Understanding BMR and how to use it to lose weight

citalk2much

I have my BMR from using a InBody machine it is 1483
I am 5'6", my weight is 218.2, age is 44, my body fat is 48% weight 104.7, my Skeletal muscle mass is 62.8 pounds, lean muscle mass is 113.5 pounds

I am lost in understanding how to use all of this for effective weight loss

So any help understand is welcome

Thanks Crystal

j6o4

BMR is the number of calories you need to maintain if you are in a coma. TDEE is your BMR plus your daily activities, such as getting out of bed, brushing your teeth, and exercising. To lose weight you need to less than your TDEE.

Kalikel

I don't understand it, either.

If you want to do math, that's great. You should.

But if you don't, it isn't necessary to lose weight.

StaciMarie1974

Your body uses energy (calories) everyday.

BMR is the energy used to keep you alive. For your heart to pump, lungs to breath, for your system to digest food & maintain your body temperature, etc.

Then you also burn calories for basic activity as you move thru your day. To simply move your body in your regular life.

Last you burn for intentional exercise. Cardio involves moving multiple major muscle groups for an extended period of time.

Understanding your BMR is a first step in knowing your body's daily needs. In general you can estimate that you burn your BMR, and another 15-25% of your BMR depending on how active your life is (from daily activity) and more from cardio.

So if you're sedentary, life doesn't include much activity. Desk job, basic errands. You'd burn about 1700 per day (roughly 1.15 x your stated BMR). If you used a heart rate monitor and burned 300 doing a 45 minute session of cardio then you'd burn about 2000 per day. (ITs a rough estimate, because technically part of that 300 is included in your BMR but I don't want to confuse you.)

Using the online calculators that consider your stats, your lifestyle: can help you know what you burn total in a day so you can subtract an amount (such as 500 calories to aim for 1 pound per week) and have a target of how much to eat in a day.

JustFindingMe

http://scoobysworkshop.com/accurate-calorie-calculator/#results

This ↑ is the most straight forward way to find the amount of calories you should be eating. Simply fill in the blanks and click "jump to results"

That number will be how many calories you should eat to effectively start losing :happy:

Branstin

What is BMR?
Your basal metabolic rate, or BMR, is the minimum calorific requirement needed to sustain life in a resting individual. It can be looked at as being the amount of energy (measured in calories) expended by the body to remain in bed all day.

What is TDEE?
TDEE is the common abbreviation for Total Daily Energy Expenditure which is a metric to calculate the amount of calories your body needs to function in a day. This is quite similar to BMR but your TDEE accounts for your average daily activity as well to give a figure truer to your specific situation. Basically, the TDEE calculation relies on categorizing your daily activity into one of the metrics' groupings:

Activity Levels:
Sedentary - desk job and little to no exercise
Lightly Active - light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk
Moderately Active - moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk
Very Active - hard exercise/sports 6-7 days/wk
Extremely Active - hard daily exercise/sports & physical job or training

TDEE Method: (Here is a site to calculate your TDEE: http://iifym.com/tdee-calculator/ )

Once you determine your TDEE calories, you simply subtract anywhere from 10%-25%, where 25% is the extreme, and the results will be your daily amount of calories you should eat. The deficiency is the amount you subtract. Maximize your daily calorie amount by eating a variety of foods. Exercise and water will aid in your weight loss efforts.

Example: TDEE = 2000 – 20% (2000 x .80) = 1600 calories per day. Eat a variety of foods at 1600 calories a day, continue your exercise, and drink plenty of water. Do not eat back your exercise calories because TDEE adds exercise calories beforehand.

If you want to use the TDEE method, you could still track in MFP by changing your settings:
MY Home > Goals > Change Goals > Custom

Enter your TDEE information but when you enter your exercise, add .1 for the calories burn. The system will add 0.

My Fitness Pal Method:

Set-up your profile by selecting the appropriate activity level for your lifestyle before any exercises.
Select a reasonable weekly weight loss rate. As a rule of thumb, the following weekly targets would give a balance between minimizing negative side effects and seeing a reasonable weekly weight loss:

More than 75 lbs: 2 lbs/week
40-75 lbs: 1.5 lbs./week
10-40 lbs: 1 lb./week
Less than 10 lbs: 0.5 lb./week

The calorie limit MFP will generate will not include exercise calories. The system will add them after you enter your exercise. Eat back at least half of these calories because weight loss machines and gadgets tend to overestimate calories burned.

Track everything (food, exercise, water, and measurements). Do your best not to guess on calories. Search online menu for nutritional values and/or buy a food scale. Focus on your macros (carbs, protein, and fat).

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/819055-setting-your-calorie-and-macro-targets
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1080242-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants

You don't have to use both methods. Pick one and stick with it for a while.

citalk2much

I think I am starting to get the idea, I have been using the MFP which starts me at 1200 per day and then my fitbit adds more in, I opened my food to public if anyone cares to look, the past week is well tracked I however suffered the loss of my father on the 10th of July and it took me a bit to get back on track I am pretty dedicated to lose the weight after losing my father at just 66 yo

I only track the basic cal that fitbit gives me I don't add in my exercise I do exercise Zumba 4 times a week, free weights, yoga, pilates, and a couple of mixed weights and cardio class

_Terrapin_

bump BMR TDEE

MKEgal

Have you read the sexypants thread?
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1080242-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants

I have my BMR from using a InBody machine it is 1483
I am 5'6", my weight is 218.2, age is 44, my body fat is 48% weight 104.7, my Skeletal muscle mass is 62.8 pounds, lean muscle mass is 113.5 pounds
I am lost in understanding how to use all of this for effective weight loss

BMR is helpful, but you don't really need to know it, and the rest can be calculated from measurements if you're curious.

From a BMI chart: http://www.shapeup.org/bmi/bmi6.pdf
a healthy weight for your height is 115 - 150.
For now, aim for the top end of that, see how you feel when you get there, maybe you'll like it or maybe you'll want to lose a bit more.

To maintain your current weight, you're using 2180 calories per day.
To maintain your healthy goal weight, you'd use 1500.

I have been using the MFP which starts me at 1200 per day

Aieeee!!! No, that's way too little, esp. compared to what you've been eating to maintain your current weight, and if your BMR is more than that.

Because you have more than 50 lb to lose, you could start out aiming for 2 lb per week, stay at that 1200 cal per day, if you wanted to. That's pretty brutal though.

You could aim for 1 lb per week, which would make your goal calories 2180 - 500 = 1680 which is much more doable.
(Ignore net calories.)
As you lose weight & hit plateaus, tweak it down until you hit 1500.
When you get within maybe 20 lb of your goal, add 50 cal at a time, let it settle for a couple weeks, until you're losing 1/2 lb per week.

When you reach your goal, nudge the calories up again until you stop losing.
Harvard Medical School says it takes 15 cal per pound to maintain weight.
http://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/HB_web/calorie-counting-made-easy.htm

citalk2much

To maintain your current weight, you're using 2180 calories per day.
To maintain your healthy goal weight, you'd use 1500.

I have been using the MFP which starts me at 1200 per day

Aieeee!!! No, that's way too little, esp. compared to what you've been eating to maintain your current weight, and if your BMR is more than that.

Because you have more than 50 lb to lose, you could start out aiming for 2 lb per week, stay at that 1200 cal per day, if you wanted to. That's pretty brutal though.

You could aim for 1 lb per week, which would make your goal calories 2180 - 500 = 1680 which is much more doable.
(Ignore net calories.)
As you lose weight & hit plateaus, tweak it down until you hit 1500.
When you get within maybe 20 lb of your goal, add 50 cal at a time, let it settle for a couple weeks, until you're losing 1/2 lb per week.

When you reach your goal, nudge the calories up again until you stop losing.
Harvard Medical School says it takes 15 cal per pound to maintain weight.
http://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/HB_web/calorie-counting-made-easy.htm
[/quote]

I eat back most my cals that fitbit adds in

laxloser2

I get the calorie in/calorie out thing, and understand the very common sense concept in the files and what people are saying, but I've always been curious... is it possible to accurately figure out how my body actually burns calories when I exercise? I know the estimates on MFP and anywhere really are just estimates when valuing calories burned, and I don't count on them, but is there any way of finding this out for real? A machine or a test or something? Let's pretend I went to a lab or a doctor and found out my exact BMR. How do I use that number against an hour of tennis to see if I burn those calories different than the guy I'm playing against and how close will that match to the MFP exercise database.

Donna36232399

bump

lemurcat12

I eat back most my cals that fitbit adds in

Given this, and assuming that you also log other exercise that Fitbit doesn't pick up (like biking or weights), 1200 is a fine goal, especially if you feel good eating as you are, and understand that it's a net number and that you should also eat activity calories (as it's clear you do).

At your numbers, your TDEE if sedentary is about 1780 (now, of course this is just an estimate). (That's figured by multiplying the estimated BMR with 1.2.) What that means is that if you don't exercise or aren't particularly active during your day (i.e., don't walk around much or clean significantly or chase kids, etc.), you'd need about 1780 calories daily just to maintain. So given that 500 calories adds up to about a pound over a week, eating 1200 means that you would be on track to lose about 1.16 lb/week--a perfectly reasonable amount to aim for. Now, of course you are not completely sedentary, and the Fitbit corrects for that by adding back in activity calories which you should eat in addition to your 1200, and probably stay at about the a little more than 1 lb/week rate.