Calorie Consumption Contradictions

operaman20

Hello,

I know this has probably been asked many times, but I need info desperately. I have recently calculated my BMR to be between 1880 and 2088. This is all fine and good and I know that I should never eat below my BMR, but then there are sites like CalorieKing.com that say that I should eat only 1700 - 1900 calories a day for weight loss. I should mention that I am 22 years old / 205 lbs / 5' 10" / Male. Both methods of calculating what I should eat do overlap. I guess my main question is... what do I listen to!!! Both methods use the same information and come up with such different results. Should I eat the overlap between my BMR and the CalorieKing calculation?

Side Question: Why ARE they so different?

I hope I wasn't to frantic in this post, but it has been bothering me for days.

Aaron_K123

Hi Operaman.

Lets just say that not eating below your BMR is more of a guideline to instruct people on the general notion that it is not necessarily better to eat as little as you can, that said it isn't a hard rule. Your body will always get enough calories to support your BMR because it will burn fat to make up for any deficit. The thing is that if you make the deficit too large it can be unhealthy and result in muscle loss along with fat loss.

If you sit on the couch all day long eating a little under your BMR will probably be okay but result in some muscle loss. If you are exercising then yeah probably eating below your BMR would be a very large calorie deficit and not a good idea.

In comparison I am a 6' tall 167 pound 35 year old male. Although I am taller I am lighter and older so most likely your body burns more calories than mine. My BMR is about 1800. Just by getting up in the morning and going to work my NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis) or the amount of calories I burn from daily activity is about an extra 300 calories which brings me to 2100. Add on top of that that I probably walk a good 10,000 steps most days and I would be considered lightly active and you can consider my total NEAT to be about 2400.

Now on top of that I do some heavy exercise for a little over an hour 6 days a week. As a result I have found that my TDEE (or total burn) is about 2900 calories. As a result by eating about 2200 calories a day I have lost about 1.2 pounds per week.

So yeah, I am eating 400 calories above my BMR as a result of my activity level but yet still losing weight at a fast rate. If I was not exercising I would have to be eating 500 calories less per day which would mean I would have to eat 1700 calories or 100 calories below my BMR to get the same weight loss.

This is why I exercise. I exercise to improve my fitness plus work my muscle and supply it with enough food that I will not lose muscle mass while losing fat.

When you are thinking about your weight loss do not forget to include your daily activity and exercise when determining how much you should be eating per day.