MFP warning about eating under BMR

jumpin15

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Pebble321

I think the intention here is good but I don't think there is any point.

Most people who are inappropiately eating only 1200 cals/day are doing so because:
1. They have chosen an aggressive weight loss goal (ie.1200) when they only have a few pounds to lose
2. They haven't bothered to read about how MFP works so they don't eat more when they exercise.

If they bothered to take 2 minutes to work out how MFP is set up and if they didn't have unrealistic expectations, then they would be eating a more healthy amount.
The people who aren't going to do these things aren't going to get any more value from a BMR warning than the 1200 cal warning.

Sarauk2sf

What is BMF? doesn't TDEE by definitiontake into account exercise?

I think it's a Body Media Fit device, like a Body Bugg. It has an internal BMR calculator and an accelerometer (and some skin sensors) that it uses to estimate your calorie expenditure based on your inputs and your movement/activity level.

I had never seen TDEE before coming here two weeks ago. You would think it'd mean total being it's called total. I think it's the name given to the output from estimator calculators that will take your BMR and multiply it by a factor based on your stated activity level to estimate your total daily expenditure. Why people don't just input their actual activity level but instead input 'sedentary' and then manually add on their "exercise" calories, I don't know. It seems nuttily complex, and I'm a numbers lover. I guess because most of us are sedentary unless we happen to pop into the gym 3x/week, but we don't always make it so we don't 'count' it until we do?

Ok, I clicked around here and see that this site breaks out 'exercise' from total expenditure. I still don't know why. When I look for the credentials of who set up this site and its diet plan, all I find is a guy and his brother who wanted a better food tracking site so they set this one up. I do think it's an awesome tracker.

I was VERY specific on saying I did not include it so I could equate it to the way MFP worked as that was what the poster asked me to do. An obviously you do not know the way MFP works - the activity level on MFP does not include exercise, it includes non exercise activity (e.g your type of job) - which is WHY my explanation was pre exercise so it was apples to apples.

ETA: it probably breaks out exercise calories for a number of reasons including 1) to encourage people to exercise 2) so people do not have to change their goal every single day their workouts vary. Not sure why it is confusing.

blpope

This is very interesting information. You learn something new every day--thanks, guys!

mcarter99

I was VERY specific on saying I did not include it so I could equate it to the way MFP worked as that was what the poster asked me to do. An obviously you do not know the way MFP works - the activity level on MFP does not include exercise, it includes non exercise activity (e.g your type of job) - which is WHY my explanation was pre exercise so it was apples to apples.

ETA: it probably breaks out exercise calories for a number of reasons including 1) to encourage people to exercise 2) so people do not have to change their goal every single day their workouts vary. Not sure why it is confusing.

Sorry, I wasn't really following you guys' exchange. I was just responding to her(?) question about why doesn't TDEE include 'exercise' with my own ideas and confusion about it.

I don't study how this site does their plan because I don't follow their plan. I use their tracker with my Fitbit.

I would find it discourages me from exercising if I have to (1) estimate the calories for each activity and (2) add them to my usual daily food allotment and eat them back. I would think it'd be much easier to just skip the dang workout if you're just going to re-eat it anyway. Most of us (sadly) do the workout for the addl calorie burn to speed weight loss, I think. That's another topic, though.

CallMeCupcakeDammit

Yeah, I'm perfectly fine with that explanation. It is accurate based on conventional thinking and just about every nutrition article that I've read.

She only has 7 lbs left to lose, though, which she stated in her e-mail to them. That's ok? Everything I've read says the opposite.

Well, it all depends on her parameters and how aggressive she set her goals. What is her BMR to begin with? If her BMR is 1700 and she chose to lose 1lb a week, then her suggested intake would be 1200 calories and that would get her to her goal. If she exercises, those calories are added into that number and have those calories available to eat back. At the end of the day, her remaining calories should be around 0. That would be a healthy way for her to reach her goal.

Between 1225-1310 depending on whose calculator she used (1225 from MFP's). She set it to lose .5 lb/wk and it still gave her 1200.

jenniejengin

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CoderGal

Being the OP of this thread I'm just going to say Sparklyball, you have no idea what you just started :P Also the people below your post are kind of incorrect in several ways and I no longer have the effort to correct. I'm just going to say educate yourself, find it yourself from reputable sources, I'll help guide you somewhat.

With that, to find out how much you burn in the run of a day, google TDEE
To find out how much you burn if someone knocked you out and you were unconscious for a while, google BMR
To find out how much you burn resting, google RMR

Also, here's a thinggy I made for people just like you:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/CoderGal/view/losing-weight-tdee-bmr-rmr-etc-249228

To be oblivious to all this and get some application made by scientists based on a weight loss study, have I got the thing for you. There was a scientific paper published based on the quantification of the effect of energy imbalance on bodyweight. The authors of this study made this addorable little calculator that lets you play with all the numbers mentioned above. They take the changes in the human metabolism into account, looking at the fact that a 3500 calorie deficit equaling 1 lb of weight loss isn't that percise.

Study: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(11)60812-X/fulltext
Calc: http://bwsimulator.niddk.nih.gov/

THAT calculator. I put in my inputs and it told me aim for 268 calories a day or something. I think I said I wanted to lose 30 lbs. in 60 days or something but it definitely isn't advocating not eating below your BMR.

You didn't answer the question. What information did you put in (I'm not even going to touch the fact that loosing a lb every 2 day is unreasonable). The point of making that app was for them, for their study purposes, not for boobs to abuse it.

And I figured I'd clarify that I'm not calling you a boob, I'm saying that anyone who finds that study and tries to do something completely unreasonable with it and follow it well...doesn't have much reasoning. They don't have all the problems blocked out. The only one I know if is they have a safe guard around BMI but the app still continues so you can examine very unreasonable situations

KellyBurton1

:flowerforyou:

Mrsbrandnewmeslimandtrim

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mcarter99

You didn't answer the question. What information did you put in (I'm not even going to touch the fact that loosing a lb every 2 day is unreasonable). The point of making that app was for them, for their study purposes, not for boobs to abuse it.

And I figured I'd clarify that I'm not calling you a boob, I'm saying that anyone who finds that study and tries to do something completely unreasonable with it and follow it well...doesn't have much reasoning. They don't have all the problems blocked out. The only one I know if is they have a safe guard around BMI but the app still continues so you can examine very unreasonable situations

What difference does it make what my inputs are? You posted it as if it was some scientific proof that eating below BMR is a known no-no. I put in my actual height, weight, age and goals. Yes, I shortened the goal to see if it would just calc the mathematical calories needed to reach it, or if it would flash *** NO CAN DO! THAT PUTS YOU BELOW BMR!!!*** which seems to be your thread topic and main point. It doesn't. It's LESS conservative then MFP.

I have reasoning. I teach college, among other things.

ironanimal

You didn't answer the question. What information did you put in (I'm not even going to touch the fact that loosing a lb every 2 day is unreasonable). The point of making that app was for them, for their study purposes, not for boobs to abuse it.

And I figured I'd clarify that I'm not calling you a boob, I'm saying that anyone who finds that study and tries to do something completely unreasonable with it and follow it well...doesn't have much reasoning. They don't have all the problems blocked out. The only one I know if is they have a safe guard around BMI but the app still continues so you can examine very unreasonable situations

What difference does it make what my inputs are? You posted it as if it was some scientific proof that eating below BMR is a known no-no. I put in my actual height, weight, age and goals. Yes, I shortened the goal to see if it would just calc the mathematical calories needed to reach it, or if it would flash *** NO CAN DO! THAT PUTS YOU BELOW BMR!!!*** which seems to be your thread topic and main point. It doesn't. It's LESS conservative then MFP.

I have reasoning. I teach college, among other things.

It's a program. You tell it what to do and it does it. It doesn't expect you to be an imbecile and set what you want to achieve in a ridiculously short amount of time.

Prudiddy

My BMR is 1510.6. So what does that mean??? Do I eat 1510 cals per day to stay at this weight?? Or do I eat that to loose. I'm lost. help!!

1510.6 is your BMR this is what you need to maintain your current weight. Depending on the calorie deficit it will be up to you to you how much of the deficit you want to create.

Does that make sense? Hope so.

CoderGal

You didn't answer the question. What information did you put in (I'm not even going to touch the fact that loosing a lb every 2 day is unreasonable). The point of making that app was for them, for their study purposes, not for boobs to abuse it.

And I figured I'd clarify that I'm not calling you a boob, I'm saying that anyone who finds that study and tries to do something completely unreasonable with it and follow it well...doesn't have much reasoning. They don't have all the problems blocked out. The only one I know if is they have a safe guard around BMI but the app still continues so you can examine very unreasonable situations

What difference does it make what my inputs are? You posted it as if it was some scientific proof that eating below BMR is a known no-no. I put in my actual height, weight, age and goals. Yes, I shortened the goal to see if it would just calc the mathematical calories needed to reach it, or if it would flash *** NO CAN DO! THAT PUTS YOU BELOW BMR!!!*** which seems to be your thread topic and main point. It doesn't. It's LESS conservative then MFP.

I have reasoning. I teach college, among other things.

When on earth are you talking about? When did I say that? Someone asked for help, and yes I gave them that link, it's an adorable little simulator. It can tell you what you maintenance weight is etc etc. And this is the third time now you're complaining about the values and not telling me what they are, and the third time I'm going to ask what the values you input were? If you're asking me a question, and say you put values in and it does gives you funny values back and you can't figure out why, and continue to not tell me what those values are, I'm not sure what you want me to do?

That last part has horrible reasoning for a teacher. Teacher does not equal reasoning. As most teachers would know, there are some horrible, horrible, horrible teachers. I'm not even going to go there.

CoderGal

My BMR is 1510.6. So what does that mean??? Do I eat 1510 cals per day to stay at this weight?? Or do I eat that to loose. I'm lost. help!!

1510.6 is your BMR this is what you need to maintain your current weight. Depending on the calorie deficit it will be up to you to you how much of the deficit you want to create.

Does that make sense? Hope so.

Maintain while unconscious. If by any chance you wake up, you burn more. This is what TDEE is for. Your awake state.

....boy do I ever wish I could edit my original post and put links defining what BMR RMR and TDEE are.

Sarauk2sf

I was VERY specific on saying I did not include it so I could equate it to the way MFP worked as that was what the poster asked me to do. An obviously you do not know the way MFP works - the activity level on MFP does not include exercise, it includes non exercise activity (e.g your type of job) - which is WHY my explanation was pre exercise so it was apples to apples.

ETA: it probably breaks out exercise calories for a number of reasons including 1) to encourage people to exercise 2) so people do not have to change their goal every single day their workouts vary. Not sure why it is confusing.

Sorry, I wasn't really following you guys' exchange. I was just responding to her(?) question about why doesn't TDEE include 'exercise' with my own ideas and confusion about it.

I don't study how this site does their plan because I don't follow their plan. I use their tracker with my Fitbit.

I would find it discourages me from exercising if I have to (1) estimate the calories for each activity and (2) add them to my usual daily food allotment and eat them back. I would think it'd be much easier to just skip the dang workout if you're just going to re-eat it anyway. Most of us (sadly) do the workout for the addl calorie burn to speed weight loss, I think. That's another topic, though.

The thing is, your fitbit, assuming you sync it to MFP, does exactly what the adding calories to non workout TDEE does (when logging exercise calories) - it is just more indiviualized and includes non-workout TDEE adjustments that are specific to you. MFP obviously uses averages for its calcualtions of BMR and the activity multiplier.

Most people on here do not have a FitBit, BodyBugg, BMF or the like, so they need a way to estimate their total burn. The estimate for their non-workout TDEE is already included - so they need to add the workout specific activity.

I am not sure why it would be a big deal to add exercise calories - its one simple log that takes a few seconds - you log food, why not take a second to add one line to the exercise section?. Now, there are a lot of discussions as to how accurate the numbers in the database are, which is why many people leave a 'buffer' and do not eat all their exercise calories back.

Regarding eating them back:

1) The math is exactly the same if you take a deficit from your FitBit, and if you use MFP with the same parameters. Say you burn 2000 calories on a non-workout day and have a 1lb a week (500 calorie deficit) built into MFP. You would eat 1500 calores. If you exercise and burn 500 calories, and eat them back. Total calories eaten = 2000, total burn = 2500, total deficit = 500 calores. Now say you use your FitBit - total burn = 2500, you have a 500 deficit, and you eat 2000 calories. You end up in exactly the same place.
2) What you are saying is that if you eat them back, exercise is a waste of time - this is totally wrong. Exercise is never a waste of time - cardio provides, well, cardiovascular improvement and strength training improves body comp and bone density among other things (including people enjoying them). Plus - a huge plus for many - you can eat more and still have a reasonable deficit. If eating your exercise calories means you can have that meal out, go out for a few drinks, etc, then how is it a waste of time.

Many people on MFP, myself included, calculate their estimated weekly TDEE (including workouts), take off their target loss calories, take the average, and eat to that level every day. The estimated weekly TDEE can be found on a bunch of websites (e.g. fitness frog) or can be obtained from their BMF, FitBit etc. However, this method still comes down to the same basic math.

insertmud

i've been eating well below my bmr for about 8 months. what awful things are supposed to be happening to me?

toothfairy79

so you guys are saying that we should eat what our BMR equals to??

CoderGal

so you guys are saying that we should eat what our BMR equals to??

No

emnk5308

This *kitten* is all way to confusing. I've been eating 1100 calories a day and I feel fine! Not sick, or slow, or tired, hardly even hungry.. I've been losing weight too.. I'm gonna keep doing what I'm doing until I have problems, then I'll change it. I don't see how you can have a deficit at all if you eat what you burn..