Benefits of setting calorie intake to BMR

fashionista954

I have read several posts and articles online about the benefits of eating at or above your BMR to lose weight without "starving". I wanted to get some feedback from those of you who are doing this in comparison to the 1200 net calories that MFP has listed.

Also, if you have your calorie intake set at your BMR do you also eat back your exercise calories?

I calculated my BMR and it is 1558, if I set my calorie intake to this, and let's say I burn 500 calories on a given day, should I eat 2058 calories that day or just stick to the 1558?


Thanks in advance.

crystal9999

Bump!

Shaneekwa

Glad you posted this. I would love to hear the feedback

Krissy_b777

I was wondering the exact same thing. I posted this on my feed yesterday and got only one response tha t I needed to eat more calories. I was at 1200 too. SInce I exercise for 30 minutes each day. I changed my profile from sedentary to lightly active and that gave me about 1300 and something calories. I put sedentary because I have a desk job and did not count the exercise as being active through the day. If you work out alot maybe you should change yours to active and you will get more calories. I think 1200 is met for someone who does little to no exercise, but I am interested in everyone's comments. I have always wondered if I was getting enough.

nikkylyn

I have mine set to 1600. I believe my bmr is 15....something.

I could never make it on 1200 calories I would die. LOL.

I do eat back some of my exercise calories also. I have lost a few lbs not much but just starting out. I have just started to loose some inches. which is nice.

armadiloes

I too would be interested in the replies to this, I've been going on MFP 1200 recommendation but had a worry that this might not be healthy for me and also too restricted. I searched for BMR in the posts and it gave me a lot of information however I'm still confused to why MFP would recommend a 1200 calorie diet if you aren't mean to eat less that your BMR, surely the calculations should take this into account for those who don't have a lot of weight to loose (understand this depends on people being honest about what they have to lose).

However I found this site which helped me make the decision to eat 1300 calories which is only 92 off what it says for Fat Loss, Extreme Fat Loss is for those with a lot of weight to loose - this in no way means use this if you want to lose fast (not healthy). It has text underneath which explains.

http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm

This site also includes a break down for nutritional values too.

Ultimately I'd like to know why MFP comes to the 1200 calorie allowance for me and not my BMR which is higher and which is the recommended lowest calorie allowance for me.

beccala18

Ultimately I'd like to know why MFP comes to the 1200 calorie allowance for me and not my BMR which is higher and which is the recommended lowest calorie allowance for me.

In general, MFP is just an automatic computer system. If your maintenance calories are 1700, and you set up your profile to lose 1 pound a week (3500 cal/week = 500 cal/day deficit), then it will set up your daily intake at 1200. If your maintenance was higher, so would be the base calories. It doesn't take anything else into account.

However, you can manually adjust the amount of calories YOU think you should intake based on whatever research you do.

armadiloes

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It doesn't take anything else into account.

However, you can manually adjust the amount of calories YOU think you should intake based on whatever research you do.
[/quote]

Yip fully understand that, suppose the real post should have been that they should take this into consideration as it does confuse a lot of people lol!

fashionista954

I have mine set to 1600. I believe my bmr is 15....something.

I could never make it on 1200 calories I would die. LOL.

I do eat back some of my exercise calories also. I have lost a few lbs not much but just starting out. I have just started to loose some inches. which is nice.

Yea, I had to bump it up a bit, a 1200 base wasn't quite working, even with eating back most/all exercise calories. There are days that I go over on purpose and on those days I have much more energy.

Thanks for your input!

britlem

bump