What can I do if my BMR is incredibly low?

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lohkin
lohkin Posts: 43 Member
in Getting Started
My BMR, according to MFP, is only 1326. So, if I want to lose weight with diet and light exercise, I need to eat less than 1000 calories per day. Is that right??? It can't be right.... MFP told me to aim for 1200 calories per day.

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  • Lasmartchika
    Lasmartchika Posts: 3,440 Member
    edited November 2014
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    No, your BMR is the amount of calories your body needs if you were just to be laying down 24 hrs a day. You need to find what your TDEE is. This website tells you what your tdee is and also the amount of calories you should eat depending on your activity level. http://scoobysworkshop.com/accurate-calorie-calculator/#top I suggest you choose TDEE- 15% to get your calories. Never eat below your BMR calories. Those are the calories your body needs just to live.

    This page explains BMR and TDEE so much better than I can.

    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/3817-eat-more-2-weigh-less
  • lorib642
    lorib642 Posts: 1,942 Member
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    Here are some more links that may help you get started.

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1080242-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants
    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/819055-setting-your-calorie-and-macro-targets
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
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    lohkin wrote: »
    My BMR, according to MFP, is only 1326. So, if I want to lose weight with diet and light exercise, I need to eat less than 1000 calories per day. Is that right??? It can't be right.... MFP told me to aim for 1200 calories per day.

    No...your BMR is the calories you body burns simply by the mere fact that you exist on this planet...i assume you do more than that. Since you obviously do, your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (essentially your maintenance calorie requisites) will be substantially higher than that. You could lose weight easily just eating your BMR...you don't have to eat below it.

    My BMR is around 1780 calories....but with my normal daily activities plus my exercise and whatnot, I maintain around 2,800 calories...that means I can lose about 1 Lb per week consuming around 2300 calories...well above my BMR.

    When I was more sedentary and didn't exercise at all, I still ate around 1800 calories or so and lost about 1Lb or a little more per week.
  • rosebette
    rosebette Posts: 1,659 Member
    edited November 2014
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    I don't know what your stats are, but if you are very small, your BMR can be that low. Mine is 1136, but I'm only 5'1.5" and 55 years old. As other posters have said, your BMR is the calories you burn just staying alive, without activity. If you add exercise calories, your metabolism is actually higher. I use an activity tracker, and I typically put in 200-300 calories over my BMR every day. So, to lose weight, you have two choices, you can exercise more, which raises your metabolism, so that you'll end up eating at a larger deficit because you've burned those calories. Or, if you're a smaller person, you're eating at a smaller deficit -- you can't safely eat 500 calories below your BMR or you'd be under 1000 calories, which is unsafe and wouldn't get you the macro or micronutrients to nourish your body. 1200 gives you a slight deficit below your 1350 BMR. At a smaller deficit, you'll lose weight more slowly, at a rate of .5 lb. a week, rather than 1 lb. a week. However, you'll be losing safely.
  • FatFreeFrolicking
    FatFreeFrolicking Posts: 4,252 Member
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    I have a medically low RMR. Any weight I lose comes from calories burned via exercise.
  • gothchiq
    gothchiq Posts: 4,598 Member
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    girl, mine is even worse!!! it's about 1200 according to the test at the nutritionist's office. What you can do is to build your muscles so that your metabolism goes up. Also you aren't just burning your RMR every day, unless you are stuck in bed immobile, so your activities and general life burn calories. So now if you exercise every other day (I firmly believe in rest days to let your muscles heal and build) you will burn more calories and raise your metabolism. :)
  • Ang108
    Ang108 Posts: 1,711 Member
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    lohkin wrote: »
    My BMR, according to MFP, is only 1326. So, if I want to lose weight with diet and light exercise, I need to eat less than 1000 calories per day. Is that right??? It can't be right.... MFP told me to aim for 1200 calories per day.

    You must be on the older and very short side. My BMR is lower than yours, but I am past 65 and under 5 feet tall. Yes, it makes losing a challenge sometimes, but is also one of those cases were people are justified to eat 1200 calories or less. I went about it slowly using a relatively small deficit and still lost 55 pounds in about 14 month.

  • gothchiq
    gothchiq Posts: 4,598 Member
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    I myself am five three, hypothyroid, female, and 46 years old. The Pause doesn't help, as we all know lol! Those of us older and smaller really lose out in the food department! I see people maintaining at over 2000 calories and I'm like... wow, to be you for one week! I lose a pound every three weeks, approximately, eating 1200 calories and doing the best workouts I can (arthritis, booo) but it does work. You don't want to lose weight really fast anyway because then you have all this loose saggy skin and it's just horrifying. So that's the silver lining to losing slowly; your skin has more time to adjust.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
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    rosebette wrote: »
    I don't know what your stats are, but if you are very small, your BMR can be that low. Mine is 1136, but I'm only 5'1.5" and 55 years old. As other posters have said, your BMR is the calories you burn just staying alive, without activity. If you add exercise calories, your metabolism is actually higher. ..........

    It's not even a matter of exercise...if you're doing more than existing, you are burning more calories than your BMR. Even if you're relatively sedentary you're burning a few hundred calories more than your BMR per day...

    A female with a BMR between 1300 - 1400 can easily burn around 1800 calories per day just with general activity before exercise...and that's not being super active either. My wife is 5'2" and has a desk job and maintains right around 1800 calories without exercise...with exercise she's right around 2200 - 2300 or so...more when she's training. She loses pretty easily eating around 1600 - 1700 calories per day

  • Kenda2427
    Kenda2427 Posts: 1,592 Member
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    I know where you're coming from my BMR is 1057 and TDEE is 1268. The joys of being short and older. Lol. I have a desk job but do a 20 min workout DVD before work, boot camp twice a week and typically walk 1/2 hr to 1 hr daily. But I struggle to lose weight, it's a very slow process and I have to do lots of exercise to burn calories and try to stay within my calories. But it can be done, slow but sure.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
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    lohkin wrote: »
    My BMR, according to MFP, is only 1326. So, if I want to lose weight with diet and light exercise, I need to eat less than 1000 calories per day. Is that right??? It can't be right.... MFP told me to aim for 1200 calories per day.

    Like others have said, it's your TDEE that matters. Even if you are completely sedentary (most people aren't), that's going to be around 1.2x your BMR, or nearly 1600.

    However, it does demonstrate why getting active (if you aren't) can be so helpful in losing weight. My BMR is around 1300, and yet I lose weight (about a lb/week) on 1650 calories.

  • lohkin
    lohkin Posts: 43 Member
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    Yes, I am 4'10 and 36 years old. I'm currently at 161 lbs and trying to get to at least 145. Long term, I would like to get back to 135.
    I used the calculator links someone posted and found it interesting that it gives me approximately the same BMR (1313), but tells me to eat 1400 calories per day in order to lose 2.9lbs/month.
    This is all greek to me, but I'm open to learning foreign languages B)
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
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    lohkin wrote: »
    Yes, I am 4'10 and 36 years old. I'm currently at 161 lbs and trying to get to at least 145. Long term, I would like to get back to 135.
    I used the calculator links someone posted and found it interesting that it gives me approximately the same BMR (1313), but tells me to eat 1400 calories per day in order to lose 2.9lbs/month.
    This is all greek to me, but I'm open to learning foreign languages B)

    BMR - Basal Metabolic Rate...the rate at which your body burns calories merely existing. Understand that it takes a lot of energy to make your heart pump 24/7...your lungs work...your brain, etc, etc, etc, etc...

    NEAT - Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis. These are the calories you "burn" just doing your daily stuff...waking up and walking to the bathroom...brushing your teeth...showering...cleaning...cooking...driving to work...walking around the office...typing on the MFP forums, etc...

    TEF - Thermal Effect of Food...the calories your body burns digesting and breaking down nutrients. Most people just roll this up into their NEAT.

    EAT - Exercise Activity Thermogenesis. The calories your body burns during deliberate exercise activity.

    TDEE - Total Daily Energy Expenditure

    BMR + NEAT + TEF + EAT = TDEE

    To lose weight you consume fewer calories than your TDEE.

  • Tblackdogs
    Tblackdogs Posts: 324 Member
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    I know that all of this is confusing but the bottom line is that you burn 1326 calories even if you do nothing but lie in bed all day. Then you burn some more calories (a few hundred?) just going about your normal daily activity. If you exercise you burn more calories (maybe another couple hundred). Say that number comes to 1800. If you only eat 1500 calories a day you will have a deficit of 300 calories a day. That means that you'd lose a pound in about 12 days.
  • DenDweller
    DenDweller Posts: 1,438 Member
    edited November 2014
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    People still seem to have a problem understanding this. It might be because of their conception of what burning calories is. You don't need to exercise to burn calories. In fact, unless you're a professional athlete, or a really active amateur athlete, most of the calories you burn have nothing to do with exercise. A Calorie (or kcal) is a unit measure of energy.

    BMR is the total amount of energy required on a daily basis to keep alive. Your cells use energy to keep them alive. On top of that, your organs use energy to function. That's the whole idea behind "metabolic". The "M" in BMR. As others have said. If you lie completely still for 24 hours, you will burn your BMR in calories.

    There are various ways then to lose weight. But you should eat MORE than your BMR or over the long-term you are harming yourself because you are impairing your body's ability to function properly.

    To lose weight you try to estimate how many TOTAL calories you burn each day (BMR calories + activity calories = total calories). You can account for that separately on a per day basis (logging all activities for a day), or try to estimate a single-number daily average total (TDEE). There are proponents for both methods and MFP allows you to do either.

    You would then eat less than this number (but more than your BMR) to lose weight. Its simple really, if you accept the fact that your body burns alotta calories just going about the business of staying alive.
  • KeriA
    KeriA Posts: 3,270 Member
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    Now this is what MFP forums are for. Love these posts.
  • Sarauk2sf
    Sarauk2sf Posts: 28,072 Member
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    lohkin wrote: »
    Yes, I am 4'10 and 36 years old. I'm currently at 161 lbs and trying to get to at least 145. Long term, I would like to get back to 135.
    I used the calculator links someone posted and found it interesting that it gives me approximately the same BMR (1313), but tells me to eat 1400 calories per day in order to lose 2.9lbs/month.
    This is all greek to me, but I'm open to learning foreign languages B)

    Your BMR does not include activity - day to day or exercise.

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