Eating all of your calories/BMR

Hey - at least you're coming at it from a different angle!! :happy: I guess if your BMR is that high, and it is what your body needs just to exist you probably need to eat at least that much. I think Banks is the one who said to check your BMR on at least a couple of different sites and then average because some will figure it differently. Maybe take a look at that and then see where you should be! Good luck

wewereundone,

(love the screen name by the way.)

Have you been to the following post?

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/6556-the-answers-to-the-questions?page=1


Good luck!

Cheryl

I copied this quote from http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/

"The BMR Calculator will calculate your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR); the number of calories you'd burn if you stayed in bed all day."

So you do want to stay at less calories than your BMR if you want to lose weight, the other calories is what you would eat if you wanted to maintain weight, without exercise.

Hope that helps.

I think you are doing fine. Just listen to your body. You are successfully losing at a good rate 1-2 lbs a week.

if you feel you are undereating, then add some more veggies and salads to your lifestyle. And you are exercising which makes your heart healthy.

Don't over analyze.

I think that is a lot of weight to lose each week for the little amount you need to lose total. I would cut it back to 1-1.5 lbs a week.

Mary, she is trying to lose 70 pounds according to her post............?? Right? :huh:

:blushing: :blushing: :blushing:

I just went to her page to find her weight loss goals. Please forgive.

Gosh - that BMR seems kind of high! 1600 or more?? Sounds more like maintenance calories to me :laugh: (although for me right now, that is my LOSING weight calories :laugh: ) Don't know what to tell you at this point! You seem to be doing o.k. where your at and losing weight consistantly. If you stall out for a longer period of time - 2-3 weeks - maybe you should re-evaluate what your doing, but I guess for now if it ain't broke, don't fix it!! Unless something is off in how you are putting in your information, that is the only other thing I can think of!

Hallusmc - you need to be above your BMR calories to keep your body functioning. You want to be less than the calories you need to maintain your current weight to lose weight.

Took the words right out of my mouth

My BMR is 1670 which is the amount of calories I eat every day no matter how much or how little I exercise. I do this for two reason

1. I totally agree you should not eat below your BMR, your body needs to keep functioning
2. I calulated my TDEE, TDEE is the total number of calories that your body expends in 24 hours, including all activities. TDEE is also known as your "maintenance level". I based this on my current weight. Here is a rough way to calculate your TDEE. Take your BMR and multiply it according to your activity level

Activity Multiplier
Sedentary = BMR X 1.2 (little or no exercise, desk job)
Lightly active = BMR X 1.375 (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk)
Mod. active = BMR X 1.55 (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk)
Very active = BMR X 1.725 (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days/wk)
Extr. active = BMR X 1.9 (hard daily exercise/sports & physical job or 2X day training, i.e marathon, contest etc.)

With my numbers I consider myself between Mod and very active so I multiply my BMR by 1.6, this gives me a TDEE of 2672. So if I wanted to maitain my current weight of 211(which I don't) at my current activity level I would eat 2,672 calories a day. But I want to lose weight. So I am reducing my caloric intake for a 2lb a week weight loss, which is 1,000 calories a day. So, to lose 2lbs a week I eat 1,672 calories a day and wouldn't you know it, that's right where my BMR is! When I actually did all these calculations I was very happy to see the numbers were supported both ways. This is also why I don't adjust my food intake for exercise, I've already worked my activity level into my calculations on my TDEE, now if I really do an extra long workout that's more than my average I'll certainly add some more calories in.

So, that's just my two cents.

I think we are confusing the terms and their usage here.

The true definition of the basal metabolic rate (BMR) is the number of calories you'd burn just lying in bed; they keep your heart beating, lungs functioning, etc.

Maintenance calories are the calories that you burn each day with your BMR and ALL of your activities based on your lifestyle (sedentary, lightly active, moderately active).

Your lifestyle doesn't change your BMR. Your lifestyle changes your maintenance calories. MFP asks you what your lifestyle is, so when you give your body stats (height, weight, etc.) and your lifestyle (sedentary, etc.) it calculates your projected MAINTENANCE calories, then subtracts a deficit. That deficit will not bring you below 1200, because pretty much any adult without a thyroid problem will have a BMR around that number.

Montana, the numbers 2304 and 2604 are probably MAINTENANCE calories, not BMR calories. Your BMR may very well be 1750 depending on your size. I'm fairly small and mine is 1265. But my *maintenance* calories are 2400-2500.

Nope song - they were BMR - :laugh: I was kind of shocked - the various BMR's (NOT maintenance) numbers I got were 1757.7, 1756, 1758, 1750, 2304, 2640. I threw out the last two and assumed the calculator was faulty or had a faulty premise. None of these took activity or lifestyle into account - one I could recalculate the calories I needed each day based on various activities but I didn't do that. These were BMR - and this site said BMR of like 1738 or something close to it.

Weird. What site did you use for the last two?

I think it was this one

www.shapefit.com/basal-metabolic-rate

It is a manual calculation :blushing: I looked again, I may have done something wrong, seeing as how math is NOT my forte! Anyhow, I threw out those numbers, but all the others were basically in agreement.

The "BMR" calculator I found is actually a maintenance calculator; it had a box for choosing moderately/very active, etc. I should've mentioned that a lot of sites use maintenance and BMR interchangeably, even though they really aren't. So that 2300 number is actually your maintenance if you used what I did on that site. It doesn't help when sites don't use the right words lol!

My BMR, according to this site, is 1708 but has gone down from 1790 since I starting on here. My maintainance is around 2150. The bigger you are, the higher the BMR.

I certainly eat all of my calories as suggested by MFP. However, I checked my BMR, and it listed it as about 1500. MFP suggests that I eat 1380 cals/day to lose 1 pound a week. (This is before excercise, which I do 3 times a week. I eat those calories when I have them.) Should I be worried that I'm eating less than my BMR? I do feel ok (plenty of energy, no headaches, not getting sick, etc), and I'm losing actually about 1.5-2 pounds a week. Does this mean I have even more of a deficit than I think I have (the 500/day calculated by MFP?) I have, in total, about 70 pounds to lose to be at the high end of "normal" weight for my height.


How many times has this been posted about? Sorry if this is a repeat, but I started to get a little worried...I want to lose the weight only once!

Sounds good to me. If your losing weight (and that is a very healthy rate). Just listen to your body.

Created by MyFitnessPal.com - Easy Calorie Counting

I am really confused now. MFP gave a daily food goal of 1200 (without exercise) and today it is 1697 cals (with exercise). I have been on this site for close to 2 wks now and I love it. It is helping me keep accountable with my food and exercise. Getting a little discouraged looking at the scale everyday it goes up and down like a yo yo. I am staying within my goal and have been averaging no more than 1500 cals/day ( I also exercise daily). I feel better and my body is getting tighter, or so it feels. Why am I not seeming to lose any weight? It's really bugging me.
For example last sat I weighed in at 180.0 (au naturale), last night I weighed 184.8 (ok .w/ clothes on). This morning 183.4 (dressed) MFP gave BMR as 1457. ]
Is this normal ? What gives or am I just being obsessive?

Apologies if you all have addressed this ~ I am just confused and hoping you all will help.
I don't want to quit now.

BUMP

what the?

talking about bringing a post back from the dead. This one was from 2008

I am really confused now. MFP gave a daily food goal of 1200 (without exercise) and today it is 1697 cals (with exercise). I have been on this site for close to 2 wks now and I love it. It is helping me keep accountable with my food and exercise. Getting a little discouraged looking at the scale everyday it goes up and down like a yo yo. I am staying within my goal and have been averaging no more than 1500 cals/day ( I also exercise daily). I feel better and my body is getting tighter, or so it feels. Why am I not seeming to lose any weight? It's really bugging me.
For example last sat I weighed in at 180.0 (au naturale), last night I weighed 184.8 (ok .w/ clothes on). This morning 183.4 (dressed) MFP gave BMR as 1457. ]
Is this normal ? What gives or am I just being obsessive?

Apologies if you all have addressed this ~ I am just confused and hoping you all will help.
I don't want to quit now.

It’s your clothes!! You were naked the first weight in and then wearing clothes both times after! Trust me on that one. I'm running a Biggest Loser Challenge at work and its my scale so I weigh in at home in the morning before showering and breakfast and the 2 bottles of water I have near breakfast, after the washroom, and naked and I am 3.5 lbs heavier when I weigh in again at 9:00 am at work. Don't fret! You are on the right track eating 1500 cals with working out that should keep your body away from starvation mode.

Edit: plus you may gain a lb or so eventually (but now its your clothes I swear!) if you are weight-training but don't let that deter you, you feel yourself getting tighter, you will loose inches and the more muscle you have the more fat you burn so keep it up!