I Had My BMR Tested - It's 1032 Calories

The thing that worries me about posts like this is the responses like "wow, thanks for this post", you do realise that some people reading this are at their wits end wondering why 1200 isn't helping them to lose weight and after seeing this could drop their calories lower?
Like you said this is what works for you, but probably not for the majority. I can't understand why you would feel the need to broadcast this to generally impressionable people? It's not like you need to justify what works for you, just get on and do it.
ETA: I think the majority of the MFP population would know what works and what doesn't, but maybe not everyone, didn't mean to offend!

This is why I tell people to establish what their maintenance calorie needs are prior to beginning a fat loss intervention. Without knowing a baseline figure, you have no reasonable manner in which to choose a proper deficit. There is too much variation within the population as a whole to put faith entirely into prediction equations.

^^^ This.

Regardless of whether or not people are netting under or over their "supposed/calculated" BMR, the important calorie deficit number comes from knowing your TDEE. Someone is not going to gain from eating over BMR, but they will gain from eating over their TDEE.

I don't really mind if my BMR is lower than the calculators say... I'm not sure why people are trying to use it as an argument for the "eating more doesn't work" stance. It's not really the most important number here for fat loss.

Thanks for sharing your story OP, interesting stuff.

The thing that worries me about posts like this is the responses like "wow, thanks for this post", you do realise that some people reading this are at their wits end wondering why 1200 isn't helping them to lose weight and after seeing this could drop their calories lower?
Like you said this is what works for you, but probably not for the majority. I can't understand why you would feel the need to broadcast this to generally impressionable people? It's not like you need to justify what works for you, just get on and do it.

Because there ARE those people out there with similar situations like mine. Sharing my experience is meant to help them, not hurt them. If you feel as if you need to drop your calories to 1000 calories a day after reading this it's NOT because of this thread, it's because you have a borderline eating disorder.

And you think there aren't people like that here?

I'm frustrated by all the people saying BMR isn't TDEE. Duh, it's not, but it's the base for those calculations. Based on a 1.3 modifier for her as sedentary, maintenance would be 1342. Since her low BMR probably also lowers her calories burned during exercise (I don't know that for sure, but would assume it to be true, she would probably need to work out over an hour a day to eat 1200 cals a day and lose 1 lb a week. Or if her tdee is 1651 (gave her a 1.6 modifier) she would need to eat 1151 to lose 1 lb per week (and this is in agreement with her maintaining at ~1700.

My point: 1200 isn't categorically too low.

It is categorically low--losing 1 pound a week would be simply unfeasible for someone with a TDEE of 1651. In any case--I wouldn't use an activity multiplier in her case aside from SEDENTARY and then add on ACTUAL calories burned from exercise.

1032 x 1.2 = 1238 and add walking for errands and/or exercise, workouts, etc. It can easily add up to more. From the total I would subtract 15% for a modest deficit.

The thing that worries me about posts like this is the responses like "wow, thanks for this post", you do realise that some people reading this are at their wits end wondering why 1200 isn't helping them to lose weight and after seeing this could drop their calories lower?
Like you said this is what works for you, but probably not for the majority. I can't understand why you would feel the need to broadcast this to generally impressionable people? It's not like you need to justify what works for you, just get on and do it.

Because there ARE those people out there with similar situations like mine. Sharing my experience is meant to help them, not hurt them. If you feel as if you need to drop your calories to 1000 calories a day after reading this it's NOT because of this thread, it's because you have a borderline eating disorder.

And you think there aren't people like that here?

Yes, of course. But that does not justify a good enough reason to NOT share my experience.

I'm sorry, but I must of missed the forum rule that said,

"Unless your post applies to everyone, don't post it. "

Obviously all posts now should come with a disclaimer. Christ!

Thanks for sharing your experience! It does help those of us who struggle to lose even with religious tracking and weighing to realize that just because a calculator says we should burn X amount of calories, we may not be.

I have been tracking for a year now and I know for a fact that I burn less calories to survive than others with my stats. I know my BMR is about 300 calories less than the calculators say it is. I found this from keeping a spreadsheet of calories in vs calories out, with every device I could find...HRM...food scale...etc...and if I added 300 calories per day to my food...my weight loss equaled my deficit perfectly over that time. So this makes total sense to me.

And if anyone thinks you are wrong for posting because someone may be convinced to drop their calories too much...ignore it. The disclaimer is on every page about this is not medical advice...blah blah blah.