. That's very hard to do in a day.

weight3049

Ahh thanks man.

NorthCascades

You can lose weight without exercise. Because exercise isn't the only way you burn calories. Fun fact: your brain uses about 1/5 of your total calorie budget. Assuming you go to the bathroom at least once a day, and in the bathroom not wherever you are, walking to the bathroom burns calories that aren't accounted for in your BMR. That's just one example out of many, one that everybody can relate to. As @MikePTY says, your BMR isn't what's important, it's the total number of calories you burn.

sijomial

Your estimated BMR (from your personal stats you enter and it's not exactly coma calories it's an estimate of being at total rest and in a fasted state). On its own it's only really of interest in a clinical setting.

But your BMR is then multiplied by the activity setting you select (note this is your average lifestyle including but not exclusively your job). Remember the activity setting completely ignores your purposeful exercise, a marathon runner with a desk job and who sits on the sofa all evening would still be sedentary as regards this setting.

You then select a weight goal to maintain, lose or gain weight as required and that goal is increased or reduced accordingly to give you your daily calorie goal for a day when you do no exercise.

When you exercise you estimate the calorie burn and that gets added to that day's goal.

NovusDies

Also you cannot assume that 3500 calories above your total energy expenditure will equal a pound. It is not quite as mathematically predictable to gain as it is to lose.