Total newbie & confused!
chessgroupie
Posts: 1 Member
Hi, I'm new to MFP and EM2WL and I need some encouragement. My doctor is begging me to lose a good 40 lbs. I'm interested in EM2WL but didn't understand it at all despite reading the website & watching the EM2WL videos. My numbers are: BRM 1608, TDEE 1929. If I understood it correctly, my goal is to eat somewhere between those two numbers, but that's all I understood! I can't afford a gym but have 5 & 10-lb free weights and an exercise ball at home. Thank you in advance!
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If you stay above your BMR, you will give your body the calories it needs to keep working for the long haul.
If you stay below your TDEE, you won't gain additional weight.
Ideally, you'd take your TDEE and subtract your "cut" (10%, 15%, 20% depending on how much weight you have to lose). Lets say you chose 15%: Your TDEE (1929) minus a cut of 15% (289) = 1,640 calories that you'd consume daily.
It takes a deficit of about 3,500 calories to lose a pound. So, eating 289 less calories less than your TDEE each day means you could expect to lose about 1 pound every 12 to 13 days.
My guess is that you are like me, not very active, since your BMR and TDEE vary by only a little more than 300 calories. Then again, you may not have included your weekly exercise in your TDEE. Figuring this number can get tricky, especially if we exercise only a couple days a week.
I like to use heybales' spreadsheet to determine my BMR and TDEE since it is the only one I've found that takes my body fat into consideration:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Amt7QBR9-c6MdGVTbGswLUUzUHNVVUlNSW9wZWloeUE
To understand how to use the spreadsheet, read this post:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/717858-spreadsheet-bmr-tdee-and-deficit-calcs-macros-hrm
If you have been dieting for awhile, especially if you've been eating very low calorie, you might want to consider a "reset". This will let your body get used to eating more calories again. If you've not been eating super low calorie, then you should be fine jumping right in with your "cut".
Eat More to Weigh Less is not a license to overeat. It is a healthy way to lose weight, slowly, which will give you a better chance of keeping it off. It was designed for those people who have spent years eating low calorie to the point where their bodies believe that is their maintenance. Many people who have lived on a very low calorie diet have found that feeding their body gives it the jump start it needs to start losing again.0