Doctor says eating below BMR is fine

Mr_Knight

BMR is just a number used as a proxy for what should be a large number of numbers. Once corrected for lean body mass and etc, there is still a 25-30% variation in BMR between otherwise "identical" bodies. BMR also varies over time, depending on what the body in question has been engaged in and what it has been fed.

The published/calculated numbers are just guidelines, and using them blindly without adjusting for individual results/circumstances is probably not the most desirable path.

toutmonpossible

BMR is just a number used as a proxy for what should be a large number of numbers. Once corrected for lean body mass and etc, there is still a 25-30% variation in BMR between otherwise "identical" bodies. BMR also varies over time, depending on what the body in question has been engaged in and what it has been fed.

The published/calculated numbers are just guidelines, and using them blindly without adjusting for individual results/circumstances is probably not the most desirable path.

:flowerforyou:

LAW_714

I've ran into a few posts in which people said that your organs will shut down, hair will fall out, and nails will brittle if you eat below BMR. Only on these forums!

Christ, its amazing how anyone ever lost weight, havnt seen many bald anorexic girls lately though, maybe they use wigs?

You don't go bald, your hair gets thin. It happens, and it happens to anorexics (but it doesn't have to go that far. You just have to end up with a vitamin b dificiency for it happen).

cdavhd1

Dude. I am 16 inches shorter than you are, nearly 100 lbs lighter, 5 years older, and I'm a chick. And I eat as much as you do. And I'm losing weight. Eat more.

P.S. Some doctors are idiots.

hehehe shes awesome!

WalkingAlong

Dude. I am 16 inches shorter than you are, nearly 100 lbs lighter, 5 years older, and I'm a chick. And I eat as much as you do. And I'm losing weight. Eat more.

P.S. Some doctors are idiots.

hehehe shes awesome!

She thinks she's got more knowledge than medical doctors because she eats a lot. And you think that's awesome. Great.

BenjaminMFP88

I know this is rather a sensitive subject on here from reading quite a few threads basically discussing this very matter and reading the comments i convinced myself i absolutely had to eat at my bmr minimum or i was going to get very ill etc which is what most people on this forum strongly say whenever BMR is mentioned, never eat below bmr is often trotted out on here so i went for a professional opinion.

Im 6 feet 4 inches tall, i weigh around 215 pounds and im a 25 year old male looking to get my body fat % down to around 10%, i went to the doc today and basically went through what i was eating which was somewhere between 1600-2000 cals per day, now my bmr which i calculated using various online calculators is around 2200, considering my lifestyle is VERY sedentary ie i dont have a job and im at home watching tv etc everyday as im a registered carer i roughly estimated that my daily burn was around 2500, fair enough? i do 30 mins cardio on a exercise bike 6 nights a week with a bit of strength training and warm up just before depending on the day, if i estimate i burn 200 cals during this workout period im roughly guessing my body burns around 2700 calories a day? seems about right? ok as i said earlier ive been eating between 1600-2000 a day giving me roughly a 1000 deficit which = 2lb a week weight loss which every trainer ive spoken to says is perfectly acceptable, ive been doing this for just over 3 weeks happily and seeing the scale drop, but then i panic, i read forums like this one where nearly everyone to a man/woman is protesting never to eat below your bmr its dangerous youll go into starvation mode etc etc, so as i said i went to the doctor and basically told her everything ive written above, what i do what ive been eating etc, her first words were "bmr obsession is a load of rubbish, ive known tons of people have perfectly healthy weight loss eating well below bmr" her words not mine, she said im eating fine between 1600-2000 even though my bmr is 2200 which according to a lot on here is NOT fine, i told her id been panicked by people saying you shouldnt eat below bmr which is what ive been doing for a few weeks now daily, she said to ignore it, a better way to look at is is whats your goal weight and whats the bmr for that weight, my goal weight is 180lbs with low body fat, the average bmr for 180lbs for someone my age gender and height is around 1800 calories, roughly what im eating now, plus she also said your bmr naturally comes down when you lose weight, meaning its hardly some life threatening occurrence when in a few weeks your bmr could easily be the number of calories your eating now anyway!

So then i threw in the old coma comments, ya know the one that goes "bmr is what the hospital would feed you in a coma, why would you want to eat less" her response? well when your in a coma the nurses are hardly sitting around working out how best for you to lose body fat" to which i laughed as its a rather good point.

My point is im not trying to cause a fit of rage on here im simply wondering where people get this never eat below bmr is dangerous stuff from? ive read hundreds of diet studies hundreds of nutritionist stuff etc and never once seen anything about this, its only on these forums where i see this trotted out, hence to be safe i booked a doc appointment and had it confirmed, im sure if i was to simply come on here and say my bmr is 2200 and im eating around 1700 is that ok id get scaremongering telling me how im undereating and going into starvation mode, when put simply it really isnt true.

First off, anyone that mentions a starvation mode is immediately discredited in my book. It's simply a load of rubbish perpetuated by many fads.

Second, assessing your BMR will almost always give you only a slight estimation. It is true that this theoretical number is the amount of calories your body will burn through. It will not convert these calories to fat, it will use to produce optimal function. If you eat less then this value, you are doing nothing less then depriving the body of "optimal function". However, there are many many factors that no one takes into consideration such as how exactly your body reacts when it doesn't receive a caloric value equal to this mystic number. Eating below this semi impossible to determine number shouldn't become any signivicance of an issue until you are already in a healthy state where your body is more limited the stores it can pull from. (This is why Dr tend to recommend very low calorie diets to morbidly obese individuals, they have the fat stores to support them for a while).

Third, so why even use BMR? Even though calculating the perfect BMR is going to be fairly impossible, it's still close enough to serve a purpose. It gives people a goal to shoot for, guidelines if you will that will ultimately lead to weightloss. You don't need to eat just a few hundred calories a day to lose weight, and most people poorly overestimate the caloric deficit they need to be on. Utilizing the BMR properly, can help people by guiding them on a healthy path to weightloss. Sure, it's only one aspect, but it works.

*Just know that your BMR will adjust slightly with every lb you gain or lose

This is just my 2 cents derived from my own experiences and research

JoRocka

derp... we got necro'ed