Fine tuning needed

Joanne_8595

Ok, I have come to the conclusion that for me putting my bmr into mfp as my daily calories just makes more sense to my brain. It just seems less confusing to add my exercise in each day and eat so my net never goes below the bmr. I am 47 yo, 195 lbs, 5' 1.5" and have been eating approximately 1800 calories a day, and if I exercised a lot I will eat more.

My question is : if scooby says my bmr is approximately 1560 and I net after exercise this amount will this meet the needs of my body? Am I underestimating? I am assuming scooby includes basic things like digestion etc.

Hope this makes sense.

Joanne_8595

Just a few added details. I have only been logging actual exercise like Wii fit step, using my gazelle, and taking a walk. Not walking to mailbox, doing dishes, etc.

BMR 1563
TDEE 2149
DAILY CAL 1827

Based on 1 to 3 hours light exercise and 15% reduction.

mommamuscles

I used that method for awhile too, and it seems to work in theory. However, it gets tricky because with setting your base calories as your BMR you are not allowing yourself much room for those daily incidental activities, like washing dishes or walking to the mailbox, doing laundry, grocery shopping, etc. For me, I tended to focus too much on my exercise calories when I used that method and there were days I was only 50-100 calories under my calorie goal. Not a big deal, some may think. But over a week or more, thats quite a few calories under BMR and IMO, enough to hurt your metabolism. I prefer to stick to the scooby numbers and not enter my exercise (I do the 1 calorie thing). I keep track of my burns on a spreadsheet so not to net under my BMR. Hope that all makes sense...

helened

Also, eating BMR only will equate a relatively agressive cut already and won't give you any room for when you plateau. I would try to NET more than that even with exercise. As long as you can progress with a moderate CUT you want to keep at it.

Joanne_8595

My thinking was because I was having trouble keeping track of how many calories I was burning for exercise. In other words I was confusing myself! I actually used the scooby bmr for light activity, not sedentary, but was noticing that my exercise burned Cal's seemed to take me below my bmr when scooby said to eat 1800 calories.

If I use the lightly active bmr then added my exercise do you think adding an extra 100 calories would be enough to stop me from falling below that level? I hope I didn't just confuse you. Maybe I am just making this more confusing than it needs to be.

Joanne_8595

Actually after reading your replies again I think you are both telling me to raise my calories above bmr to make sure I don't fall below. I am not an extremely active person, probably spend to much time sitting, but I do cook home made meals, do laundry, etc which I think makes my normal level would be light. I am however spending more time on my gazelle and doing Wii step.

mommamuscles

If you are regularly netting below BMR, then your activity level is likely not accurate, and you probably need to bump it up to the next level. Netting above BMR and under TDEE is best for steady weight loss.

michellekicks

How many calories does MFP give you if you just set your lifestyle factor as sedentary and tell it you want to lose half a pound per week?

That's how I do it. My BMR is about 1500 and my daily net target is 1640 and that seems to work for me. That way, if my exercise fluctuates from week to week (I'm steadily doing more and more as I approach a half marathon, but last week, for instance, I did very little as I was recovering from another race) then I can fluctuate my food intake with it.

Joanne_8595

Basically MFP gave me 1570 as my goal for sedentary losing half pound a week. I actually had it set before for 1560. Then tried to net tthat amount. Looks like I need to up my calories to about 1660 if I understand correctly. Then simply net 1660 with my exercise subtracted. That's scary, it feels like so much food!

Today I ate like 2000 calories but my exercise brought that down to 1575.