Frustration with a low BMR and not losing weight

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  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,439 Member
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    ldanos wrote: »
    Go get a body scan. Get your true BMR specifically yours only. It’s better than guessing.. You are probably not eating enough. Good luck.

    No need for spending money on that. Also, TO didn't say in which country she is. This is not an option in many places outside the US. All TO has to do is to log truthfully for 6 weeks or so, and with that figure out here actual day to day calorie needs, and what her deficit in that time has been. Simples.
  • paperpudding
    paperpudding Posts: 9,021 Member
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    jr80464 wrote: »
    paperpudding wrote: »
    1200 calories is suitable for some people and not others

    It isn't archaic, it just isn't the level for most people.

    1200 calories is just for basic bodily functions - I highly doubt we are all laying in bed everyday. Science has changed substantially since then, so yes it is an archaic number of we're still believing something that was thought up before, say television. I'll use television as an example because are we still using the same TVs from the 1920s? No, we learned and improved.

    I highly doubt we are all the same size, gender, age, activity level too

    For some people 1200 is a suitable weight loss amount.

    When I was losing I was female, 50 yrs old, 5 ft 4 in and lightly active - and I lost steadily on 1460.

    Is not hard to imagine somebody could be older, shorter, less active than me and lose steadily on 1200

    Which is not really relevant for OP, who probably shouldn't be trying to lose at all.

  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,419 Member
    edited October 2023
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    ldanos wrote: »
    Go get a body scan. Get your true BMR specifically yours only. It’s better than guessing.. You are probably not eating enough. Good luck.

    A body scan is just the basis for another kind of estimate, extrapolated from a (not very accurate) body composition assessment. It's more personalized, yes . . . but far from definitive. It's not realistic to call that "your true BMR".

    There's a metabolic/sports lab test that actual measures exhaled gases under rest conditions, which is much closer to a measurement of resting metabolic rate, a value close to basal metabolic rate. That would be more likely to be more accurate.

    Body scans like Inbody are cheaper, though.
    yirara wrote: »
    ldanos wrote: »
    Go get a body scan. Get your true BMR specifically yours only. It’s better than guessing.. You are probably not eating enough. Good luck.

    No need for spending money on that. Also, TO didn't say in which country she is. This is not an option in many places outside the US. All TO has to do is to log truthfully for 6 weeks or so, and with that figure out here actual day to day calorie needs, and what her deficit in that time has been. Simples.

    Endorsed: The personal calorie logging/weight logging experiment will provide a pretty decent estimate, when looking at averages over a 4-6 week period (whole menstrual cycle(s) for people who have those. That costs nearly zero.
    jr80464 wrote: »
    paperpudding wrote: »
    1200 calories is suitable for some people and not others

    It isn't archaic, it just isn't the level for most people.

    1200 calories is just for basic bodily functions - I highly doubt we are all laying in bed everyday. Science has changed substantially since then, so yes it is an archaic number of we're still believing something that was thought up before, say television. I'll use television as an example because are we still using the same TVs from the 1920s? No, we learned and improved.

    If you're going to argue for applying modern scientific knowledge over purely arbitrary numbers, it might be useful to realize that some people have actual TDEEs as low as 1200 (or lower). Yes, they're not numerous, but they exist.

    BMR (loosely, calorie needs for basic bodily functions) varies individually, with age, weight, height and body composition as major variables (but not the only determinants). There are estimating formulas for BMR.

    IMO, it would be more modern and scientific to suggest using one such BMR estimate, plus a research-based activity estimate, to get a personalized statistical estimate of total calorie needs (TDEE), then run the personal multi-week experiment (because the estimated values are averages based on those key variables, and individuals vary around the averages).
  • janesullivan012
    janesullivan012 Posts: 3 Member
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    You should probably try to build muscle first, because that will raise your metabolism. More resistance training.

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