BMR + Daily Exercise - Food Intake = Accurate Measurement?

GottiZone

I measure my daily intake of food and exercise very closely with this great app, but I don't seem to be losing weight even though I'm pretty confident I am burning well over 800 calories a day. I have a heart rate monitor I use for every exercise (usually 3-5 mile runs, 6 days a week) to make sure I am accurately calculating my calories burned, as well as staying VERY close on measuring my food intake.

My basic equation for measuring my daily consumption is my BMR (approx. 1800 calories for 5'8, 26 yr old 180lb male who works a desk job) + Daily Exercise (approx 800-1200 calories a workout) - Food Intake (I aim for 1200-1500 a day depending on exercise). Is this an accurate measurement to calculate how much weight I should be losing? If so, any ideas as to why I'm not losing weight? Basically we're talking about burning 2600 calories a day between BMR and Exercise and having an intake of around 1500 calories.

I've heard of overworking or the body going into starvation (although I'm eating more than 1200 calories a day), but it's not like I'm looking to necessarily lose more than 1-2 lbs a day. Admittedly I probably have more "empty" calories than I should, but I take Mega Men's Vitamins daily and protein shakes so I don't think I'm necessarily lacking nutrition. Thoughts?

StarryEyed500

Your intake is lower than your BMR. That's probably why you're not losing very fast. Try upping it for a few weeks and see how you get on.

GottiZone

I guess what I'm not quite understanding is how MFP really works, like does it factor in BMR? The Net calculation it provides only includes the difference in what I eat each day and the amount of exercise that day, correct? So basically to lose 2 lbs a week, I need to burn approximately 1,000 Net calories. This is nearly impossible to achieve when I need to eat at least my BMR of 1,800 calories (meaning I would need to burn 2,800 calories a day exercising). I would need to subtract another 1,800 from the Net it is providing to get a correct reading on how much I am burning a day, correct? Or am I just missing something?

astrampe

You are doing a great job confusing the heck out of me...

EDIT - your BMR is 1880 x1.22 (deskjob) = 2256 TDEE

You can't have that much to lose, so I would go for 1lbs per week - 2256-500=1756 PLUS 800 cals that you burn = eat 2556 per day

susannamarie

1000+ calorie deficit is probably excessive when you want to lose only 30 lbs. Also it's not just BMR + exercise, unless you are lying in bed doing absolutely nothing except when exercising. Should be BMR*1.2+exercise-calories.

deksgrl

Take your BMR x 1.55 for moderately active = TDEE (total daily energy expenditure).

Multiply TDEE x 20%

Subtract that 20% from the TDEE and eat that amount.

Set up MFP goal manually with this number as your goal.

1800 x 1.55 = 2790
2790 x 20% = 558
2790 - 558 = 2232

If you consider yourself very active (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days a week) instead of moderate, then multiply your BMR by 1.725 and recalculate.

MFP doesn't factor in your BMR when you tell it you want to lose 2 pounds a week, it will set you to 1800 calories by default as minimum amount for a man.

astrampe

If you eat only 1500 per day, you are actually making your body survive on 700 cals a day.....Not good.....

GottiZone

Thanks for the help everyone. Basically I think I just GREATLY undervalued the importance of eating enough calories. The app was telling me to only eat 1200 calories because I had it set to lose 2lbs a week (I'm 5'8, 180lbs at 26, which equates to a BMI of over 27 - way overweight). I was then trying to burn as many calories working out as possible on that diet, which was around 1,000 a day. Essentially an incredibly dumb idea from all that I've gathered. My body is probably storing fat and going into a starvation mode.

When I did the pre-set goals, I selected sedentary because I work a desk job 8-hours a week and don't burn a lot of calories outside of my exercise routine. I should keep it the same right tho? Just change it to lose 1lb a week? Ultimately I'm hoping to lose 30lbs in 30 weeks - a safe and hopefully steady maintenance. I plan to start lifting in the mornings 3-days a week and run 3-5 miles every afternoon, so I need to start eating a lot more calories - quality calories.

deksgrl

The exercise you do should be included when you select your activity level to figure out your TDEE. Yes you sit at your desk all day but you are exercising also after work. It isn't just asking about your job, it is asking about your overall lifestyle. If you only sat at your desk and didn't do any exercising, then you would be sedentary.

I personally have set my MFP up manually based on calculators I used outside of MFP to determine what my calorie deficit should be. I don't pay attention to the "how many pounds a week" line. I do enter my exercise just to keep myself accountable but I don't pay attention to it as far as changing the calorie daily goal. I'm eating 1800 calories which is a 20% deficit from my TDEE and when MFP shows that I still have remaining calories because I exercised off 400, I do not eat more. I look at the top line that says "total" and try to get that as close to 1800 as possible and I don't look at the "your daily goal" line or "remaining"

Another way to do it would be to log your exercise in the notes section instead of on the exercise log which affects the food log.