Does bmr drop as you loose

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  • 55in13
    55in13 Posts: 1,091 Member
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    Straying from the OP's topic on this interesting tangent...

    Running has been my primary exercise. I did the C25K early this year and just kept running longer and longer. Now I generally run 6 or 8 miles at a time, 3 or 4 times a week. I just started a conditioning coach program at the Y so I am starting to get more into gym based exercise, though I did give the preference for things I can get done elsewhere on days I can't make it without much equipment - body weight, a few dumb bells and a kettle bell. Anyway, when running I have run as far as 10 miles without stopping or walking, but they were 11 minute miles. So it took me close to 2 hours. I can run that long at 5.5 mph. The times I have tried adding in sprints, I get in maybe 3 true sprints and I am toast, whether I ran 5 minutes or 50 before I sprinted. That is why I say I have tried but I am not really sure I did enough to benefit from it. The problem I have with HIIT running is that the thigh burn just stops me dead in my tracks. I just can't run after that until a fair amount of time has passed. The idea of trying it with the kettle bell is really appealing to me because I could switch exercises to try to keep from overworking something that pulls the plug on the whole session. Maybe...
  • h9dlb
    h9dlb Posts: 243 Member
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    Steady state cardio burns muscle and should be avoided as less muscle = lower BMR. That's why doing 20-25 mins HIIT is more effective as it burns more fat and less muscle, therefore better results for less effort and time.

    Doing lots of cardio is counter productive to fat loss because the body needs energy as quickly as possible to meet the demands being placed on it, and when glycogen stores are depleted the body starts burning muscle (as opposed to fat) to quickly release energy.

    Compare a marathon runner's body (skinny) to a 100m sprint olympic athelete (muscular ripped). Body builders tend to avoid all cardio as they do not want to lose any hard earned muscle.

    Rather than running for 2 hours, you would get better results doing 30 minutes heavy weight training to maintain muscle mass and increase your BMR for 36 hours due to after burn, followed by 20 mins HIIT (total 50 minutes)
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
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    Are you seriously denying that if you start an exercise regime or increase an exercise regime your metabolism will not increase, irrespective of a calorie deficit and fat loss? Otherwise what's the point in doing any exercise!

    Depends how you are using the word "metabolism". Exercise does not automatically increase your Basal Metabolic Rate.

    I am unclear about your last point. Exercise may increase your TDEE which would be "the point", and it may help preserve lean muscle mass while at a calorie deficit, which in turn helps retain BMR.
  • Lyadeia
    Lyadeia Posts: 4,603 Member
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    Steady state cardio burns muscle and should be avoided as less muscle = lower BMR. That's why doing 20-25 mins HIIT is more effective as it burns more fat and less muscle, therefore better results for less effort and time.

    Cool story, bro.

    Tell me more, as I love to read broscience on the forums. :yawn:
  • balancedbrunette
    balancedbrunette Posts: 530 Member
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    Thanks for the replies everyone, know myself i need to keep track of my figures a bit more, have lost the last 10lbs but havent gone over my bmr/tdee and need to do this now.
    Check out this calculator. You can put in different weights and see how it affects BMR.

    http://scoobysworkshop.com/accurate-calorie-calculator/

    My BMR was 2093 when I started 48 pounds ago... now it's 1875. So yeah... you have to make adjustments as you go along but it's a small price to pay. I feel so much better these days it's easy to burn more calories via exercise so not a big deal.

    Hope that helps!

    thanks for the site, will check it out. :)
  • balancedbrunette
    balancedbrunette Posts: 530 Member
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    But we digress; the OP's question didn't mention exercise at all, just weight loss. My BMR has dropped as I lost weight and I think the OP's will also.

    Sorry for the confusion here probably should have mentioned exercise but was just inquiring in general, at least it opened up an interesting discussion as i was curious about the HILT training myself.

    I made the mistake last year of going straight into cardio treadmill sessions to loose weight which benefitted me for some time however now i'm doing strength training alongside kickboxing and its much better. At the stage where i don't want to loose anymore just tone up. Anyways thanks everyone for your information.
  • GauchoMark
    GauchoMark Posts: 1,804 Member
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    Are you seriously denying that if you start an exercise regime or increase an exercise regime your metabolism will not increase, irrespective of a calorie deficit and fat loss? Otherwise what's the point in doing any exercise!

    It seems you are confusing BMR with TDEE. BMR by definition does not include exercise.

    To the OP, your BMR may change slightly as your weight changes because, as Yarwell posted in the first reply, BMR is driven primarily by fat free mass. So, if you lose or build muscle, your BMR will change slightly. The TDEE can change pretty significantly, though, as you become more/less active and as you are not carrying around so much weight.
  • paxbfl
    paxbfl Posts: 391 Member
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    Steady state cardio burns muscle and should be avoided as less muscle = lower BMR. That's why doing 20-25 mins HIIT is more effective as it burns more fat and less muscle, therefore better results for less effort and time.

    Doing lots of cardio is counter productive to fat loss because the body needs energy as quickly as possible to meet the demands being placed on it, and when glycogen stores are depleted the body starts burning muscle (as opposed to fat) to quickly release energy.

    Compare a marathon runner's body (skinny) to a 100m sprint olympic athelete (muscular ripped). Body builders tend to avoid all cardio as they do not want to lose any hard earned muscle.

    Rather than running for 2 hours, you would get better results doing 30 minutes heavy weight training to maintain muscle mass and increase your BMR for 36 hours due to after burn, followed by 20 mins HIIT (total 50 minutes)

    Thanks for this. After losing 48 pounds, I'm close to my ideal weight and am currently training for a half-marathon. So I'm running a lot. But I plan to really shift the focus to muscle-building after my race in the Fall, so I will bring back HIIT in moderation (which I was doing initially to drop the weight).

    I've been wondering about how body type influences this too... I'm an "endomorph"... I build muscle very easily but tend to pack on fat also. Through all the weight-loss, I haven't seen the loss of muscle I would have expected. A body fat measurement says I lost 4 pounds of fat and gained 2 pounds of muscle in the past 4 months (which I thought was virtually impossible). Obviously this may not be 100% accurate but it feels about right - my weight has dropped and my strength has increased.

    I doubt that I'll ever look like a marathoner no matter how much I run. Still I think your point is valid - and I want to maximize my muscle gains when I shift my focus to that.
  • siyeonsimpp
    siyeonsimpp Posts: 211 Member
    edited October 2020
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    yes, definitely, since your BMR is a calculation between your age, height and weight, when one variable changes, it will increase/decrease depending on which direction it changed. I've lost 7 pounds so far using MFP and my BMR dropped from 1800 to 1200 already.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,436 Member
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    jungkooksdonut17 wrote: »
    yes, definitely, since your BMR is a calculation between your age, height and weight, when one variable changes, it will increase/decrease depending on which direction it changed. I've lost 7 pounds so far using MFP and my BMR dropped from 1800 to 1200 already.

    This was a thread from 2013, and boy did it include some incorrect stuff.

    I think some of the people didn't realize that BMR is pretty much the calorie level a person would burn in a coma, and that daily life activity burns calories on top of that, and intentional exercise adds to the total. TDEE (totall daily energy expenditure is the all-day calorie burn from BMR + daily life + exercise + plus some other small stuff. Also cardio doesn't inherently "burn muscle". Bodies don't like to burn useful stuff, and pretty much only burn muscle if one's overall calorie deficit is unreasonably large. Jeesh. So much misinformation in this old thread! 😬

    As an aside, the BMR, NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis, calorie burn from everything except exercise), and TDEE calculators do take age, height, weight, etc., as input, but all they're giving you is a statistical estimate. Your actual TDEE can vary from those estimated numbers for many reasons (usually not by much, but for the rare person the estimates are quite far off), and our real TDEE will be different every day (by a bit).

    I really don't belive your BMR will have dropped by 600 calories (33%) from a 7 pound weight loss. Your calorie goal may have changed for some reason, but BMR (the "burn in a coma" number) wouldn't change that much for so small a weight loss.

    Congrats on your nice loss so far, and best wishes for continuing success!
  • NovusDies
    NovusDies Posts: 8,940 Member
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    jungkooksdonut17 wrote: »
    yes, definitely, since your BMR is a calculation between your age, height and weight, when one variable changes, it will increase/decrease depending on which direction it changed. I've lost 7 pounds so far using MFP and my BMR dropped from 1800 to 1200 already.

    The BMR loss from your actual weight reduction is likely around 3 calories. The reduction from being in a deficit is not a number I know but most people barely notice it is happening. It is a conservation of energy so things like hair and nails grow slower and your extremities may feel uncomfortably cold at times. A sudden 600 calorie reduction in BMR would be a significant shutdown of body function.

    If you put your numbers in and it suddenly dropped your calorie allowance you should go back through the guided set-up and let it calculate it again. Make sure your rate of loss has not changed. Occasionally someone reports a bug that involves an odd calorie goal. This may have happened to you.

  • Onedaywriter
    Onedaywriter Posts: 324 Member
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    MFP drops my calories required by approx 10 cals/lb recently- I weigh approx 200 give or take. That includes BMR and being “slightly active”.
    So if you’re using the MFP app there’s no need for separate calculations. It also adjusts my calorie burn for exercise slightly downward.
  • lgfrie
    lgfrie Posts: 1,449 Member
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    TDEE decreases 4.5 - 5.5 calories per pound lost, as you can check by going to www.tdeecalculator.net. Put in your weight, get your TDEE, then decrease your weight by 10 pounds and see what the impact is on TDEE. It'll be around 50 cals lower, give or take, depending on your age/gender/weight/etc. Increase your weight 10 pounds and it'll go up around 50 calories.

    Since TDEE is just a simple formula which multiplies BMR by a fixed coefficient based on your activity level (e.g. 1.2, 1.4, etc) then BMR, too, reduces by a similar (though slightly less) amount per pound list.

    For instance, let's say your BMR is 2000 and your TDEE is 2400. if you're sedentary, TDEE = 1.2 * your BMR. Now let's say you, a sedentary person, lose 10 pounds. Your TDEE will reduce by around 50 calories, to 2350. But what will your new BMR be, given that TDEE? 2350/1.2 = 1958. Notice that that is a 4.2 calorie per pound reduction in BMR, not 5 calories like with the TDEE.

    I think it's safe to say 4 calories per pound is a reasonable guesstimate of BMR reduction through weight loss, just as 5 calories per pound is a reasonable guesttimate for TDEE reduction.

    This leaves open the question of why focus on BMR at all. TDEE is much more useful to a dieter; BMR is a theoretical construct, a baseline statistic used to calculate your daily energy burn by multiplication against an appropriate coefficient - which leaves you with TDEE. Only people in comas need be concerned with BMR; everyone else is burning more calories per day.

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