Need Help with my Numbers Please!!!

yallcallmedeb

According to Fat2FitRadio, my BMR is 1391. I workout 5-6x a week. My daily calories should be 1956-2127 according to their BMR calculator. It does say that "It is OK to eat a few hundred calories less per day (200-300) to speed up your weight loss at this point." Taking an average of the 1956 (moderate activity) and 2127 (very active), I come up with 2042 calories per day. Subtract 250 calories per day (again averaging 200 and 300), I have approximately 1800 calories per day which I would be happy with.

I use a Fitbit and according to Fitbit, my TDEE is 2450. (This is the average calories I burn per day for the past month) Taking 80% of my TDEE would give me a daily calorie intake of 1960.

There are days that I am eating greater than 1800, yet netting below my BMR. My exercise calories burned include inputting my actual exercise into MFP plus the Fitbit adjustment that is made automatically. My average exercise calorie burn for the past week is 842 calories per day. That would have my average net calories at 958 which is below my BMR.

Even if I took an "Extremely Active (hard daily exercise/sports & physical job or 2X day training, i.e marathon, contest etc.) " caloric intake of 2400 per day, subtracting my 842 exercise calories per day would have me at 1558 which is above my BMR but I HARDLY live an Extremely Active lifestyle!!!!

The more I crunch the numbers, the more confused I get.

I am 47 years old, female, current weight 167.8, height 65 inches. My first goal weight is 150 which would have me at the borderline of normal and overweight. At that point I planned on re-evaluating what my true goal weight will be. The middle of a normal weight would be 130 lbs.

Can someone help me out here? I like the idea of having the same amount of calories to eat per day regardless of whether I workout or not. I actually find that I am more hungry on my rest days and less hungry on my workout days. HELP!!!!

Noor13

Hi there. If you have a FitBit I would go with that number. It takes your all day activities into account, which calculators don't.

I don't understand though why you are taking 80%off?
If you have not been on low cals you should eat at a 10-15%cut.
That would be around 2000-ish if I calculated right from the top of my head

cinblog1965

Here's what I just started doing:

I made a spreadsheet that has the date, calories burned based on Fitbit data. So today I logged yesterday's burn.

I have the spreadsheet calculate the average. Then I have the spreadsheet calculate the average multiplied by .85 (gives me the total TDEE-15%). I use that as the number of calories I try to eat.

So my spreadsheet looks something like this:

July 9, 2012 / 2184
July 10, 2012 / 2072
July 11, 2012 / 1890

Average / 2048 Average - 15% / 1741

So my goal in calories is 1741.

I actually have an entire month's worth in my list so it gets the workout days and off days. But because it all averages out, I don't have to try to live on 1550 calories on Fridays, which is a non-workout day for me.

I also have a column for calories eaten and average that also and my goal is to get my eaten average the same or slightly less than my average-15%. I just entered this information in the spreadsheet yesterday and I'm hoping it helps me stay on track.

Hope I didn't completely confuse you!!

pdworkman

I find my FitBit TDEE to be pretty accurate. It would be similar to using a calculator like this: http://www.health-calc.com/diet/energy-expenditure-advanced which gives you a more accurate representation based on the various hours of activities that you input than Fat2FitRadio. I would go with the calculation that is most precise, which is the FitBit. The other is just a 'ballpark' and you may be way out of the park . . .

yallcallmedeb

Thanks for the replies! Every time that I think that I have this, I get confused again! I'm going to try to keep my calorie intake between 1800 and 2050. Thanks again!

Noor13 - I went with a 20% cut because I still have a lot of weight to lose and Fat2Fit "allowed" me to take an additional cut in calories.

Cinblog1965 - you actually make quite a bit of sense!

Pdworkman - I thought that the fitbit should be pretty accurate so I'll stick with it. I even go to fitbit's website and see what it gives me for calorie burn during my cardio workouts (walking, running) and adjust burn count on MFP as appropriate.