BMR Confusion!

Eryndil

Hello all,

So I was flicking through what the MFP site had to offer and I asked it to calculate my BMR. It said at 160lbs, 5'7.5" (and being female) my body needs about 1500 cal/day. I'm on the 1200 cal/day train, attempting to lose 2lbs a week and am now worried that I'm throwing myself into starvation mode which will then inhibit my weight-loss progress.

I have only ever lost 2lbs in a week once and that was at the very start. It has been slowing down now to 1lb, maybe 0.5lb a week now. Is this due to my caloric intake being too low?

Any advice is appreciated! Thanks!

graysmom2005

Waaaay to big a deficit for you. Your a great weight for your height do these are vanity pounds that your boy won't drop unless you feed it. Change your goal to .5 lbs a week! :-)

ladyraven68

Hello all,

So I was flicking through what the MFP site had to offer and I asked it to calculate my BMR. It said at 160lbs, 5'7.5" (and being female) my body needs about 1500 cal/day. I'm on the 1200 cal/day train, attempting to lose 2lbs a week and am now worried that I'm throwing myself into starvation mode which will then inhibit my weight-loss progress.

I have only ever lost 2lbs in a week once and that was at the very start. It has been slowing down now to 1lb, maybe 0.5lb a week now. Is this due to my caloric intake being too low?

Any advice is appreciated! Thanks!

Personally, I'd change my settings to 1lb a week, and hopefully that will get you back above the 1500 BMR.

Helloitsdan

Using a dietary calculator I came up with:

BMR 1521
TDEE 2357 if you work out 3-5 times a week.

Set MFP to 1886 per day to lose 1lb of FAT a week.
Protein and Fat 30% each.

Yes...eat back cals from working out.

PM me if you need help.

SteveHunt113

What activity level have you set yourself on when setting up your goals? I'm hearing more and more that level 1 is unrealistically low for 99% of the people. I recently upped mine to 2. I've been trying to lose .5 pounds per week, but have been closer to 1 to 1.5.

SteveHunt113

BTW - I have a desk job where I set for 8 hours a day. I also hit the gym 6 days each week burning at least 450 calories each visit.

Eryndil

I work out roughly 5-6 times a week, losing about 250 cals per 30 mins session.

I've upped my goal (downed?) to losing 1lb/week, and now it has given me 1400cal/day - still under my BMR... I just can't face only losing 2.5lbs by April 7 if I was to go to 0.5lb/week. Also, I struggle to eat 1200 cal/day now, imagine 1650 cal!

Helloitsdan

I work out roughly 5-6 times a week, losing about 250 cals per 30 mins session.

I've upped my goal (downed?) to losing 1lb/week, and now it has given me 1400cal/day - still under my BMR... I just can't face only losing 2.5lbs by April 7 if I was to go to 0.5lb/week. Also, I struggle to eat 1200 cal/day now, imagine 1650 cal!

Using a dietary calculator I came up with:

BMR 1521
TDEE 2357 if you work out 3-5 times a week.

Set MFP to 1886 per day to lose 1lb of FAT a week.
Protein and Fat 30% each.

Yes...eat back cals from working out.

PM me if you need help.

See above post.

ladyraven68

I work out roughly 5-6 times a week, losing about 250 cals per 30 mins session.

I've upped my goal (downed?) to losing 1lb/week, and now it has given me 1400cal/day - still under my BMR... I just can't face only losing 2.5lbs by April 7 if I was to go to 0.5lb/week. Also, I struggle to eat 1200 cal/day now, imagine 1650 cal!

I followed Helloitsdan's advice when I hit a plateau on 1200 calories.

I upped to 1750, and suddenly lost 2.5lb.

As for struggling to eat the calories, I did it by adding in things like nuts, milk, which are high calories, but healthy, I switched from low fat food to normal, it was easy to get the extra calories without eating extra volume.

and many low fat foods have high carbs as they add in sugars to make up for the taste.