Question about BMR/TDEE/Eat more, weigh less

jcperkns

MFP currently has my calories set at 1200 and I am currently in month 2 of Insanity. I've lost about 11 pounds but I feel like the last couple of weeks I am just gaining and loosing the same 1-2lbs a week. I haven't gotten a HRM yet so I just guess how many calories I burn (around 200-250) per workout. I usually eat most if not all of my exercise calories back to net 1200. I just recently calculated my BMR and TDEE and they are:

BMR: 1507 using the Harris-Benedict formula
TDEE: 2326

According to fat2fitradio.com I need to eat 2184cal a day for moderate exercise 3-5 day/week and 2431 for very active/hard exercise 6-7 days/week. I would consider Insanity between one of the two. I guess its just scaring me a little bit to increase my calories by almost 1000 a day as this was around how much I was eating before my weight loss journey! Does anyone have any advice or has anyone upped their calories by this much and seen success? Also, will I start to gain some before I start to loose? I only have about 20-25 lbs to my goal

Sabine_Stroehm

You're eating 1200 calories AND doing insanity? I would actually guess you burn more than that. I just burned 350 doing a 35 minute JOG.

chrisb75

Why don't you up 100 calories a day?

When you make the jump give it 4 weeks to regulate. Put away the scale. You will notice after about 1-2 weeks your insanity routine gets easier, you will have BOUNDS more energy. Then the weight loss should follow. Remember that if you set your goal to your TDEE that you DO NOT eat exercise calories.

I went from a stalled diet at 1700 calories and P90, to 2550 calories with heavy lifting. I have since lost 3 lbs and inches off my waist and hips.

jcperkns

I actually have no idea how much I burn since my HRM still hasn't arrived yet, I was just guessing. I figured better to underestimate than overestimate.

jcperkns

Why don't you up 100 calories a day?

When you make the jump give it 4 weeks to regulate. Put away the scale. You will notice after about 1-2 weeks your insanity routine gets easier, you will have BOUNDS more energy. Then the weight loss should follow. Remember that if you set your goal to your TDEE that you DO NOT eat exercise calories.

I went from a stalled diet at 1700 calories and P90, to 2550 calories with heavy lifting. I have since lost 3 lbs and inches off my waist and hips.

I was thinking of setting my goal to 1860 but if i do that do you think I should eat my calories back?

erickirb

MFP currently has my calories set at 1200 and I am currently in month 2 of Insanity. I've lost about 11 pounds but I feel like the last couple of weeks I am just gaining and loosing the same 1-2lbs a week. I haven't gotten a HRM yet so I just guess how many calories I burn (around 200-250) per workout. I usually eat most if not all of my exercise calories back to net 1200. I just recently calculated my BMR and TDEE and they are:

BMR: 1507 using the Harris-Benedict formula
TDEE: 2326

According to fat2fitradio.com I need to eat 2184cal a day for moderate exercise 3-5 day/week and 2431 for very active/hard exercise 6-7 days/week. I would consider Insanity between one of the two. I guess its just scaring me a little bit to increase my calories by almost 1000 a day as this was around how much I was eating before my weight loss journey! Does anyone have any advice or has anyone upped their calories by this much and seen success? Also, will I start to gain some before I start to loose? I only have about 20-25 lbs to my goal

Doing Insanity, according to the lowest setting on the diet guide, you should not eat less than 1700 cals/day. If you avg a burn of 500/day that would be like eating 1200 on MFP and eating back the cals you burn from exercise, which you should be doing.

I would suggest following Insanity diet guide and eat 1700. but don't eat the exercise cals back. If you are low on energy at that level, add another 100 or so calories.

heybales

According to fat2fitradio.com I need to eat 2184cal a day for moderate exercise 3-5 day/week and 2431 for very active/hard exercise 6-7 days/week. I would consider Insanity between one of the two. I guess its just scaring me a little bit to increase my calories by almost 1000 a day as this was around how much I was eating before my weight loss journey! Does anyone have any advice or has anyone upped their calories by this much and seen success? Also, will I start to gain some before I start to loose? I only have about 20-25 lbs to my goal

Be aware that workout time is based on 1 hr a day. So total up those shorter workouts for better guess of activity level. You can of course round up or down to nearest 100 depending on if in-between levels.

chrisb75

Why don't you up 100 calories a day?

When you make the jump give it 4 weeks to regulate. Put away the scale. You will notice after about 1-2 weeks your insanity routine gets easier, you will have BOUNDS more energy. Then the weight loss should follow. Remember that if you set your goal to your TDEE that you DO NOT eat exercise calories.

I went from a stalled diet at 1700 calories and P90, to 2550 calories with heavy lifting. I have since lost 3 lbs and inches off my waist and hips.

Yes. You can either set up your goal to be your Goal Weight TDEE at sedentary, the add and eat your exercise calories. But if you exercise regularly its just better to not worry about eating back calories. I still log my lifting, I just put that it burned 1 calorie.
I was thinking of setting my goal to 1860 but if i do that do you think I should eat my calories back?

ckisling

I did insanity last summer and I was eating 1700 to 1900 calories. I lost about a pound a week for the most part. I made sure that my protein levels were really high, and I tried to keep fiber high and sugars low. Hope this helps

wolftrax

if your BMR is 1507, then you must be using the 1.55 multiplier for activity
(2334) for TDEE...i think being conservative with 1.2 and doing BMR X1.2 -300 cals would be a good trial ...1507 x 1.2 -300 would give you 1508 cals/day in food, and eat back the exercise cals or part of them at least..

Try putting sedentary in your goal colume and half #/week for weight loss and see what happens..you will probably lose faster than that if you put it to the test..

misskerouac

I was eating 1400cals a day but I should be eating close to 2300. So I started slowly upping my calories 100 every week-2 weeks. I'm up to 1600 cals now and eat back my exercise calories since even with that i'm not eating 2300 total yet. I haven't gained anything while upping my calories, I was at a plateau, and i stayed there while upping my calories, and now I'm starting to see a little weight come off.

I agree with slowly upping it 100 a day or every few days until you get to where you need to be, it sounds like you definitely aren't getting enough calories for the amount of activity you are doing. Don't be scared of food! It's good! lol

jcperkns

Thanks for all of your help! I decided I am going to increase my calories to 1700 a day without eating back my exercise calories for 2 weeks and see if I have more energy and more results.

bradthemedic

Thanks for all of your help! I decided I am going to increase my calories to 1700 a day without eating back my exercise calories for 2 weeks and see if I have more energy and more results.

You'll feel a LOT better... trust me.

ShanR77

bump

ANewLucia

i just sent you a group request to "Eat More to Weigh Less". You will find the answer to every question you have....the group is 2 months old and has grown to over 2500 people and I will tell you eating a small cut from your TDEE does work!

anitaplus4

Bump

Brandicaloriecountess

Follow fat2fit, it is much more logical and will keep you from losing muscle along with fat. If you don't feel ok with eating their suggestion then eat at least above your BMR. With fat2fit you will not be on a "diet" so when you get to your goal you don't have to change your way of living. I am working up to my fat2fit numbers, I'm at 1700 a day now.. I ate way to low for a long while. So far after a week @ 1700 I am down .4 from my lowest weight

I don't know if that helps.

djshayreh

I hope I haven't missed someone already saying this:

Remember that Harris-Benedict is considered accurate only for people of a normal BMI. The Mifflin-St. Jeor is a more accurate formula if you're overweight. The previous post about using 1.2 as the multiplier sounds like good conservative advice.

I've never done Insanity, but a serious workout can plausibly burn the calories you're quoting. If you are using machines as well and factoring the calorie count from the elliptical/treadmill/bike/etc. into your math, remember that, as a rule, they over-estimate. If you're using a formula for your current non-machine workouts that comes from someone with a financial interest in selling the product, they likely have also been liberal in telling you how to estimate calories burned/workout.

If your two week trial of increased calories doesn't work, consider recalculating your BMR/TDEE and/or dropping your estimate of calories exercised by 30%.

Good luck!

Emancipated_Tai

You are WAY underestimating your Insanity burn. I burn 350-400 calories just jogging a half hour, so your burn has to be double that. I would suggest raising your caloric intake. This is what I did after a 3 month plateau and started to lose weight right away. I didn’t do it for the amount they told me, but I went from 1200 to 1300 to 1400 over two weeks. Once I was comfortable at 1400 I raised to 1600 then 1700 over another two weeks. I now eat 1700-1850 calories a day & burn about on an average 750-800. I don’t eat exercise calories back per say, just maybe 150 or so and I’m losing weight regularly.

augstrac

The past few weeks i have not been losing very much if any at all. I have a desk job and just started the C25K program to get myself into running versus just the elliptical.

Weight: 195
Height: 5'5"
Age: 21
Female
I work at a desk job and excercise 3-4 days a week 40mins a day

These are the stats it gave me.

BMR- 1704
TDEE-2641

2245 is the result when i subtract 15% of the TDEE

So i should be eating 2210 on my "off" days when i dont run?

Am i doing these right?

heybales

The past few weeks i have not been losing very much if any at all. I have a desk job and just started the C25K program to get myself into running versus just the elliptical.

Weight: 195
Height: 5'5"
Age: 21
Female
I work at a desk job and excercise 3-4 days a week 40mins a day

These are the stats it gave me.

BMR- 1704
TDEE-2641

2245 is the result when i subtract 15% of the TDEE

So i should be eating 2210 on my "off" days when i dont run?

Am i doing these right?

So that is not using the fat2fit site, but a current weight TDEE estimator. Glad you saw the distinction.

Since you are between levels (3-5 days means 3-5 hrs weekly, you are at 2.6 if 40 min x 4 days), I'd suggest even 2400 - 15% = 2040 daily goal.

But that is everyday, because your exercise burn is being spread out through the week. So some days you'll be closer to netting at or slightly below BMR, some days above.

If you start increasing the time over 40 min, or more workouts, than just add up the weekly time and see if total hrs is still in that range of the correct activity level.

And every 5lb drop in weight, have to redo the BMR/TDEE calc.
When you are within 20lbs of goal, need to subtract probably 10% then to be more realistic.

Orrrrr, you can accomplish the same math using MFP's normal setup with some tweaks.

Now MFP BMR calc would say 1646, considered about 5% more accurate that Harris you used somewhere. So same activity multiplier 1.375 makes rounded up 2300 - 15% = 1950 rounded.
Select Activity level of Lightly Active (gives daily maintenance of 2222).
Select loss goal of 1/2 lb weekly. (subtracts 250).

This should make the daily goal 1972, close enough to 1950.

You still would NOT log or eat back exercise calories. if you want to log, record 1 calorie, or if you log full calories burned, just remember to leave in the Food Diary green the amount of credit you received, so daily goal is always the same.

The benefit to this method, MFP will automatically lower the goal is you log weight loss. Instead of you recalc'ing.
Sadly, if you do change the routine or get within 20 lbs of goal, this still must be tweaked.
In which case just ask. Usually through a combo of tweaks to MFP, you can reach the same number or might close.

Hope that helps more than confuses. But you have a simple enough workout routine that MFP can still encompass the numbers you want to hit.