So confused about BMR!! help :(

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ccbx3
ccbx3 Posts: 1
in Health and Weight Loss
I'm totally confused about bmr, do you eat your bmr calories to lose weight? and if so do you how many calories then should you eat to mantain your weight?

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  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
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    I'm totally confused about bmr, do you eat your bmr calories to lose weight? and if so do you how many calories then should you eat to mantain your weight?

    To lose weight you eat less than your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE). To maintain you eat your TDEE.

    Your TDEE is your BMR plus a number of other things including physical activity, it is at least 20% more than your BMR. So if you were to eat at your BMR it would be a modest deficit from your TDEE and if the BMR estimate was correct you would lose weight.
  • Nerdybreisawesome
    Nerdybreisawesome Posts: 359 Member
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    BMR is the minimum you need to eat. TDEE is the most you are supposed to eat and still maintain. You need to find a balance between the two. Some people eat 20% below their TDEE and some eat 100 to 200 above their BMR. It's whatever works for your body and make you also feel good.
  • purpleposies
    purpleposies Posts: 90 Member
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    I'm totally confused about bmr, do you eat your bmr calories to lose weight? and if so do you how many calories then should you eat to mantain your weight?

    Your BMR is the amount of calories you would need to consume in order to maintain your current weight if you were to be lying in bed all day doing nothing. Let's say your BMR is 2500 calories per day. That means if you eat 2500 calories per day you (ideally) wouldn't gain or lose weight (if you were just lying in bed all day). But then you need to factor in your daily lifestyle (unless you do get to lay in bed all day! :wink: ). Depending on your lifestyle, your daily activities may burn, let's say, 1000 calories per day. So that would mean in order to maintain your current weight, you would need to eat 3500 calories per day to not gain or lose any weight. Like the PP said, you take into account your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (that means the amount of calories that you use/burn every day), and create a caloric deficit per day based on that number in order to lose weight.

    This will vary depending on how much you have to lose and your activity level. 3500 calories is equivalent to 1lb, so most people create a 3500-7000 caloric deficit per week, which has you losing 1-2 lb per week.

    Also like the PP said, if your activity level has you burning a lot more calories than your BMR, you could eat the calories determined by your BMR and lose weight. For example, using the earlier numbers ... if your TDEE is 3500 calories per day (that means you burn 3500 calories per day getting up, going to work, brushing your teeth, and sitting and watching TV, etc.), and you only eat 2500 calories per day (which is your BMR, the amount of calories your body would burn if you laid in bed all day), then you would have a daily caloric deficit of 1000 calories. This would be a 7000 caloric deficit for the week, which is a 2lb weight loss.

    If that makes any more sense.

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