BMR & Calorie Goal Help Please

TMcSter

BMR: 1850 Calorie Goal: 1310 What does this mean? I know I should be eating 1310 calories per day but should my BMR influence my eating?

peuglow

BMR to my understanding is your Basal metabolic rate, IE the calories your body would require just to survive and maintain it's current weight.

Your goal, if you are trying to lose weight, should be lower than your BMR in order to have a caloric deficit

yarwell

BMR: 1850 Calorie Goal: 1310 What does this mean? I know I should be eating 1310 calories per day but should my BMR influence my eating?

the BMR is part of the total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) used to calculate the starting point from which you subtract a deficit for weight loss to get to calories to eat.

1850 * 1.25 - 1000 = 1320 (nearly)

DianeinCA

BMR to my understanding is your Basal metabolic rate, IE the calories your body would require just to survive and maintain it's current weight.

Your goal, if you are trying to lose weight, should be lower than your BMR in order to have a caloric deficit

No, your BMR is the number of calories your body needs right now to survive if you were in a coma and weren't moving.

Most of us are moving around.

The OP needs to find out their TDEE -- Total Daily Energy Expenditure, which is their BMR times a constant (1.2 for Sedentary, 1.4 for mildly active, 1.8 for Heavily Active...there are plenty of calculators out there to figure out the TDEE, including on this site, under Tools) and subtract 500 calories from THAT.

If you subtract 500 calories from the basic calories you need to live, your body will not be happy and will do Bad Things.

peuglow

BMR to my understanding is your Basal metabolic rate, IE the calories your body would require just to survive and maintain it's current weight.

Your goal, if you are trying to lose weight, should be lower than your BMR in order to have a caloric deficit

No, your BMR is the number of calories your body needs right now to survive if you were in a coma and weren't moving.

Most of us are moving around.

The OP needs to find out their TDEE -- Total Daily Energy Expenditure, which is their BMR times a constant (1.2 for Sedentary, 1.4 for mildly active, 1.8 for Heavily Active...there are plenty of calculators out there to figure out the TDEE, including on this site, under Tools) and subtract 500 calories from THAT.

If you subtract 500 calories from the basic calories you need to live, your body will not be happy and will do Bad Things.

Isn't that what I said?

DianeinCA

Isn't that what I said?

No, you said

Your goal, if you are trying to lose weight, should be lower than your BMR in order to have a caloric deficit.

You do not want to eat lower than your BMR. MFP figures out your TDEE from the info you give it and then subtracts 500 calories from that for your daily calories for 1 pound per week (500*7=3500 calories=1 pound). If TDEE-500 is less than your BMR, eat your BMR instead. if TDEE - 500 is less than 1200, I'm pretty sure MFP just gives you 500.

You want to figure out your TDEE (or, "the amount of calories you actually need to be alive and move around and maybe go upstairs once in a while") and subtract from that. Your BMR is your BASELINE. You don't go below that.

peuglow

Isn't that what I said?

No, you said

Your goal, if you are trying to lose weight, should be lower than your BMR in order to have a caloric deficit.

You do not want to eat lower than your BMR. MFP figures out your TDEE from the info you give it and then subtracts 500 calories from that for your daily calories for 1 pound per week (500*7=3500 calories=1 pound). If TDEE-500 is less than your BMR, eat your BMR instead. if TDEE - 500 is less than 1200, I'm pretty sure MFP just gives you 500.

You want to figure out your TDEE (or, "the amount of calories you actually need to be alive and move around and maybe go upstairs once in a while") and subtract from that. Your BMR is your BASELINE. You don't go below that.

Fair enough! I should have explained myself more.

yarwell

You do not want to eat lower than your BMR

Why ? Many many people diet successfully at levels below their BMR. For sedentary people with a 1.2 multiplier it's practically mandatory if they want to achieve a deficit that gives a visible weight loss rate (eg 500 calories/day).

Edit: To answer the inevitable "but you'll die" response, you get the energy required for basic functions by using up the fat reserves that are there for that very purpose.

shauna121211

I don't think that's accurate. Where/What did you read that says it is unsafe to eat below BMR? As a sedentary person, on days that I do not exercise I eat under BMR because I have my net calories set to 1350... my BMR is around 1514 making my maintenance level 1816...

"If you want to lose fat, a useful guideline for lowering your calorie intake is to reduce your calories by at least 500, but not more than 1000 below your maintenance level. For people with only a small amount of weight to lose, 1000 calories will be too much of a deficit. As a guide to minimum calorie intake, the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) recommends that calorie levels never drop below 1200 calories per day for women or 1800 calories per day for men."

If I followed your advice, I'm afraid I wouldn't be loosing anything any time soon...

MissMaryMac33

I don't think that's accurate. Where/What did you read that says it is unsafe to eat below BMR? As a sedentary person, on days that I do not exercise I eat under BMR because I have my net calories set to 1350... my BMR is around 1514 making my maintenance level 1816...

"If you want to lose fat, a useful guideline for lowering your calorie intake is to reduce your calories by at least 500, but not more than 1000 below your maintenance level. For people with only a small amount of weight to lose, 1000 calories will be too much of a deficit. As a guide to minimum calorie intake, the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) recommends that calorie levels never drop below 1200 calories per day for women or 1800 calories per day for men."

If I followed your advice, I'm afraid I wouldn't be loosing anything any time soon...

Not really .... lots of people who up their calories lose weight again - especially after a long plateau.
This is what I used to figure mine out: http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/
I upped mine from 1300 to 1700 (should be 1800 actually) and started to lose again.

DianeinCA

I don't think that's accurate. Where/What did you read that says it is unsafe to eat below BMR? As a sedentary person, on days that I do not exercise I eat under BMR because I have my net calories set to 1350... my BMR is around 1514 making my maintenance level 1816...

Here's one of the ways to think about eating at or above or below your BMR...

Your BMR is (roughly) the number of calories you need just to have your body exist. If you were in a coma, you'd need this number of calories (let's call it X) just to keep your body going.

But you're not in a coma, so you need some extra calories to live off of. Sedentary people don't need that much more (that's why we multiply X by 1.2), active people need more (multiply by 1.5), and very active people need a whole bunch more (multiply by 1.8). We call this number the Total Daily Energy Expenditure, or TDEE. If you ate this amount of calories every day, you should neither lose weight nor gain weight. This is the number of calories you need to maintain the weight you have RIGHT NOW.

So if you've eaten UNDER your BMR, you've taken in fewer calories than you would have needed to be in a coma. Now, I know, all of us think, 3500 calories = 1 pound, and the sooner I can get to 3500 calories the better...

Except when your body sees that you're not feeding it, it eventually freaks out and says, "Boy, I'd better conserve every calorie I can. Let's burn this muscle over here instead." And you hit one of those dreaded plateaus. And you can't lose any more weight.

If you're worried about eating too much, make sure your Net Calories (Calories In - Calories Out for that day) is your BMR. BUT NOT LESS.

I know I've read that if someone is VERY overweight, they might be able to eat under their BMR for a while, but not forever. And if your current BMR is 1514, you're not very overweight.

yarwell

So if you've eaten UNDER your BMR, you've taken in fewer calories than you would have needed to be in a coma

but you do have your fat reserves of several tens of thousands of calories to draw on, so you won't go short any time soon.

BMR * 1.2 + exercise cals + cals stored as fat = cals from food + cals from fat stores

nothings says you have to eat at or over your BMR. The guy in the picture was fed above his BMR and had a metabolic slowdown in response to the calorie intake reduction.

catriona269

I don't think that's accurate. Where/What did you read that says it is unsafe to eat below BMR? As a sedentary person, on days that I do not exercise I eat under BMR because I have my net calories set to 1350... my BMR is around 1514 making my maintenance level 1816...

Here's one of the ways to think about eating at or above or below your BMR...

Your BMR is (roughly) the number of calories you need just to have your body exist. If you were in a coma, you'd need this number of calories (let's call it X) just to keep your body going.

But you're not in a coma, so you need some extra calories to live off of. Sedentary people don't need that much more (that's why we multiply X by 1.2), active people need more (multiply by 1.5), and very active people need a whole bunch more (multiply by 1.8). We call this number the Total Daily Energy Expenditure, or TDEE. If you ate this amount of calories every day, you should neither lose weight nor gain weight. This is the number of calories you need to maintain the weight you have RIGHT NOW.

So if you've eaten UNDER your BMR, you've taken in fewer calories than you would have needed to be in a coma. Now, I know, all of us think, 3500 calories = 1 pound, and the sooner I can get to 3500 calories the better...

Except when your body sees that you're not feeding it, it eventually freaks out and says, "Boy, I'd better conserve every calorie I can. Let's burn this muscle over here instead." And you hit one of those dreaded plateaus. And you can't lose any more weight.

If you're worried about eating too much, make sure your Net Calories (Calories In - Calories Out for that day) is your BMR. BUT NOT LESS.

I know I've read that if someone is VERY overweight, they might be able to eat under their BMR for a while, but not forever. And if your current BMR is 1514, you're not very overweight.

Well.. not exactly. Your body has fat for a reason - a large store of energy. That's really its main purpose. Muscle however is useful to the body, so why would the body use muscle as a fuel source is it still has plenty of fat? The body will only begin to burn a bit of muscle when it thinks it doesn't need it anymore. Muscle is very high maintenance and burns way more calories than fat does when the body is in a resting state, so the body tries to burn it off because the muscles are combusting and wasting too much energy, and the muscles aren't being used, so it sees no reason to keep the muscle tissue.

Amryfal

if i use a regular BMR calculator, i get ~1850.

if i use fat2fit's BMR+body fat % calculator, i get ~1550.

if i eat 1850, i don't lose.

if i eat 1650, i do.

i don't trust MFP's BMR calculator.

gerbies

I recommend the BMR calculator provided through the Scooby site (search google for Scooby BMR calculator).

Generally (and it's not good to use broad generalities), it's not a good practice to eat below one's BMR for long periods of time. There have been studies, however, that has shown for those who are obese (have more than 50 lbs to lose), you can safely go below BMR to lose. At these sizes, one is safer to lose weight at a more moderate rate than at a slow rate. Some of the reasons I've recently read could be as much for emotional reasons (if one has a lot to lose, it can be discouraging to lose 1/2 lb a week), as for physical reasons. Any time you lose weight, you lose both fat, fluid and muscle; the key is to reduce the amount of muscle mass loss. At large sizes, you can lose a bit of muscle and not hurt yourself long-term. The key is not to go too far below BMR (e.g., crazy 800-calorie diets).

Once a person gets closer to goal weight (or finds themselves in a plateau), you should start to scale calories back up. That is, find the "sweet spot" between your BMR (the amount of calories just for your body to complete it's physiological processes) and your TDEE (the total calories you burn each day with all activity and movement).

Good luck!