BMR and Exercise question: help meee!

mynameiscarrie

Question: so if my BMR is 1400 (ish) and i eat that many calories and burn that many calories doing nothing, does that mean i could bump my calorie intake to 1400 and just not eat back my exercise calories and lose a normal amount? if i ate back my exercise calories then it would only put me at a small deficit and i'd lose weight really slowly right? or should i keep it at 1200 and eat back my exercise calories so i'm always at a 200 calorie deficit? i think MFP has my stats wrong at this point...i'm fine with losing half a pound a week, but MFP says i should eat 1460 calories to do that which i think is too much especially since my BMR is lower than that...

I'm confused

poseyj88

Your BMR is what you burn doing NOTHING. Not even sitting up, standing, any movement for food preparation, daily living, etc. In my mind you burn quite a bit over your BMR unless you lay in bed all day. My BMR is 1485 and MFP has me eating 1500 net to lose 1 lb. per week, so yours sounds right to me.

msmayor

I wish I had the answer I'm stuck on this one too - If I burn 1489 doing nothing and my calorie allowance mfp is 1200 but due to my workouts- trying for 600 burn calories per day (30min =300 calories 2x day) that bumps me up to 1800 but I really only eat in the 1300-1400 range so far I feel ok this is really only my first week - I'm going to wait to see what happens and but I think I should be eating 1800 especially after working out - if you find the anwer to this can you let me know? I'm going to send you a friend request

good luck

TinaS88

Bump!! It's so confusing to me!! :P

chrissym78

Confuses me tooooo! And I'm not sure I believe my bmr b/c I don't lose when I eat that much. I had mine calcuated by a nutritionist too Ack, the numbers!! *sigh*

morganadk2_deleted

Hi i can't see your diary Are you eating to enough?

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/10589-for-those-confused-or-questioning-eating-your-exercise-calo

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/61706-guide-to-calorie-deficit


This is just a part of it! please read the link above


Generally someone with a BMI over 32 can do a 1000 calorie a day (2 lbs a week) deficit
With a BMI of 30 to 32 a deficit of 750 calories is generally correct (about 1.5 lbs a week)
With a BMI of 28 to 30 a deficit of 500 calories is about right (about 1 lb a week)
With a BMI of 26 to 28 a deficit of about 300 calories is perfect (about 1/2 lb a week)
and below 26... well this is where we get fuzzy. See now you're no longer talking about being overweight, so while it's still ok to have a small deficit, you really should shift your focus more towards muscle tone, and reducing fat. This means is EXTRA important to eat your exercise calories as your body needs to KNOW it's ok to burn fat stores, and the only way it will know is if you keep giving it the calories it needs to not enter the famine response (starvation mode)


Also this might be helpful http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/00trayn/view/how-to-bust-a-3-month-plateau-87677

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/153704-myth-or-fact-simple-math-3500-calories-one-pound-eat



Good luck on your journey

sarah307

i'd up your calories- especially since you only have 6 or so pounds to go! slow and steady wins the race!

*edit
I was also going to say - when i'm at a plateau, i play with my calories a little bit - and it's usually increasing them by 100 or so and I'll lose the next week. all about changing up your body's mind...does that make sense?!?! hahaha!

I gotta go to clinics now, but message me if you want !

Driagnor

Your BMR is what your body would consume if you lay in bed and didn't move for the entire day. This is to do things like keeping your heart pumping, digesting food, thinking, regulating your body temperature etc. You then need to multiply this by your activity factor to determine your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) which is the total amount of calories burnt during the day (excluding any focused heart-rate increasing activity)..

For sedentary, the multiplier is 1.2, lightly active 1.375, moderately active 1.55 etc.

Therefore, if you have a BMR of 1400 and you're lightly active, your TDEE would be 1925 calories. The deficit to lose weight is then based on this number (with 500 calories per day under your TDEE being a 1 lb a week loss).

rileysowner

Basically, you need to eat more at this point. You should be eating at least at your BMR, and even then you need to eat your exercise calories. You only have a few pounds to go, so your weight loss goal per week should be no more than 1 pound, preferably less than that. Consider that this is slowly learning to eat at maintenance level which, by the way, you will still have to eat your exercise calories at or you will keep slowly losing weight.

mynameiscarrie

OK so i did the math... I used the BMR and activity level with the lowest deficit number to do my calculations...just as a control.

So my BMR was calculated at 1318
The Harris Benedict Equation with a sedentary lifestyle (BMR x 1.2) calculated my total burned for the day at 1582, which is a 264 calorie deficit.

So...(i rounded to 250 to make the math easier) if I do that and don't go over, everyday I will be at a deficit of 3,500 calories (1lb) in 14 days.

So if I add in exercise, I SHOULD eat back my exercise calories (or as many as I can...my friends on here know that i dont get hungry after the gym..lol i'm working on it!) or else i could be not eating enough.

Maybe this is why I'm at a plateau? I've been sticking to 1200 calories when I'm burning almost 1600 on top of not eating much after i work out so maybe that's why?

I'm going to manually change my goal to 1300 calories a day and see if that helps...gahhhh this is confusing

rileysowner

It really isn't that confusing. At six pounds left set your calories at your BMR and let your daily activity be your deficit. Yes, it is slow, but I have been doing that since I got within about 8 pounds of my goal. I eat my exercise calories, at least most of them, and I still lose weight, sometimes more than projected, sometimes less, but now I am withing 3.8 pounds of my goal.