Question about BMR and TDEE

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Laurend224
Laurend224 Posts: 1,748 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
OK so I followed that awsome 'In place of a roadmap' posting and figured out what I burn in a day being 'lightly active'. Apparently MFP wants me to starve since they gave me a calorie allotment of 1200 a day, which I'm not comfortable with. But when I put in a calorie goal of 1800 calories which is about 500 less than my TDEE ( I think I'm saying this right) It tells me 'Haha, you won't lose any weight that way'....

So should I just ignore that part of it? I know this is a muddled post, sorry.

Any help would be appreciated!

Replies

  • RunDoozer
    RunDoozer Posts: 1,699 Member
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    MFP always comes in low because it doesn't calculate your calories burned through out the day. TDEE does. You either need to go by MFP and eat your exercise calories back or do TDEE - 20%. And ignore the if you ate like this everyday youd be X number because in my opinion its crap.
  • Laurend224
    Laurend224 Posts: 1,748 Member
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    Thank you, that's the answer I was hoping I'd hear. I know some people can do it, but 1200 cals is just really uncomfortable to me.
  • prokomds
    prokomds Posts: 318 Member
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    It might be a bit reassuring to hear that I'm 5'6" and have gone from about 150 pounds down to around 142 eating 1600-1700ish calories a day (and more when I exercise). Slow progress, but I'm pretty proud nonetheless. I started out at 1200 (doesn't everyone?) and was a grumpy mess. My weight loss has been slow, but it's my fault for desperately wanting to hibernate the winter away, hahah.

    If you're jumping from 1200 to 1800 all in one go, you can probably expect your weight to bounce around more than usual for a week or two. Don't freak out too much, hahahah. You're definitely not going to gain in the long run, because you're still not eating above your TDEE. After a month or two, reevaluate, and maybe shift your calories 100-200 either direction depending how you're feeling. The calculators are just an estimate. Best of luck!
  • jenniferhaddad
    jenniferhaddad Posts: 4
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    How do I find out my TDEE?
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    How do I find out my TDEE?

    Here's a calculator.... http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/
  • Siege_Tank
    Siege_Tank Posts: 781 Member
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    I hate to burst your bubble, but MFP DOES calculate your TDEE. It asks you when you sign up what your activity level is, sedentary, lightly active, active, or very active.

    Sorry.

    And to calculate your TDEE without any kind of respiratory monitor or anything that measures metabolic output, is really just a guessing game. You're better off with rough estimates anyways.

    As a general rule, you should be eating 12-14 calories per pound of body weight to maintain, and this kind of arithmetic is about as accurate as all of the calculators that take none of our specifics into account. So for a 160 pound person, 12 calories per pound is about 1900 calories to maintain. Eat any less than that, and with the same activity level, you will lose.

    The hardest part is keeping an Accurate account of how many calories you eat. All of this is just estimation anyways, so until you are at a healthy weight, it's ok to guess on the high side of your calorie counts, and count on the low side of your exercise calories.
  • chervil6
    chervil6 Posts: 236 Member
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    SIEGE U SEEM TO NOW YOUR STUFF :)
  • jenniferhaddad
    jenniferhaddad Posts: 4
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    thank you.

    i looked up the calculator and went through my numbers, and im still kind of confused. In some instances, it looks like i am supposed to be eating 2000+ calories a day, and in others 1300 calories. I am 127lbs, and if i multiply that by 12, we get 1524 calories. So taking the easiest calculation, should about 1500 cal be my minimum on all days ,and on days i workout eat back the calories i burned, which will probably be around 1800-1900 calories?? Based on age, gender, height and weigh, my BMR is around 1350. I am looking for fat loss/drop in body fat % rather than losing pounds on the scale, and its been happening very slowly, so I'm trying to figure out the tweak i need to make to accelerate my results bc I been on this journey a very very long time.

    thanks for your help and feedback.
  • 3dogsrunning
    3dogsrunning Posts: 27,167 Member
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    MFP does not calculate true TDEE. They DO include calories burned in daily activity - when you selected your activity level, they asked about have examples of jobs. Most calorie calculators include daily activity AND anticipated exercise to give you TDEE.
    MFP does NOT factor in exercise which is why it suggests you eat back your exercise calories. There is a screen that asks for exercise goals, however that does not change your calorie goal.
    So if you are at 1200 calories and you exercise, you actually end up eating more than 1200 if you follow MFP's suggestion.
    I have calculated both ways - I usually end up in the same place. My goal when I do IPORM is the same as when I follow MFP, log exercise and eat those calories.

    Example - if you have a goal of 1200 and burn 300, you are eating 1500 calories but netting 1200.
  • BusyRaeNOTBusty
    BusyRaeNOTBusty Posts: 7,166 Member
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    Most TDEE calculators ask you to input your exercise calories. MFP does not. It tries to calculate a "TDEE" NOT including exercise. Then you tell it how many pounds you want to lose and it creates a deficit from it's non-exercise-including-"TDEE". If you tell it 2lbs a week it will subtract 1000 calories a day (1lb is 500, 0.5lbs is 250). Then when you do exercise you are supposed to eat those calories because it hadn't included them before. However even with exercise calories added in, MFP seems really low for most people. I have to tell it I'm "very active" for it to get mine right.

    So yeah, if you tell it sedentary, and that you want to lose 2lbs a week, it'll give you are pretty low number (or 1200, which ever is lower).

    *So yeah, it doesn't really calculate TDEE since TDEE by definition includes exercise calories.
  • nicleed
    nicleed Posts: 247 Member
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    FWIW I'd slowly increase to 1800 - maybe 100 every few days - and see what happens. Rather than upping all at once.
  • 3dogsrunning
    3dogsrunning Posts: 27,167 Member
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    I hate to burst your bubble, but MFP DOES calculate your TDEE. It asks you when you sign up what your activity level is, sedentary, lightly active, active, or very active.

    Sorry.

    And to calculate your TDEE without any kind of respiratory monitor or anything that measures metabolic output, is really just a guessing game. You're better off with rough estimates anyways.

    As a general rule, you should be eating 12-14 calories per pound of body weight to maintain, and this kind of arithmetic is about as accurate as all of the calculators that take none of our specifics into account. So for a 160 pound person, 12 calories per pound is about 1900 calories to maintain. Eat any less than that, and with the same activity level, you will lose.

    The hardest part is keeping an Accurate account of how many calories you eat. All of this is just estimation anyways, so until you are at a healthy weight, it's ok to guess on the high side of your calorie counts, and count on the low side of your exercise calories.

    Not exactly. If you look at the activity selector MFP uses, their examples say nothing about exercise.

    I haven't heard of 12-14 calories per person. People have extremely varied activity levels.
  • Fit_Vixen1
    Fit_Vixen1 Posts: 419
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    This was posted the other day!!! I hope it helps. She's really awesome!!!

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/833500-what-do-i-do-common-sense-cliff-notes?hl=yoovie

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