BMR and Daily Calorie Allowance

Great question and I would like to know the answer to that myself. I will check back to see what others said.

My BMR is 1366 currently and I usually use that as my baseline for my daily calorie goal (and thus to determine how much I should be losing in a particular week)- I figure you should be probably getting enough calories to fuel your body for basic function.

Actually, 1200 is the absolute minimum calories you should take in to remain healthy. The BMR is the amount of calories your body needs just to sustain you at your current weight by doing nothing outside of your regular routine. Thus, the deficite is used to attribute to your wieght loss. This is the simplistic example, but it is how I keep it straight Additionally, if you have 1200 as your goal of 1200 but you do 350 calories worth of exercise i.e. treadmill or aerobics, then you add that 350 to your 1200 and you get to eat 1550 calories for the day. Of course, many people eat their BMR plus calories earned from exercise because they don't have expedited wieght loss goals that require eating the minimum. Let me know if that just confused you more. LOL.But hope it helped.

Your BMR is the bare minimum to keep someone your size and weight alive if you were in a coma; no movement. You don't want to eat any less then 120% of that value. BMR * 1.2 = (calories you should be eating). If you eat below your BMR your body goes into stave mode and you will actually start burning muscle which will drop your BMR even further. Your body will attempt to drop its BMR to match your Caloric intake; any weight loss that requires you to eat less then your BMR will not lead to reduction in body fat, it will damage your metabolism and lead to weight-loss plateaus.

A good method for safe weight loss is to plug in your desired weight goal into a BMR calculator and then multiple it by 1.4, which will give you a safe net-caloric intake that will allow you to exercise moderately without going below your BMR. There is an exception, if you have a large amount of weight to loose, say more than 60 pounds.

Say a woman wants to get to 140 pounds but weighes 240 right now. A woman with a weight of 240, 30 years old, height of 5'-5" has a BMR of 1864 or needs 2609 to maintain this weight if she is sedentary. The same woman who weighs 140 has a BMR of 1429, but with a sedentary life needs 1750 Calories to maintain her weight. The 240 pound woman cannot jump to then 1750 Calories because she would be too close or below her current BMR of 1864 and probably would not see real/lasting improvement. Instead the 240-pound woman should make a baby step goal of 200 pounds, to obtain this it she would need 1689 * 1.4 = 2360 Calories with moderate exercise. When the 200 mark is reached take the next step down until she reaches her final goal weight.

While some diets have you eat below your BMR or right at it, DON’T DO IT! It will lead to plateaus and muscles loss that make it only easier to gain the weight back later. Stay around 120% of BMR or 140% of BMR if you exercise regularly. If there is little loss or gain, fudge the numbers a little and take measure a couple weeks later. It may not drop fat fast, but that is not the point, you are making a lifestyle change and only practicing that lifestyle will allow you to keep that weight off for good.

I'm not sure where to get the "activity level" figure (i.e. BMR + normal daily acitivity, not including exercise which I log in separately).

Here you go; http://caloriecount.about.com/cc/calories-burned.php

It's funny how everyone on this thread agrees that you should be eating your BMR but yet MFP seems to set us all up for 1200 calories daily. It looks like unless you are significantly outside of a healthy BMI, the calculator won’t work for you. That seems silly since the majority of people on here are trying to lose 10-40lbs, the 100 lb losers are rare.