So confused!

Check out this link for establishing your numbers:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/654536-in-place-of-a-road-map-2-0-revised-7-2-12

This is a good place to start.

Figure out your TDEE. Understand what it means. Once you've done that, you're more than halfway to success.

TDEE is the best way IMO. I've done the whole moving this around stuff too and got frustrated. Just figure out your TDEE and subtract what amount of calories you want from it. I did 500 at first and that put me at 1800 calories a day with exercising 5 times a week.

and I hate to disagree with Taso and FakePlasticTree...but I'm just saying that when I started with the whole TDEE I was so confused. I went back to 1200+ and it worked for me.

Now that I"m also lifting heavy, it's a lot more complicated. Maybe i'd be better off now if I learned TDEE three years ago, but I'm just saying...it *can* and *does* work if you do 1200 +

haha. NOw I"m the one being difficult...

For those who use TDEE, I have a question:

I don't do the same thing every day. Some days I run 13 miles, some days I dont' run at all and Ilift heavy for an hour, and some days I do jack. Eating the same calories all those days feels weird to me... I eat more when I run more. I eat more protein when I lift. And when I do jack, I eat less. What is wrong with this?

haha. NOw I"m the one being difficult...

For those who use TDEE, I have a question:

I don't do the same thing every day. Some days I run 13 miles, some days I dont' run at all and Ilift heavy for an hour, and some days I do jack. Eating the same calories all those days feels weird to me... I eat more when I run more. I eat more protein when I lift. And when I do jack, I eat less. What is wrong with this?

It's really up to each person. Some people like the bullseye accuracy of eat back the exercise calories, some like the ease of having a set number of calories and just being consistent with their exercise regimin. Personally, I'm the latter. I lift 2 days on, 1 day off and do cardio 7 days/week, 20 minutes on lifting days, 40 minutes on off days. With this regimin I know I'm burning roughly the same amount of calories per day so the TDEE with built in exercise is the easiest for me. If you are a sporadic exerciser then the sedentary TDEE + eat back would be a better solution.

I should also state that I am a Type 2 Diabetic and I must exercise at least 30 minutes/day to keep my blood glucose in check which is why I do cardio every day. I'm not a fanatic LOL!

Here's my personal experience:

When I started my journey @ 320 pounds I dropped my calories to 1500/day (no eat back). I dropped weight very quickly until I hit my 6-7 week mark @ 40 pounds lost. Then I hit a wall. My trainer told me I wasn't eating enough to support my current weight and activity level. She told me to up my calories, so I did... to 1750. Still no movement. So I finally ran my numbers... what a difference.

These are as of today at 270lbs @ 33% body fat... moderate 3-5 days/week exercise:

Estimated Base BMR: 2142 Calories.
Estimated TDEE: 3320 Calories.
Estimated Daily Caloric Need For Weight Loss: 2320 Calories. (TDEE-1000 for 2lbs/week of loss)

Since my exercise calories are 'built in' to my TDEE I don't have to eat them back and I just have to consume the 2320 calories per day. Since my BMR is 2142 it supports losing 2 pounds per week. As I get leaner my BMR will drop and eventually I will have to settle for 1lb/week. Plus, I GET TO EAT AGAIN! At 1500 calories I was starving all the time. At 2300 I have so much more energy and I am lifting twice the weight I was as 1500 calories and the fat is coming off again.

Every person is different. What I'm saying is calculating your TDEE is the first step. You have to know your baselines. Once you know that you can customize your journey around those numbers to best fit your lifestyle and what works for you.

haha. NOw I"m the one being difficult...

For those who use TDEE, I have a question:

I don't do the same thing every day. Some days I run 13 miles, some days I dont' run at all and Ilift heavy for an hour, and some days I do jack. Eating the same calories all those days feels weird to me... I eat more when I run more. I eat more protein when I lift. And when I do jack, I eat less. What is wrong with this?

It's really up to each person. Some people like the bullseye accuracy of eat back the exercise calories, some like the ease of having a set number of calories and just being consistent with their exercise regimin. Personally, I'm the latter. I lift 2 days on, 1 day off and do cardio 7 days/week, 20 minutes on lifting days, 40 minutes on off days. With this regimin I know I'm burning roughly the same amount of calories per day so the TDEE with built in exercise is the easiest for me. If you are a sporadic exerciser then the sedentary TDEE + eat back would be a better solution.

I should also state that I am a Type 2 Diabetic and I must exercise at least 30 minutes/day to keep my blood glucose in check which is why I do cardio every day. I'm not a fanatic LOL!

Here's my personal experience:

When I started my journey @ 320 pounds I dropped my calories to 1500/day (no eat back). I dropped weight very quickly until I hit my 6-7 week mark @ 40 pounds lost. Then I hit a wall. My trainer told me I wasn't eating enough to support my current weight and activity level. She told me to up my calories, so I did... to 1750. Still no movement. So I finally ran my numbers... what a difference.

These are as of today at 270lbs @ 33% body fat... moderate 3-5 days/week exercise:

Estimated Base BMR: 2142 Calories.
Estimated TDEE: 3320 Calories.
Estimated Daily Caloric Need For Weight Loss: 2320 Calories. (TDEE-1000 for 2lbs/week of loss)

Since my exercise calories are 'built in' to my TDEE I don't have to eat them back and I just have to consume the 2320 calories per day. Since my BMR is 2142 it supports losing 2 pounds per week. As I get leaner my BMR will drop and eventually I will have to settle for 1lb/week. Plus, I GET TO EAT AGAIN! At 1500 calories I was starving all the time. At 2300 I have so much more energy and I am lifting twice the weight I was as 1500 calories and the fat is coming off again.

Every person is different. What I'm saying is calculating your TDEE is the first step. You have to know your baselines. Once you know that you can customize your journey around those numbers to best fit your lifestyle and what works for you.

*LIKE* :happy:

ws williams 67-

That makes sense. I think now that I'm lifting heavy and that isn't reflected well in the "calories burned" department it makes more sense to do TDEE. What i do now is try to eat no more than 1800 on my lifting days (TDEE at my goal weight with my current exercise level is 1811),on other days I do 1300+ exercise cals. On non lifting days, I try to run at least 3 miles and walk 30 mins which burns approx 350 cals so on those days I eat about 1650 cals. My BMR is 1392. One day a week, I don't run or lift, but I usually go rock climbing or surfing or some other such awesomeness on my "day off" and burn calories which I add to my 1300.

So I think I'm kinda doing what you say to do, only I do it in my own weird complicated fashion which makes perfect sense to me

YEP! Same destination.. different road LOL.

I used this to guestimate my lifting calories... http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calories_burned.htm

It's not perfect, but it's a ballpark. I'm just not a Heart Rate Monitor & stopwatch kinda guy.

ack. again. not to be complicated, but because now I am confused also....

as i have said, i already lost my weight (my profile pic is my before pic) and now i'm focused on body composition...

but like i said, when I started my BMR was 1562 and i ate 1200+. Now back then I'd run maybe 2 miles 2 or 3 x's a week so I was eating 1200-1400 cals a day. All under my BMR. I didn't die. My organs didn't fail. My thought is that my body got those extra cals from my fat which so obviously went away. I got my nutrients from the healthy food I ate.

What's wrong with what I did??

ETA: I do really want to understand this stuff, btw.

Nothing wrong with it. You CAN eat under your BMR, but eventually your metabolism WILL shut down. It's just how the body works. For some people that happens quicker than others. You just got lucky and your metabolism didn't shut down. Now in your case, maybe as you were leaning out your BMR was dropping as well which kept your caloric intake just above your BMR so you never hit that wall. Maybe you were underestimating your caloric intake? Maybe you're an alien mutant to whom the laws of physiology don't apply LOL? No way to tell at this point. My guess wold be one of the first two reasons not the alien one.

But again, every person is different except for one thing. We all have a metabolism. Knowing your current BMR & TDEE will give you a caloric range to stay within for your current weight and exercise level. Eat less than your TDEE but more than your BMR and you will lose weight. Do the same, but exercise (build lean muscle) and you will lose fat. The more you eat below your TDEE the more you will lose. Eat less than your BMR and eventually your metabolism will shut down. Eat your TDEE exactly and you will maintain your current weight.

Hey the way i see it, the less i eat, the more weight i lose. On the other hand, if im hungry, i eat. Regarding my exercise, i have the extra cals there is i feel hungry later in the evening after dinner. I dont really pay too much attention to BMR or similar ...hope this helps! Wouldnt worry too much about what every one else says on the msg boards, just find what works for you :-)

This is wrong - IT IS NOT TRUE THAT THE LESS YOU EAT THE MORE WEIGHT YOU LOSE. good way to develop an eating disorder. Starving yourself is not a good way to lose weight - if you do lose that way, you will gain your weight back as soon as you start eating again, and worse.

ack. again. not to be complicated, but because now I am confused also....

as i have said, i already lost my weight (my profile pic is my before pic) and now i'm focused on body composition...

but like i said, when I started my BMR was 1562 and i ate 1200+. Now back then I'd run maybe 2 miles 2 or 3 x's a week so I was eating 1200-1400 cals a day. All under my BMR. I didn't die. My organs didn't fail. My thought is that my body got those extra cals from my fat which so obviously went away. I got my nutrients from the healthy food I ate.

What's wrong with what I did??

ETA: I do really want to understand this stuff, btw.

Nothing wrong with it. You CAN eat under your BMR, but eventually your metabolism WILL shut down. It's just how the body works. For some people that happens quicker than others. You just got lucky and your metabolism didn't shut down. Now in your case, maybe as you were leaning out your BMR was dropping as well which kept your caloric intake just above your BMR so you never hit that wall. Maybe you were underestimating your caloric intake? Maybe you're an alien mutant to whom the laws of physiology don't apply LOL? No way to tell at this point. My guess wold be one of the first two reasons not the alien one.

But again, every person is different except for one thing. We all have a metabolism. Knowing your current BMR & TDEE will give you a caloric range to stay within for your current weight and exercise level. Eat less than your TDEE but more than your BMR and you will lose weight. Do the same, but exercise (build lean muscle) and you will lose fat. The more you eat below your TDEE the more you will lose. Eat less than your BMR and eventually your metabolism will shut down. Eat your TDEE exactly and you will maintain your current weight.

I may be an alien. I can't be too sure. LOL!

I suspect that as i began to exercise more, I ate more than my BMR. I don't think I lost it too fast. I lost I think 30 lbs in five months. That's 1-2 lbs a week. At that point my BMR was 1435. I was still doing 1200+ but I think because i gave myself credit for walks, etc, I was probably eating about 1400 a day. I do remember hitting plateaus. I started doing HIIT and other things to get my weight down. I eventually got down to 123 (which I think is too low for me). My BMR then was 1300 (wow! My BMR is higher than I thought!). At that point, I freaked out that I was too skinny and slowly upped my cals to 1800 and started weight training. I put on 15 lbs. Freaked out again and lowerd my cals again! Now I'm at that weird thing I told you about and maintaining at 135 lbs and about 20% bf. Trying to get to 130 lbs and 16% bf. So confusing the closer you get to goal!

We set your nutritional target in Net Calories which we define as:

Calories Consumed (Food) - Calories Burned (Exercise) = Net Calories

What that means is that if you exercise, you will be able to eat more for that day. For example, if your Net Calorie goal is 2000 calories, one way to meet that goal is to eat 2,500 calories of food, but then burn 500 calories through exercise.

Think of your Net Calories like a daily budget of calories to spend. You spend them by eating, and you earn more calories to eat by exercising.