BMR Calculation and Exercise Burn

1430 sounds about right for your BMR, but use this for your activity multiplier:

1.2 = Sedentary (Desk job, & Little Formal Exercise)
1.3-1.4 = Lightly Active (Light daily activity & light exercise 1-3 days a week)
1.5-1.6 = Moderately Active (Moderately daily Activity & Moderate exercise 3-5 days a week)
1.7-1.8 = Very Active (Physically demanding lifestyle & Hard exercise 6-7 days a week)
1.9-2.2 = Extremely Active (Athlete in ENDURANCE training or VERY HARD physical job)

When using this method, it will give you your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure). With your TDEE, you DO NOT add exercise calories into your diary because they are already included in the above activity multiplier. If your plan is to lose weight, just calculate your TDEE using the appropriate activity multiplier for yourself, then proceed to subtract 15% or 20% from that number for a calorie deficit. Simple as that. I wouldn't recommend eating at your BMR, that's a pretty low intake. If you do that you're not accounting for NEAT(non exercise associated thermogenesis). All the movements you make throughout the day that aren't dedicated exercise (walking around, standing up, fidgeting). This all adds up to calories burned and you don't want a calorie deficit that is too large.

Thanks for your reply AJ. OK, so if my BMR (nearly dead in bed all day) is 1430, and I burn 500 calories for running a 10K (about 80/mile) that's only leaving me burning about 200/day doing my "fidgeting" walking, showering, etc. That seems low perhaps? And that's using the moderate activity level of 1.5. Should I choose sedentary and then 'add' my exercising instead? Some days I bike almost 40 miles (30 cals/mile) and I burn 1200 from that alone, more on windy days.

I'm hungry at 1,400 but I am trying to lose. Days after heavy exercising, I have binging tendencies. So maybe I should bump it up on heavy exercise days or should I just increase to let's say 1650 on a daily basis? Calorie 'cycling' seems like so much work. I was about 120lbs but steroids caused me to gain weight (plus the medical condition which forced me out of the sun for a while).

Thanks,
Charlene

So you have a couple options. You can go with the TDEE method that I talked about in my last post and just choose an activity multiplier that suits your life. It sounds like you are highly active which is a good thing, so may even want to choose a multiplier higher than 1.5. The thing about TDEE is that it's sort of a trial and error thing. You pick a multiplier that you think is appropriate. Eat at your calculated TDEE - 15% or 20% consistently every day no matter how much you exercise on any given day. Track your weight over the course of 3-4 weeks and see how your weight changes at that calorie intake. If you are not losing weight fast enough or you are losing weight too fast, just adjust your calorie intake and go from there. So that's your first option.

Your second option is to go with the MFP default way of tracking your calorie intake. Basically you input your weight, height, and non exercise activity level (sedentary, lightly active, moderately active, highly active etc) as well as how many pounds per week you'd like to lose. They will give you a pre-exercise calorie goal with a calorie deficit worked in and you add exercise calories as you exercise. This method would help with you feeling hungrier on days where you're highly active since you eat back those exercise calories. Be careful though as the MFP calculated exercise calories tend to be overestimated so just keep that in mind. I recommend people be conservative with calorie burns. If you ran a 10k (6mph for about one hour) then maybe input it as 6mph running for 45 or 50 minutes. Something like that. It's completely up to you though.

One other thing I'll mention is that with the TDEE method, you can play around with how many calories you eat on any given day AS LONG AS your weekly calorie intake remains constant. Say someone has a calorie goal of 1500 calories a day with the TDEE system. That comes out to 10,500 calories a week. If for instance this person likes to eat more on the weekends, they could adjust their calorie intake to be 1420 calories on week days and 1700 calories on Saturday and Sunday. This comes out to the same weekly calorie intake but allows you to eat more on the weekends. The same thing can be done with calorie intakes on heavy workout days vs less active days. It's completely up to you. The most important thing is your weekly calorie intake.