BMR/TDEE

How active ar you? That's like 500-600 of exercise/activity calories a day.

Assuming it's right, then yeah about 1900-1950 calories a day is your target for weight loss.

here's the way i think about it:

BMR is a measure of what your body needs to function normally without external energy demands. alot of people call this "being in a coma" or "sleeping all day"

however, most of us go about our daily lives and that burns calories too. it's nearly impossible to quantify what those energy demands are, so we use an estimate. these include things like making coffee, brushing your teeth, checking the mailbox, etc. everything that you do during the day that is not specific exercise designed to burn calories, should be accounted for using this estimate. this estimate it provided by the Harris-Benedict equation. for sedentary/office workers, this is a x 1.2 multiplier. for lightly active, this is 1.375. etc.

additional exercise that you do every day specifically to burn calories (or for fun, like a game of pickup basketball) is treated as additional calorie burn for that specific day. these are the amounts you are logging with the MFP exercise diary.

use all of these to determine your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE)

TDEE = BMR x Harris-Benedict multiplier + exercise for the day

then, subtract your desired calorie deficit from your TDEE.

daily calorie goal = TDEE - desired calorie deficit

for example.,

for a person whose BMR = 1650, is sedentary normally, wants to lose 1lb per week (i.e., a 500 calorie per day deficit), and has burned 650 calorie playing racquetball today.

TDEE = 1650 x 1.2 +650 = 2630
daily calorie goal = 2630 - 500 = 2130

therefore on this day, this person should eat 2130 calories to meet their goal.

^^I agree that it seems on the high side. At first glance, and without more details, I would eat to about 1,700 - 1,800 (no eating exercise cals back) and see what results you get - give it 4 weeks and tweak accordingly.

This.

My tdee if sedentary is low - 1484. With moderate exercise, it's 1915. I try to stick somewhere in between...about 1750 most days. I exercise 4-6 times/ week for 1-2 hours. I'm losing slowly....very slowly.

I'm 5'10 and 32 years old... I think yours sounds a bit high and echo what others are saying. However, play around and see what works.

The exercise calories is where im getting confused......i put in that i do around 5 hours exercise per week ie boot camp an gym 3 times a week so do i have to eat exercise calories back on top of the 1950 daliy calories.

If you have 4 children under 7, AND hit the gym that much, then you are most likely somewhere between moderately active and very active. Since they're all boys, I'd bet that you're very active. Very, very active.

You don't need to eat your exercise calories back. The 1950 takes into consideration your calorie deficit from exercise already. Even though it may seem ridiculously high, I wouldn't cut back on calories unless your activity level changes. That being said, a person's BMR will decrease with weight loss, so it's a good idea to recalculate every now and again.

I've calculated my BMR and TDEE too.

BMR 1414
TDEE 2192

I want to lose a further 25 lbs. Would eating 1400 calories a day be too low? MFP calculated I should eat 1200 so 1400 will be upping my I calories.

Thank you

Same comments as for the OP, and the same calorie range.