BMR

krevill

I am somewhat confused! My BMR is 1602 therefore if I eat 1200 calories a day my deficit is only 402 which over a week is 2814 and therefore I would not lose a pound as the deficit needs to be 3500.

Am I calculating it incorrectly? Would appreciate some advice :happy:

Fattack

You are calculating correctly- unfortunately some of us (especially as we get smaller, and if you're short like me it's a double whammy!) can't lose 1lb a week without technically going under a 1200 NET deficit so we just have to accept smaller losses, or not eat our exercise cals back (and I don't really want to enter that debate!! I personally eat all mine back and just accept smaller losses although I'm considering zig zagging my NET by not eating all my exercise cals back on every other day). At 1200cals NET, MFP projects me to lose 0.9lbs a week, however I rarely lose less than 1lb a week usually between 1 and 1.5. Hope this helps!

mandysjourney

BMR is the amount you need to eat just to survive ie breathe, heart beating and sleeping. it does not account for an daily activities so depending on what you set your activity level at this amount is added to your BMR and that is the amount of the cals required to go through a day and not lose weight. Then MFP takes the 500 cals a day off of that number to get your 3500 deficet for the week

SHBoss1673

what mandy said.

BMR isn't your maintenance. For instance, if you're activity level is sedentary, your maintenance would be 1602 X 1.2 or 1922 calories, which would make your deficit about 700 calories, not 400.

now

whether that's a good goal deficit for you or not, I don't know as I don't know your numbers. It all depends on how much fat you are looking to lose.

krevill

Ok, thanks for the information, I thought I was working it out wrong!

Fattack

Oh sorry, I misread it as being your BMR with activity ><

krevill

Yeah me too lol