Netting above BMR reminder

heybales

For those that make sure each day never ends with exercise taking you below BMR from your daily eating goal, a reminder since I've seen concern over the up to 100 calories that can be there to make up.

Those HRM reported, or MFP estimated, or treadmill reported, calorie burns all include in them what you would have burned NOT doing the activity.
Meaning they are GROSS calorie burns, not NET calorie burns.

So your HRM says you burned 500 calories doing 60 min of cardio, but you already have accounted for that time your TDEE level of activity.
So really, you burned in addition to whatever you would have done anyway, maybe only 400 additional calories say.

So when you take daily eaten goal minus that adjusted value, that's what you are looking at for being above BMR.

So TDEE being used / 24 is hourly rate.
TDEE / 1440 is minute rate.

Say a TDEE of 2400 means 100 calories is accounted to be burned during any hour on avg, which includes that hour of exercise.
HRM reported 500 calorie burn for an hour.

But you really only burned 400 above and beyond what has already been accounted for.

So if BMR was 2000, you nailed it.

If you counted the GROSS 500, you'd be eating back an extra 100 that day. Do that several times a week and you are cutting yourself out of extra deficit calories you are just double-counting.

Just something I hadn't seen brought up in a little while, but I keep seeing concern about dipping 50-100 below BMR because of a long exercise session, which actually may not have occurred if math was done correctly.

tyraskanks_

So technically, If I burn let's say... 500 calories doing something for 60 minutes, technically I only burned 400 EXTRA calories?

HappilyLifts

timely advice, thanks heybales!

heybales

So technically, If I burn let's say... 500 calories doing something for 60 minutes, technically I only burned 400 EXTRA calories?

Yes, if those numbers apply of course.

You could get really too technical about it too.

Let's see, I'll skip 1 hr of sleep to work out. So technically, during that hr, I would have burned just BMR, so that would be subtracted out.

If i skip 1 hr of TV to workout, that would be RMR that was burned anyway, so subtract it out.

But since diets are based on having an expected avg calorie burn, it's TDEE that's expected at any point.

So for this method that relies on looking at those stats, might as well have good stats.

For instance, if you calculated your TDEE by picking Sedentary, and then stacking on the exercise calories reported by HRM, those are all doubling up that time of normal activity accounted for.

jenmsu83

GREAT post!

tyraskanks_

My brain is on overload with all this nutritional information I've been looking into recently. It's good, though.. I'm also taking my time to educate others.

pinkreena711

Huh? I'm really confused.

If my bmr is 1600 and my tdee is 2300 and hrm says I burned 600 ...how many calories should I eat total??

heybales

Huh? I'm really confused.

If my bmr is 1600 and my tdee is 2300 and hrm says I burned 600 ...how many calories should I eat total??

If the HRM reported that 600 in 60 minutes, your TDEE says you would have burned 96 anyway during that hour.

So you really only burned 504 over what you would have accounted for anyway.

Now - how many calories should you eat? Well if you took a 15% deficit, then 1955 daily.

And on that day of a reported 600 calorie burn that was really only 504 extra, then your net calories would be 1451.
So to reach your BMR of 1600 would be an extra 150 that day.

Then again, if the next day is a rest day, you might be more than making that up anyway.

KarenJanine

An exception to this would be fitbit users as when logging an HRM recording for a workout session it overrides fitbit estimations including the baseline BMR, so it is correct to log the whole HRM reading, not for example HRM recording minus 60 for a 1 hour workout.

Rubyayn

I am confused, but I friend requested you because of your apparent wealth of knowledge!!

I am slightly number dyslexic, so confusion is expected in the arena. Luckily, I am failry confident I have my numbers worked out ok.

rmk20togo

Thanks for the reminder. I've slipped out of the habit of doing this. I use my RMR of 1613 divided by 1440 (minutes in a day) and get 1.1/cal per minute doing nothing. If I work out 60 minutes and HRM says 720 I subtract 66 (1.1 x 60) and log my exercise as 654 - When I remember.

I have daily calories set at TDEE - cut, so it is irrelevant for me, but it is interest.

heybales

An exception to this would be fitbit users as when logging an HRM recording for a workout session it overrides fitbit estimations including the baseline BMR, so it is correct to log the whole HRM reading, not for example HRM recording minus 60 for a 1 hour workout.

Good reminder, FitBit is very nice about the way that works. Especially compared to BodyMedia/BodyBugg where you better remember to take the thing off to manually log HRM calories later for that time.

rmk20togo

An exception to this would be fitbit users as when logging an HRM recording for a workout session it overrides fitbit estimations including the baseline BMR, so it is correct to log the whole HRM reading, not for example HRM recording minus 60 for a 1 hour workout.

Is this accurate when eating recommended calories from MFP or Fitbit? I find the two give me very different calorie suggestions to lose 1/2# per week.

empressichel

Thanks very much for this information. I have never thought about it like this.
You are a mine of useful information.

heybales

An exception to this would be fitbit users as when logging an HRM recording for a workout session it overrides fitbit estimations including the baseline BMR, so it is correct to log the whole HRM reading, not for example HRM recording minus 60 for a 1 hour workout.

Is this accurate when eating recommended calories from MFP or Fitbit? I find the two give me very different calorie suggestions to lose 1/2# per week.

This only has to do with devices reporting calories for exercise.

So true for the 60 min of time FitBit is telling you you burned 500 calories for instance. The extra is on top of the base already expected.

afoz1990

I'm a little slow when it comes to numbers and math How do you know how many calories goes into your TDEE that's accounted for for working out?

My 15% cut for TDEE is 1550 and my BMR is 1235....today I did 45 minute workout that burned 379 calories. I'm currently doing Insanity so generally my workouts are about an hour and can burn anywhere from 350-560 calories...So I really want to make sure I am doing everything correctly!!

heybales

I'm a little slow when it comes to numbers and math How do you know how many calories goes into your TDEE that's accounted for for working out?

My 15% cut for TDEE is 1550 and my BMR is 1235....today I did 45 minute workout that burned 379 calories. I'm currently doing Insanity so generally my workouts are about an hour and can burn anywhere from 350-560 calories...So I really want to make sure I am doing everything correctly!!

Personally, my thought is that as long as you got your TDEE correct, or eat extra for extra workouts not included in your TDEE estimate, you'll be fine. As long as any 48 hrs avg above BMR.

So if it was possible to have net calories be 400 below BMR each of 6 workout days in a row, and finally on Saturday you ate 2400 extra to make it up - that's no good.

If you went under BMR by 100 on Tue night workout, but Wed was rest day and you were over by 300, no big whoop.
If you had a late workout Tue night and were under the BMR by 200, but you had a bigger breakfast by 200 in addition to that normal day, no big whoop.

But, many want the goal of never netting under their BMR when true exercise calories is taken out - so I wanted to share that in that case, better count just net exercise calories.

So if you have a rest day the next day, you are covered. If that's the normal daily burn for 5-6 days in a row - you need to recalc the TDEE.

HappilyLifts

it's Saturday morning here in the UK and everyone's still asleep so I set to a bit of number crunching in my quest to understand why my scales are being mean, and if I should continue as I am with the cals I eat and the cals I burn.

Time to try out heybales' maths!

Week beginning 27th Oct's HRM calories burned and minutes of exercise = 3585 HRM reported burn over 556 minutes

From heybales' spreadsheet I found the non-exercise TDEE (sedentary) based on this reported HRM burn and my body stats (2138), worked out my 2138/1440= 1.48

Here's the most interesting part, HRM reported a 3585 burn ("great!" I think, "enough to burn a pound!"), but the more accurate burn using heybales' method was 2759! So where I might have thought I'd done enough to burn one pound, I actually haven't!

Further number crunching which I would love you to check for me, heybales, if you have the time and inclination, follows. It's not exactly relevant to the thread, but the above calculations led me to think, "so what was my defecit that week, how much 'should' I have lost?"
Added up my gross cals for that week = 13469
Total exercise burn that week = 2759
subtract those and I get an average net cal intake of 1547. My BMR is around 1660. Should be enough to lose something on the scale.

TDEE cals for the week would have been 14966, but I ate 13469, so a defecit of 1497 cals
Add this to the exercise cals burned 1497 + 2759 = 4256 defecit

So, if my maths hasn't failed me (I could have got my method wrong, considering I had a maths phobia until my forties when I began to get over it, go back to basics and understand it and then learn to teach it to school-aged children and teens), I should've been a pound lighter using these more accurate burn numbers. I only lost 0.4 pounds after that week, and have maintained since, but at least I know that, in theory, I'm doing enough and eating enough for it to work....in theory

What do you think? Carry on as usual, weight loss isn't linear, and wait for a "whoosh!"?

HappilyLifts

it's Saturday morning here in the UK and everyone's still asleep so I set to a bit of number crunching in my quest to understand why my scales are being mean, and if I should continue as I am with the cals I eat and the cals I burn.

Time to try out heybales' maths!

Week beginning 27th Oct's HRM calories burned and minutes of exercise = 3585 HRM reported burn over 556 minutes

From heybales' spreadsheet I found the non-exercise TDEE (sedentary) based on this reported HRM burn and my body stats (2138), worked out my 2138/1440= 1.48

Here's the most interesting part, HRM reported a 3585 burn ("great!" I think, "enough to burn a pound!"), but the more accurate burn using heybales' method was 2759! So where I might have thought I'd done enough to burn one pound, I actually haven't!

Further number crunching which I would love you to check for me, heybales, if you have the time and inclination, follows. It's not exactly relevant to the thread, but the above calculations led me to think, "so what was my defecit that week, how much 'should' I have lost?"
Added up my gross cals for that week = 13469
Total exercise burn that week = 2759
subtract those and I get an average net cal intake of 1547. My BMR is around 1660. Should be enough to lose something on the scale.

TDEE cals for the week would have been 14966, but I ate 13469, so a defecit of 1497 cals
Add this to the exercise cals burned 1497 + 2759 = 4256 defecit

So, if my maths hasn't failed me (I could have got my method wrong, considering I had a maths phobia until my forties when I began to get over it, go back to basics and understand it and then learn to teach it to school-aged children and teens), I should've been a pound lighter using these more accurate burn numbers. I only lost 0.4 pounds after that week, and have maintained since, but at least I know that, in theory, I'm doing enough and eating enough for it to work....in theory

What do you think? Carry on as usual, weight loss isn't linear, and wait for a "whoosh!"?

Ignore all the HRM readings for a moment and note that I only ate at a 10% cut from TDEE, based on that alone, not enough to lose a pound. Oh,my head is spinning! That means I either need to: focus harder on a 20% cut, OR, work harder for a bigger exercise calorie burn so that TDEE is higher and eat the gross average of 1924 that has been a really comfortable number for me ??

heybales

it's Saturday morning here in the UK and everyone's still asleep so I set to a bit of number crunching in my quest to understand why my scales are being mean, and if I should continue as I am with the cals I eat and the cals I burn.

Time to try out heybales' maths!

Week beginning 27th Oct's HRM calories burned and minutes of exercise = 3585 HRM reported burn over 556 minutes

From heybales' spreadsheet I found the non-exercise TDEE (sedentary) based on this reported HRM burn and my body stats (2138), worked out my 2138/1440= 1.48

Here's the most interesting part, HRM reported a 3585 burn ("great!" I think, "enough to burn a pound!"), but the more accurate burn using heybales' method was 2759! So where I might have thought I'd done enough to burn one pound, I actually haven't!

Further number crunching which I would love you to check for me, heybales, if you have the time and inclination, follows. It's not exactly relevant to the thread, but the above calculations led me to think, "so what was my defecit that week, how much 'should' I have lost?"
Added up my gross cals for that week = 13469
Total exercise burn that week = 2759
subtract those and I get an average net cal intake of 1547. My BMR is around 1660. Should be enough to lose something on the scale.

TDEE cals for the week would have been 14966, but I ate 13469, so a defecit of 1497 cals
Add this to the exercise cals burned 1497 + 2759 = 4256 defecit

So, if my maths hasn't failed me (I could have got my method wrong, considering I had a maths phobia until my forties when I began to get over it, go back to basics and understand it and then learn to teach it to school-aged children and teens), I should've been a pound lighter using these more accurate burn numbers. I only lost 0.4 pounds after that week, and have maintained since, but at least I know that, in theory, I'm doing enough and eating enough for it to work....in theory

What do you think? Carry on as usual, weight loss isn't linear, and wait for a "whoosh!"?

Ignore all the HRM readings for a moment and note that I only ate at a 10% cut from TDEE, based on that alone, not enough to lose a pound. Oh,my head is spinning! That means I either need to: focus harder on a 20% cut, OR, work harder for a bigger exercise calorie burn so that TDEE is higher and eat the gross average of 1924 that has been a really comfortable number for me ??

Sorry this took so long, lost track of it.

13469 weekly = 1924 daily eaten
2759 weekly = 394 daily exercise burn
No weight lost = 0 daily deficit

If you didn't gain either, just means TDEE is 1924. Now, that means no inches lost too, because if fat is going down, then you had a deficit, even if LBM is going up at the same time.

So I'd suggest that netting 1530 on avg probably wasn't that good. You should have more over BMR and less deficit if main workout is cardio, because it's more constant stress on the system and requires carbs be replenished.

So, if the 1924 is indeed a desired level to eat at, that means you need the TDEE at 2405 for a 20% deficit.

2405 / BMR 1660 = 1.45 activity multiplier.

You can use the spreadsheet and get an idea of either cardio or lifting that would lend itself to that.

30, 90, 135, 135

But that would be lifting heavy for 3 x 45 min workouts a week, proceeded by 5 min of walking warmup and followed by 10 min of walking cooldown at 3.5 mph. 135 min and 45 min total weekly.
Then 3 days of cardio following those lifting days in the Recovery HR zone, 45 min. Walking warmup 10 min at 3 mph.
And then one other day is 45 min of walking up to 4 mph.

So 30 min of light, 90 min of moderate, 135 min of heavy cardio. And 135 min of lifting weekly.

HappilyLifts

it's Saturday morning here in the UK and everyone's still asleep so I set to a bit of number crunching in my quest to understand why my scales are being mean, and if I should continue as I am with the cals I eat and the cals I burn.

Time to try out heybales' maths!

Week beginning 27th Oct's HRM calories burned and minutes of exercise = 3585 HRM reported burn over 556 minutes

From heybales' spreadsheet I found the non-exercise TDEE (sedentary) based on this reported HRM burn and my body stats (2138), worked out my 2138/1440= 1.48

Here's the most interesting part, HRM reported a 3585 burn ("great!" I think, "enough to burn a pound!"), but the more accurate burn using heybales' method was 2759! So where I might have thought I'd done enough to burn one pound, I actually haven't!

Further number crunching which I would love you to check for me, heybales, if you have the time and inclination, follows. It's not exactly relevant to the thread, but the above calculations led me to think, "so what was my defecit that week, how much 'should' I have lost?"
Added up my gross cals for that week = 13469
Total exercise burn that week = 2759
subtract those and I get an average net cal intake of 1547. My BMR is around 1660. Should be enough to lose something on the scale.

TDEE cals for the week would have been 14966, but I ate 13469, so a defecit of 1497 cals
Add this to the exercise cals burned 1497 + 2759 = 4256 defecit

So, if my maths hasn't failed me (I could have got my method wrong, considering I had a maths phobia until my forties when I began to get over it, go back to basics and understand it and then learn to teach it to school-aged children and teens), I should've been a pound lighter using these more accurate burn numbers. I only lost 0.4 pounds after that week, and have maintained since, but at least I know that, in theory, I'm doing enough and eating enough for it to work....in theory

What do you think? Carry on as usual, weight loss isn't linear, and wait for a "whoosh!"?

Ignore all the HRM readings for a moment and note that I only ate at a 10% cut from TDEE, based on that alone, not enough to lose a pound. Oh,my head is spinning! That means I either need to: focus harder on a 20% cut, OR, work harder for a bigger exercise calorie burn so that TDEE is higher and eat the gross average of 1924 that has been a really comfortable number for me ??

Sorry this took so long, lost track of it.

13469 weekly = 1924 daily eaten
2759 weekly = 394 daily exercise burn
No weight lost = 0 daily deficit

If you didn't gain either, just means TDEE is 1924. Now, that means no inches lost too, because if fat is going down, then you had a deficit, even if LBM is going up at the same time.

So I'd suggest that netting 1530 on avg probably wasn't that good. You should have more over BMR and less deficit if main workout is cardio, because it's more constant stress on the system and requires carbs be replenished.

So, if the 1924 is indeed a desired level to eat at, that means you need the TDEE at 2405 for a 20% deficit.

2405 / BMR 1660 = 1.45 activity multiplier.

You can use the spreadsheet and get an idea of either cardio or lifting that would lend itself to that.

30, 90, 135, 135

But that would be lifting heavy for 3 x 45 min workouts a week, proceeded by 5 min of walking warmup and followed by 10 min of walking cooldown at 3.5 mph. 135 min and 45 min total weekly.
Then 3 days of cardio following those lifting days in the Recovery HR zone, 45 min. Walking warmup 10 min at 3 mph.
And then one other day is 45 min of walking up to 4 mph.

So 30 min of light, 90 min of moderate, 135 min of heavy cardio. And 135 min of lifting weekly.

thanks heybales, sorry it was tricky to read, I was thinking aloud! Just finished a workout and my brain never functions too clearly after, so I will have to reread this later. Lifting heavy is out of the question at the moment, I have some sternum pain and am taking it easy, just cardio (average HR 155 today, so unlike me, that's twenty something below my usual, didn't get the endorphin rush today!) with squats and lunges for strength until the end of the week, so I doubt I'll get my figures right this week, but I will rethink the figures anyway.
Lost another 0.4 pounds yesterday.
What do you think of the argument that weight loss isn't linear and you can end up losing a nice number weeks after you put the effort in? Is there some truth in that or is it something we just say to encourage ourselves when we don't see a loss?