We are pleased to announce that on March 4, 2025, an updated Rich Text Editor will be introduced in the MyFitnessPal Community. To learn more about the upcoming changes, please click here. We look forward to sharing this new feature with you!

BMR cals or MFP recommended cals?

charliemarie923
charliemarie923 Posts: 275 Member
edited January 19 in Health and Weight Loss
Hi all.
Tonight i have been introduced to the BMR.
My BMR is 1, 512.
Myfitnesspal has told me i should be aiming for 1,200 cals.
Which one should i listen to?
And why are they both different?
yesterday i went over and consumed 1,310 cals is that enough or too much?
Confused!

Replies

  • ladyraven68
    ladyraven68 Posts: 2,003 Member
    Hi all.
    Tonight i have been introduced to the BMR.
    My BMR is 1, 512.
    Myfitnesspal has told me i should be aiming for 1,200 cals.
    Which one should i listen to?
    And why are they both different?
    yesterday i went over and consumed 1,310 cals is that enough or too much?
    Confused!

    to lose weight you need a defit from your maintenance calories. (TDEE)

    What are your maintenance calories?
  • charliemarie923
    charliemarie923 Posts: 275 Member
    I have no idea, how do i find that out?
    Charlie
  • dangerousdumpling
    dangerousdumpling Posts: 1,109 Member
    Your BMR is the amount of calories your body needs to function. Your TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) is how many calories your body needs to function plus all of your daily activities such as work, exercise, sleep, play, housework, etc.

    Did you choose that you wanted to lose 2 pounds per week when you registered here? If so, that's probably why mfp told you to eat 1200 calories. You would be better off changing it to 1 pound or 1/2 pound per week, especially since you only want to lose 30 lbs. If you exercise make sure you log those workouts on here and eat the calories that you burned.
  • charliemarie923
    charliemarie923 Posts: 275 Member
    Just used TDEE calculator on a site called fitness frog and apparently my TDEE is 1872....
  • dangerousdumpling
    dangerousdumpling Posts: 1,109 Member
    To eat at a deficit and lose weight you'll want to subtract 20% from your TDEE. Maybe even 15% because you don't much to lose. You might find that changing your goal to 1/2 pound or 1 pound here on mfp will give you about the same amount of calories.
  • Hey there,

    BMR are the calories which your body needs to survive the 24 hours of a day (temperature, blood pressure, etc etc). So BMR is minimum imho. There are a few good calorie calculators out there (Scoobysworkshop.com, fat2fitradio.com). There you can type in your height, weight, age etc etc and can see how much your TDEE is.

    Cheers

    Django
This discussion has been closed.