Confusion about calories - what am I missing?
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forgtmenot wrote: »If someone's bmr was 1400 and they ate 1400 calories they'd maintain. If their bmr was not accurate and it was really 1500 when taking into account changing channels on the remote, getting up to go to the bathroom, etc. then they would lose weight, just very slowly. The calories we burn while sleeping are due to energy our body expends while doing necessary functions like digesting food, breathing, pumping blood, processing and removing waste via the kidneys/liver/pancreas, fighting off bacteria, etc. it takes a lot of calories to perform those functions. While a person may not be moving, their body internally is always working hard to stay alive and operate efficiently. It takes very little calories to pick up a remote or walk to the restroom in comparison to how many it takes to pump and circulate approx two thousand gallons of blood through the heart and around the entire body every single day.
You are lumping BMR in with TDEE.
BMR doesn't "take into account" calories burned getting up to go to the bathroom etc. It really is just your base calories, like what you'd burn in a coma. Your lifestyle burns more, as does your exercise, and the three added together give you TDEE.
So no, eating at BMR would not get you maintenance, it would get you weight loss. How quickly you would lose would depend on how active you are.0 -
That hypothetical person might also be smaller than the "average" 150lb person in your example. I'm 5'1" and 120lbs, and my BMR is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 1200 calories. If I were to lie around and couch potato all day every day, I'd probably burn not much more than that, and wouldn't lose weight "like crazy" at 1200 calories. Far from it. In fact, since no matter how careful we all try to be, we mostly tend to underestimate our food calories a bit, it's possible I could maintain or even gain slightly on 1200 calories if I were to sit around on my butt all day.
Luckily I don't sit on my butt all day. I do my best to be active. I have a desk job, but I commute by bicycle or by public transit, and I walk as much as possible the rest of my day. I work out. I run. I strength train. My true TDEE is somewhere around 1800 calories/day, and I lose weight while eating at 1450.
Your assumptions are off.
Yes, they are.0 -
futuremanda wrote: »forgtmenot wrote: »If someone's bmr was 1400 and they ate 1400 calories they'd maintain. If their bmr was not accurate and it was really 1500 when taking into account changing channels on the remote, getting up to go to the bathroom, etc. then they would lose weight, just very slowly. The calories we burn while sleeping are due to energy our body expends while doing necessary functions like digesting food, breathing, pumping blood, processing and removing waste via the kidneys/liver/pancreas, fighting off bacteria, etc. it takes a lot of calories to perform those functions. While a person may not be moving, their body internally is always working hard to stay alive and operate efficiently. It takes very little calories to pick up a remote or walk to the restroom in comparison to how many it takes to pump and circulate approx two thousand gallons of blood through the heart and around the entire body every single day.
You are lumping BMR in with TDEE.
BMR doesn't "take into account" calories burned getting up to go to the bathroom etc. It really is just your base calories, like what you'd burn in a coma. Your lifestyle burns more, as does your exercise, and the three added together give you TDEE.
So no, eating at BMR would not get you maintenance, it would get you weight loss. How quickly you would lose would depend on how active you are.
The point I was trying to make is that it takes a lot more energy to perform vital bodily functions than to get up and go to the restroom.
I do not figure in exercise when using the calculators. I put it at "desk job", because my day to day life is like a desk job and then I add calories burned through exercise on mfp since they fluctuate. I don't think most people exercise the exact same amount and burn the exact same amount of calories every day.0 -
forgtmenot wrote: »futuremanda wrote: »forgtmenot wrote: »If someone's bmr was 1400 and they ate 1400 calories they'd maintain. If their bmr was not accurate and it was really 1500 when taking into account changing channels on the remote, getting up to go to the bathroom, etc. then they would lose weight, just very slowly. The calories we burn while sleeping are due to energy our body expends while doing necessary functions like digesting food, breathing, pumping blood, processing and removing waste via the kidneys/liver/pancreas, fighting off bacteria, etc. it takes a lot of calories to perform those functions. While a person may not be moving, their body internally is always working hard to stay alive and operate efficiently. It takes very little calories to pick up a remote or walk to the restroom in comparison to how many it takes to pump and circulate approx two thousand gallons of blood through the heart and around the entire body every single day.
You are lumping BMR in with TDEE.
BMR doesn't "take into account" calories burned getting up to go to the bathroom etc. It really is just your base calories, like what you'd burn in a coma. Your lifestyle burns more, as does your exercise, and the three added together give you TDEE.
So no, eating at BMR would not get you maintenance, it would get you weight loss. How quickly you would lose would depend on how active you are.
The point I was trying to make is that it takes a lot more energy to perform vital bodily functions than to get up and go to the restroom.
I do not figure in exercise when using the calculators. I put it at "desk job", because my day to day life is like a desk job and then I add calories burned through exercise on mfp since they fluctuate. I don't think most people exercise the exact same amount and burn the exact same amount of calories every day.
Exactly.0 -
forgtmenot wrote: »futuremanda wrote: »forgtmenot wrote: »If someone's bmr was 1400 and they ate 1400 calories they'd maintain. If their bmr was not accurate and it was really 1500 when taking into account changing channels on the remote, getting up to go to the bathroom, etc. then they would lose weight, just very slowly. The calories we burn while sleeping are due to energy our body expends while doing necessary functions like digesting food, breathing, pumping blood, processing and removing waste via the kidneys/liver/pancreas, fighting off bacteria, etc. it takes a lot of calories to perform those functions. While a person may not be moving, their body internally is always working hard to stay alive and operate efficiently. It takes very little calories to pick up a remote or walk to the restroom in comparison to how many it takes to pump and circulate approx two thousand gallons of blood through the heart and around the entire body every single day.
You are lumping BMR in with TDEE.
BMR doesn't "take into account" calories burned getting up to go to the bathroom etc. It really is just your base calories, like what you'd burn in a coma. Your lifestyle burns more, as does your exercise, and the three added together give you TDEE.
So no, eating at BMR would not get you maintenance, it would get you weight loss. How quickly you would lose would depend on how active you are.
The point I was trying to make is that it takes a lot more energy to perform vital bodily functions than to get up and go to the restroom.
I do not figure in exercise when using the calculators. I put it at "desk job", because my day to day life is like a desk job and then I add calories burned through exercise on mfp since they fluctuate. I don't think most people exercise the exact same amount and burn the exact same amount of calories every day.
Sure. And I wasn't disputing that point -- most of our calorie burn comes from BMR. But you never know who is lurking, so statements like "If someone's bmr was 1400 and they ate 1400 calories they'd maintain" do need to be corrected, because that's how you get people trying to subtract 500 or 1000 calories from their BMR to lose weight.
I also never said or implied that we burn the same amount every day so I... don't know how that's a response to what I said. Your BMR + your sedentary lifestyle setting gets you your NEAT number. When you add exercise, you now have your TDEE. (Of course, it's all an estimate, and yes, it fluctuates.) Your lifestyle calories are on top of BMR though, and yes, even sedentary people burn enough that if they were to eat AT BMR, they would lose weight over time.0 -
WTF?atypicalsmith wrote: »Still doesn't explain why a more active person who eats 1200 calories or less isn't losing weight like crazy.atypicalsmith wrote: »I didn't say anything about crazy weight lossatypicalsmith wrote: »TimothyFish wrote: »Not sure what crazy is, but this hypothetical person who is being fed with a tube would be losing 0.48 lbs per week, if they were only fed 1200 calories per day. That seems pretty good for someone who is doing nothing but sleeping all day.
When did I say the hypothetical person was being fed 1200 calories a day? I said the hypothetical person was being fed 1440 calories a day. Read a little more closely, Fish.
My we have a short memory!
This person has math and social issues...lol I hope I'm not this miserable when I'm in my 60s.
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myfelinepal wrote: »How many calories does crazy burn?
Bingo!0 -
atypicalsmith wrote: »An average 150 pound person burns around 60 calories an hour while sleeping. If that person slept for 24 hours, that would be 1440 calories burned. Technically, if that person was fed 1440 calories by IV, they would be maintaining weight, right?
Yes, I know this is ridiculous. But hear me out. Since most people sleep eight hours and are awake and moving in some form or fashion for 16 hours, it seems like even minimal movement (watching television and changing channels via remote, getting up to eat and/or use the bathroom, playing on the computer, and so forth), would burn at least twice as many calories as sleeping, or 120 an hour for 16 hours. So this adds up to 2,400 calories a day (480 while asleep, and 1,920 while awake) for an extremely sedentary person.
It seems that if we are staying at lower than about 2000 calories a day when we have a much more active lifestyle than watching television and using the bathroom, we should be turning into skin and bones.
I’m sure I’m missing something, so hit me with it!
Where you're going wrong is in your assumption that you burn twice as much awake as asleep for one thing. Your body actually requires relatively little energy to move from point A to point B and a *kitten* ton of energy to make your heart work 24/7, lungs work 24/7, kidneys work 24/7, etc. Basically existing requires a lot of energy (calories).
Basically, someone with a BMR of 1400ish calories who does some general moving about, without deliberate exercise is probably only going to burn maybe 500-800 calories more or thereabouts.
So something like this would be more realistic. 1400 being alive + 500 moving about (NEAT) = 1,900...pretty typical for the average female who doesn't do much in the way of deliberate exercise.
As to why people aren't active people eating 1200 calories per day losing weight like crazy? Well, for one people tend to underestimate their intake...people also tend to overestimate their activity. Add to that, large deficits of energy are a huge stress on the body...stress jacks with your hormones and your hormones are largely responsible for how optimally or not your metabolism is functioning.0 -
myfelinepal wrote: »How many calories does crazy burn?
I wanna know this, too... 'cause I've got a whole lotta crazy to use for good instead of evil!0 -
forgtmenot wrote: »futuremanda wrote: »forgtmenot wrote: »If someone's bmr was 1400 and they ate 1400 calories they'd maintain. If their bmr was not accurate and it was really 1500 when taking into account changing channels on the remote, getting up to go to the bathroom, etc. then they would lose weight, just very slowly. The calories we burn while sleeping are due to energy our body expends while doing necessary functions like digesting food, breathing, pumping blood, processing and removing waste via the kidneys/liver/pancreas, fighting off bacteria, etc. it takes a lot of calories to perform those functions. While a person may not be moving, their body internally is always working hard to stay alive and operate efficiently. It takes very little calories to pick up a remote or walk to the restroom in comparison to how many it takes to pump and circulate approx two thousand gallons of blood through the heart and around the entire body every single day.
You are lumping BMR in with TDEE.
BMR doesn't "take into account" calories burned getting up to go to the bathroom etc. It really is just your base calories, like what you'd burn in a coma. Your lifestyle burns more, as does your exercise, and the three added together give you TDEE.
So no, eating at BMR would not get you maintenance, it would get you weight loss. How quickly you would lose would depend on how active you are.
The point I was trying to make is that it takes a lot more energy to perform vital bodily functions than to get up and go to the restroom.
I do not figure in exercise when using the calculators. I put it at "desk job", because my day to day life is like a desk job and then I add calories burned through exercise on mfp since they fluctuate. I don't think most people exercise the exact same amount and burn the exact same amount of calories every day.
TDEE (maintenance) is a range...it's not an exact number. It's all an estimate whether you're including exercise in your activity level (TDEE) or adding it after the fact with MFP. It all comes out in the wash...TDEE is going to give me roughly the same calories over the course of a week as MFP's method...my burn may not be the same every day, but it doesn't have to be...it nets out over the course of time.0 -
I think the missing part of the equation is that just being alive burns a good number of calories, but exercising/moving doesn't actually burn that many more than just existing. Often way less than I personally expected when I started looking at the chart of calories burned per hour. I guess our bodies are pretty efficient at moving around.0
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If i was to just do my driving and day to day tasks at home ( no dog walking or exercise whatsoever) my calorie burn is just 1680 a day this includes doing about 4000-5000 steps. this is calculated by my vivofit ! Which in affect is only 235 calories more burned per day than the calculation for staying in bed all day , thats how small the deficits can be for a 5ft 1 / 48 year old female / 152lbs.0
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atypicalsmith wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »Is that more active person you're talking about yourself? Or someone else specific?
In general. I'm not unhappy at the rate I'm losing weight, about a pound a week, and I know I gained it a LOT slower than that. But as I was drumming down the numbers, that's when I realized that hey, even SLEEPING burns 1440 calories for a 150 lb person in 24 hours!
On a very lazy sedentary days I only burn around 1600 @ 161lbs. Aren't you just talking about a persons BMR? My TDEE on average is 23000 -
cwolfman13 wrote: »forgtmenot wrote: »futuremanda wrote: »forgtmenot wrote: »If someone's bmr was 1400 and they ate 1400 calories they'd maintain. If their bmr was not accurate and it was really 1500 when taking into account changing channels on the remote, getting up to go to the bathroom, etc. then they would lose weight, just very slowly. The calories we burn while sleeping are due to energy our body expends while doing necessary functions like digesting food, breathing, pumping blood, processing and removing waste via the kidneys/liver/pancreas, fighting off bacteria, etc. it takes a lot of calories to perform those functions. While a person may not be moving, their body internally is always working hard to stay alive and operate efficiently. It takes very little calories to pick up a remote or walk to the restroom in comparison to how many it takes to pump and circulate approx two thousand gallons of blood through the heart and around the entire body every single day.
You are lumping BMR in with TDEE.
BMR doesn't "take into account" calories burned getting up to go to the bathroom etc. It really is just your base calories, like what you'd burn in a coma. Your lifestyle burns more, as does your exercise, and the three added together give you TDEE.
So no, eating at BMR would not get you maintenance, it would get you weight loss. How quickly you would lose would depend on how active you are.
The point I was trying to make is that it takes a lot more energy to perform vital bodily functions than to get up and go to the restroom.
I do not figure in exercise when using the calculators. I put it at "desk job", because my day to day life is like a desk job and then I add calories burned through exercise on mfp since they fluctuate. I don't think most people exercise the exact same amount and burn the exact same amount of calories every day.
TDEE (maintenance) is a range...it's not an exact number. It's all an estimate whether you're including exercise in your activity level (TDEE) or adding it after the fact with MFP. It all comes out in the wash...TDEE is going to give me roughly the same calories over the course of a week as MFP's method...my burn may not be the same every day, but it doesn't have to be...it nets out over the course of time.
That's not exactly correct. TDEE is an exact number, but changes from one day to the next and we don't have a good way to measure it. So we estimate it or use some means to calculate it based on averages.0 -
dondotwinks wrote: »If i was to just do my driving and day to day tasks at home ( no dog walking or exercise whatsoever) my calorie burn is just 1680 a day this includes doing about 4000-5000 steps. this is calculated by my vivofit ! Which in affect is only 235 calories more burned per day than the calculation for staying in bed all day , thats how small the deficits can be for a 5ft 1 / 48 year old female / 152lbs.
Thanks for being the first person to explain it! Only 235 more than sleeping, wow. And that doesn't include exercise or (duh) overeating! Now that I think of it, when I walk a mile, it only burns about 70 calories, and I don't know if that 70 calories is included in the calories I would normally burn if I hadn't walked or not . . . . but that's another subject!0 -
atypicalsmith wrote: »atypicalsmith wrote: »Still doesn't explain why a more active person who eats 1200 calories or less isn't losing weight like crazy.
I am.
Cool!
Well ... 1250. I net 1250 every day, and I've been losing approx. 1 kg/week.
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Above all, you have to burn 3500 cals to lose one pound. If you could eat and burn 1440 calories in a day, you would maintain, not lose anything. Thats why exercising to boost your calorie burn to 2000+ a day you'll burn your average 1-2 pounds a week. Its all science! In and out.0
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atypicalsmith wrote: »dondotwinks wrote: »If i was to just do my driving and day to day tasks at home ( no dog walking or exercise whatsoever) my calorie burn is just 1680 a day this includes doing about 4000-5000 steps. this is calculated by my vivofit ! Which in affect is only 235 calories more burned per day than the calculation for staying in bed all day , thats how small the deficits can be for a 5ft 1 / 48 year old female / 152lbs.
Thanks for being the first person to explain it! Only 235 more than sleeping, wow. And that doesn't include exercise or (duh) overeating! Now that I think of it, when I walk a mile, it only burns about 70 calories, and I don't know if that 70 calories is included in the calories I would normally burn if I hadn't walked or not . . . . but that's another subject!
I explained it on Page 1, figuring you've been around long enough to know that TDEE = total daily energy expenditure. Several other people also pointed out that you were thinking we burn more than we actually do, the vast majority being from just performing those functions that keep us alive.Nony_Mouse wrote: »You're overestimating how much people burn just going about their day to day 'stuff' I think. Let's take a hypothetical woman of my age, height and weight, but a bit more active ('moderate' on Scooby). Plugging all that in gives our hypothetical woman a TDEE of 2118. If she ate 1200 calories a day she would lose just under 2lb per week (I can't be bothered doing the calculation to be exact).0 -
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