Figuring out my BMR and calories

princeza9

I hate math, I really do. I'm no good at it- which is why I was a business major in college... So figuring out my BMR and TDEE was not going to be fun. I did this because for the past month, I've had 2 (separate) weeks of no loss, then a small loss in between. I'm just trying to figure out how to get myself back on track.

But thanks to a couple MFPals, I went to the http://www.fat2fitradio.com it wasn't so hard.

My info:

Sex: female
Weight: 196.2 pounds
Neck: 14 inches
Waist: 40.5 inches
Hip: 42.5 inches

So I got a MBF percentage of 44.6, which I put into the BMR calculator. According to that my BMR is 1440 (while MFP says 1601).

And this is what I got for calories-
Sedentary (little or no exercise, desk job) 1996
Lightly Active (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk) 2287
Moderately Active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk) 2578
Very Active (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days/wk) 2869
Extremely Active (hard daily exercise/sports & physical job or 2X day training, i.e marathon, contest etc.) 3160

Now, I exercise 6 days a week- I run 4 days, walk 2 days (1 day is about 8 miles, the other is only 2.5). I try to walk a mile at lunch everyday, and I've started doing some pilates and bodyweight training at home. I also try to walk when I need to go to the store.

But I have a sedentary job- I sit in front of a computer for 8 hours per day. I just get up to get water or use the restroom. Raising my cals up from 1450 (current level) seems scarily high!!! Though I do eat back most of my exercise cals back.

Please give me feedback!! Numbers are not my forte, so I'm not quite sure what's what. Thank you!!

yarwell

It isn't really a math question, it's a philosophy question.

Fat2Fit suggest you eat the calories for the person you want to be (less a few hundred if it's too slow) so their approach is for the future you to maintain at Moderately Active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk) 2578 calories per day. So if you ate 2200 - 2600 using there approach you would eventually arrive at the target weight you gave it.

If your BMR is 1440 your sedentary job would suggest you use 20% more = 1728 calories a day, plus exercise on top. Depending how fit you are you might burn say 400 calories for an hour of exercise taking your total to 2128. If this is correct and you want to set a 20% deficit or 400 cals/day (about 0.5 lb/week) you would aim for 1728 ie the exercise creates the deficit. You can see that it is important to know how many calories are actually burned in your exercise in addition to the sedentary job.

F2F looks to be overestimating it - although it gives you the Katch-McArdle BMR (to take account of high body fat) on the screen it then uses the other formula which will be too high. So I would try 1700 for a month and see what happens.

princeza9

Thanks!

If I go up to 1700, do I still eat back exercise cals or is all that included?

wild_wild_life

Whenever you are using TDEE to calculate a deficit, exercise is included. By eating 1700 you would basically be eating your maintenance cals if you did no exercise, but then by exercising and burning calories you are creating a calorie deficit. If you ate those back, you would not be at a deficit. If for some reason you had to stop exercising, you would need to drop your calories to 1300 or so to lose at the same rate.

This is assuming you are burning around 400 cals a day by exercise. Either way, you should lose between .5 to 1.5 lbs per week at 1700. If you try it and it's too slow for you, maybe your calories burned is overestimated and you need to eat less. Remember all the numbers are estimates so there is a lot of trial and error involved.

mfkn_Titanium

I find this website incredibly helpful - use the calculation on the right if you know your bodyfat estimate: http://www.cordianet.com/calculator.htm

princeza9

Thank you for the help! Starting tomorrow, I'm going up to 1700 and see how that goes!