BMR AND CALORIES

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latashalaine
latashalaine Posts: 11
in Getting Started
I have been reading that if you cut your calories too much, it could potentially be a bad thing. You start losing lean muscle and your body goes into starvation mode, trying to store fat. That being said, I calculated my BMR and for my weight, hight, activity level it came to 2,888. My fitness pal has my goal set to 2200 calories per day. Will this be too big a gap for healthy weight loss? The past two weeks, I had cut my calories to 1600 and wasn't losing any weight, just trimming up some. Could my caloric intake being too low, cause my body to go into starvation mode and not lose any weight?

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  • latashalaine
    latashalaine Posts: 11
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    Any thoughts or advice would be very appreciated!
  • diannethegeek
    diannethegeek Posts: 14,776 Member
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    Eating too low can be a problem, but it a worse problem for those already at a normal body weight. If your ticker is accurate and you have almost 100 pounds to lose I think you'll be okay for a while.

    Whether or not that's causing you to stall I don't know. Two weeks could just be a normal fluctuation and usually isn't anything to worry about.

    The first things to look at are usually accuracy issues. How closely are you logging your food? Are you weighing portions? Using measuring cups? Or eyeballing your portion sizes? Would you be comfortable opening your diary up for us to take a look? Are you eating back your earned exercise calories and if so are you using a HRM or gym machine/MFP estimates?
  • latashalaine
    latashalaine Posts: 11
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    Eating too low can be a problem, but it a worse problem for those already at a normal body weight. If your ticker is accurate and you have almost 100 pounds to lose I think you'll be okay for a while.

    Whether or not that's causing you to stall I don't know. Two weeks could just be a normal fluctuation and usually isn't anything to worry about.

    The first things to look at are usually accuracy issues. How closely are you logging your food? Are you weighing portions? Using measuring cups? Or eyeballing your portion sizes? Would you be comfortable opening your diary up for us to take a look? Are you eating back your earned exercise calories and if so are you using a HRM or gym machine/MFP estimates?


    Thank you, I just have no idea what I am doing or should be doing. I started on Jan. 2nd.

    I am logging food pretty closely. I measure everything and create my own recipes when I cook at home, adding every ingredient and amount. I would be ok with opening my diary up, how would I go about doing that?

    The only workouts I can monitor are the treadmill, which tells me how many calories I've burned in the amount of time and intensity I worked out. And by using Sworkit app. It will connect to MyFitnessPal and guesstimate the calories I've burned. I have a FitBit Zip on the way and should be able to start using it Saturday. That's about all my budget will allow for now.
  • latashalaine
    latashalaine Posts: 11
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    I have also changed my calorie goal about 5 times, changing activity levels and such because I'm just not sure which one I am. Now I am at a 1900 calorie goal
  • diannethegeek
    diannethegeek Posts: 14,776 Member
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    I have also changed my calorie goal about 5 times, changing activity levels and such because I'm just not sure which one I am. Now I am at a 1900 calorie goal

    Pick one goal and give it a few weeks. Some people don't see a loss right away, especially if they start working out. You might need to give your body some time to adjust. If you don't see any loss after a few weeks that's when you should start dropping your goal.

    I've never used the FitBits but I know a lot of people here see great success with them. Best of luck as you go forward!
  • 10manda86
    10manda86 Posts: 229 Member
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    i have been using a fitbit for almost 2 weeks now... i love it. i get to see how many steps I take a day and I feel constantly motivated to go for a walk because I want to be the same or better than the day before. that being said, customer service and that with fitbit is under par, so just a warning! the device is great, the company sux!
    my weightloss seems to have stalled, but after I destroyed my diet in one day and TOM is looming so I'm probably hoarding water!
  • togmo
    togmo Posts: 257
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    Give it time.

    If you are counting things properly and you have got a relatively accurate idea of how many calories you should be eating to lose weight then in time you will start seeing a loss. You will get a better idea as you progress as to exactly how much food you should be eating based on exactly how much exercise you are really doing.

    You didn't put on the weight overnight and you won't lose it overnight either. It can be a slow process but the hardest thing is starting and you are here so you are on your way! There are a lot of great success stories that people post on this site, I look forward to seeing yours a year in!
  • togmo
    togmo Posts: 257
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    Also try punching your numbers in to a calculator like the one I linked below. The activity levels in these calculators are simply a multiplier and you don't have to stick to any particular level - you can average them out and go in between.

    Simply estimate how many calories you can eat at say a 20% reduction if you are lightly active and at a 20% reduction if you are moderately active and customise your goals to be somewhere closer to where you feel your activity levels are. If you do more exercise you will see a bigger loss and if in a few weeks it looks like you are losing more weight than you think you should be then you are more active than you think you are or vice versa and you can adjust your caloric intake accordingly.

    There are other ways of doing it if you are logging your exercise very accurately and you will figure these out in time but I don't want to bombard you with too much information at the moment because what you are doing will work.

    http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,020 Member
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    I have been reading that if you cut your calories too much, it could potentially be a bad thing. You start losing lean muscle and your body goes into starvation mode, trying to store fat. That being said, I calculated my BMR and for my weight, hight, activity level it came to 2,888. My fitness pal has my goal set to 2200 calories per day. Will this be too big a gap for healthy weight loss? The past two weeks, I had cut my calories to 1600 and wasn't losing any weight, just trimming up some. Could my caloric intake being too low, cause my body to go into starvation mode and not lose any weight?

    I think you may be confusing BMR and TDEE (total daily energy expenditure), or possibly MFP's "Calories Burned from Normal Daily Activity," which is sort of TDEE less energy burned in workouts/exercise. Activity level is not a factor in calculating BMR. BMR is calculated by age (the younger, the higher the BMR), height (taller=higher BMR), weight (heavier = higher BMR), and gender. Assuming from your photo that you're female, you would have to be 18 years old, six-foot-three, and weigh 450 pounds to have a BMR of 2880 (other combinations would work too, but the older you are, the taller and heavier you would have to be to have a BMR of 2880). Those warnings about starvation mode are about eating below your BMR, not about eating below your TDEE (hopefully somebody else will come along and explain why starvation mode isn't exactly what a lot of people say it is, anyway). If 2888 is your TDEE or the MFP "Calories Burned from Normal Daily Activity," then a daily goal of 2200 gives you a deficit of 688 a day, or a loss of between 1.25 lbs and 1.5 lbs a week.
  • Witchy7
    Witchy7 Posts: 3 Member
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    Yes stole off of Everyday Health.....this is the formula and then you just need to make it work for you. To lose one pound a week, you need to have a good idea of how many calories you burn (use for energy) on an average day. Men burn 1,900 to 2,500 calories per day, depending on their level of activity, Greaves says. Women burn 1,600 to 2,000 calories per day.

    To get a more accurate idea of your daily caloric requirements, you can turn to an online basal metabolic rate (BMR) calculator. BMR calculators take into account your height, weight, age, gender, and level of activity to work out exactly how many calories you need to eat every day, just to keep your weight constant.

    Once you know your current daily caloric requirement, you can create your own formula for losing one pound a week. The idea is to create a 500-calorie deficit each day by eating 500 fewer calories, working off 500 more calories through exercise, or any combination of the two actions that equals 500 calories. For example, you might choose to eat 250 calories fewer than your daily caloric requirement, and then do a workout that burns another 250 calories. Some days you might feel like burning off 500 calories with exercise alone. Other days you might cut your intake by 500 calories. If, at the end of each day, you achieve that 500-calorie deficit, you'll lose one pound in seven days.

    For me I alternate calories a day. example: Mon = 1200 to 1300 Tues 1300-1400 Wed 1200-1250 and do at least 45 minutes of working out and I usually lose 1 to 1.5 a week but I only have about 5 more to go and only needed to lose a total of 10 pounds. But as it's mentioned above you need to cut 500 from what you eat and add exercising. Most don't like counting calories but with MFP it's really easy. Good luck.

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