Calorie deficit

oct232010

So if my rest bmr is 1620. Thats how many calories I need to just consume to just survive. I would need to take at least a 500 c. deficit. That would put my calories at about 1120. If I set my fitness pal to 1120 and turned on the change my calorie intake based on activity, would I still be in a calorie deficit if it added calories to eat?? Does that make since?

goal06082021

No, the deficit is off of your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) - unless you are in fact bedridden and comatose, you are burning more than your BMR on a daily basis. That's your in-a-coma, keep-your-heart-beating-and-nothing-else energy "price." Waking up, getting out of bed, going about your business, eating food all burns more calories on top of your "being alive" expenditure.

Go through the guided setup, aim to lose about one pound per week. Eat that many calories each day (the deficit is calculated for you). When you do the guided setup, choose an activity level that describes how active you are outside of deliberate exercise. Basically, the less time in a day you spend sitting down, the more active you are. Not Very Active would be <5000 steps per day, Lightly Active would be around 5000-7500, Active would be 7500-10000, Very Active would be over 10k steps per day. If you do any purposeful exercise, log that and eat back those calories.

oct232010

Ok. So when I used the tdee calculator and set it to sedentary lifestyle it gave me 1620. Then I set it to lose a pound a week and the calories went to 1120. That's the amount of calories I would need to eat if all I did was sit at desk for 8 hours and go home and sit on the couch to lose 1 pound a week. So if I work out or move at all, what ever calories burned I should eat back., and ill still.lose weight. Is that what I'm getting from what you wrote?

sijomial

oct232010 wrote: »

Ok. So when I used the tdee calculator and set it to sedentary lifestyle it gave me 1620. Then I set it to lose a pound a week and the calories went to 1120. That's the amount of calories I would need to eat if all I did was sit at desk for 8 hours and go home and sit on the couch to lose 1 pound a week. So if I work out or move at all, what ever calories burned I should eat back., and ill still.lose weight. Is that what I'm getting from what you wrote?

The calculator shouldn't be giving you the same number for your BMR and your TDEE. That's either a bad calculator or you are changing other variables.

BMR isn't the number for a sedentary lifestyle - it's lower. It's you at total rest and in a fasted state, as soon as you get out of bed (or eat!) your calorie needs go up. On its own it's a pretty useless number and not what you use to set an eating goal..

First decide how you want to account for your exercise, either the MyFitnessPal way of adding it after the even for a variable daily allowance or as an average if using a TDEE calculator to get a same every day goal.
By the way if whatever TDEE calc you have used doesn't mention both daily activity and exercise it's not a good calculator.

Unless you have a linked tracker then general daily activity is usually averaged out.

oct232010

I miscommunicated the number 1620 as my bmr. I'm still learning. 1620 is the number I was given on the tdee calculator after putting in age weight and sedentary lifestyle. I now know the difference between tdee and bmr. 1620 is my tdee. So with that said. When I change the variable to lose weight based off my tdee it dropped the calorie intake to 1120. So it dropped it 500 calories to lose a pound a week. Seems like a lot and doesn't seem like enough calories to sustain anyone. So if I change myfitnesspal to 1120, and turn on the function "change daily calories based on activity" then I'm still in a calorie deficit. Right?

goal06082021

It sounds like you're not using MFP's guided setup to get these numbers - it would not give you a calorie goal of 1120, it defaults to minimum 1200 for women and 1500 for me. Go through the guided setup here on this website, myfitnesspal dot com. The direct link is https://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/change_goals_guided. The number it gives you is the number you should eat, do not subtract anything from it, that math has already been done for you when you tell it how active you are and how fast you want to lose (pick 1lb per week, that part is fine).

-500 calories from TDEE per day is what you need in order to lose a pound of fat per week; one pound of fat contains about 3500 calories, split across 7 days is 500 calories per day. That part you have correct. It's your goal numbers that don't make any sense, unless you're very old (50+) or very short (under 5').

FinntheVeggie

Yes that's right, that is the amount of deficit that you would need in order to lose 1 lb per week with no exercise. However, you're also right that it is concerningly low.
Under 1200 is not recommended for anyone. It sounds like 1 lb/week is not a safe goal for you given your height, weight, and lifestyle. You might want to consider losing a bit slower and eating a bit more.

If you plan to exercise, another option is to set your lifestyle to "moderate" or one step above sedentary activity, and then not eat back your exercise calories. I kind of like this method myself because calculating exercise calories is hard anyway, and (imo least), framing exercise as a way to "earn" extra calories (or a way to "make up for" things i've already eaten) is not a very healthy mindset. It works for some people, and that's fine, but often it's a slippery slope towards some unhealthy behavior patterns.

So anyway, you should definitely be eating at least 1200 calories/day. If you are going to exercise every day and eat back all the calories, then your plan sounds fine, but if it were me I would probably either decrease the deficit a bit or take a different approach to exercise calories.

sijomial

If your TDEE (which is really average TDEE including exercise) is 1620 then any number under 1620 is a deficit.
There's no compulsion to take off 500cals and many reasons for you not to with a small calorie allowance.

But have you decided to do the MyFitnessPal method or the average TDEE method?
I would very strongly suggest not attempting to do a mix and match approach when you are new to this. There are several nuances which you might not be aware of. Pick a method, use the tool designed around that method.

If using MFP method for accounting for exercise use the MFP goal setup to calculate your eating goal.
If using average TDEE method (already accounts for exercise in advance) use a good TDEE calculator.

But keep in mind neither method is forcing you to try to lose at 1lb a week - that's just one option.
I can comfortably lose at 1lb week because my calorie allowance is roughly double yours!

kshama2001

I find it simplest to just get my calories from MFP:

https://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/change_goals_guided

Using this as a guide for setting my weekly weight loss goal:



I'd slack off exercise if I used the TDEE method. MFP's method of earning exercise calories the day I log them provides the accountability I need.

oct232010

Thank you everyone. This really helps!

westrich20940

You should not eat below your BMR. Your BMR is like how many calories your body needs in complete rest 24/7...like as if you were in a coma and the only thing your body was doing was inner stuff (hearbeat/breathing/cleansing...digesting food, etc.).

Your TDEE is how many calories you need to live your life based on your general activity level. If you want to lose weight you should calculate that --- and then set a calorie goal with a slight deficit from that. Unless you have a lot of weight to lose, I would not choose a 500 cal deficit...but that depends on your personal stats.

oct232010

I have about 40 lbs to lose. So.......I'm about 165 and 5ft even. I need to lose about 40 lbs. I believe I have figured out how to do this. I made calorie goals for each day. Days I work out and days I don't. I'll adjust if I'm not seeing results with in 3 months