Your opinion on BMR and muscle gain

serenitywsu
serenitywsu Posts: 22 Member
in Food and Nutrition
So I'm currently participating in this workout scholarship. They tested my body fat, weight, took measurements. My BMR came out 1320 a day (Makes sense, I'm 5'3, 19, female, and 136lb). They told me if I wanted to gain muscle, eat 500 plus that. If I wanted to lose, eat at that and eat what I exercise.
What is your opinion? Everywhere I've read/calculated it says I need to eat at least 1950 to gain muscle. Can I gain muscle and lose weight while eating say, 1600 with the exercise I do? Do you rely on BMR or some other method? I only want to lose maybe around 10lbs, and this is a 12-week program. I'm currently doing water polo for 2hrs three times a week, and lifting weights 30-60 minutes on the days I'm not doing polo.

Replies

  • AnvilHead
    AnvilHead Posts: 18,343 Member
    You don't calculate your deficit/surplus off BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate), you calculate it off TDEE (Total Daily Activity Expenditure). BMR is the calories your body would use to maintain basic functions of life if you were lying in bed in a coma; TDEE is BMR plus all your daily activities (walking around, going to work/school, etc.) and exercise.

    I'd think that people running some kind of workout scholarship where they're running all those tests, taking measurements, etc. would know the difference. It's actually kind of scary that they don't.
  • serenitywsu
    serenitywsu Posts: 22 Member
    AnvilHead wrote: »
    You don't calculate your deficit/surplus off BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate), you calculate it off TDEE (Total Daily Activity Expenditure). BMR is the calories your body would use to maintain basic functions of life if you were lying in bed in a coma; TDEE is BMR plus all your daily activities (walking around, going to work/school, etc.) and exercise.

    I'd think that people running some kind of workout scholarship where they're running all those tests, taking measurements, etc. would know the difference. It's actually kind of scary that they don't.

    Its students who are working on their degree project I think. I'm not sure exactly who's running it, but regardless the numbers didn't seem quite right.
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
    edited January 2016
    If your BMR is 1320 your sedentary TDEE would be under 1600 so eating 1320 + 500 = 1820 would put you in a surplus for building up your reserves of glycogen and fat. Whether you build muscle is a separate question.

    The original numbers are OK, eating at your BMR gives you a small deficit from TDEE.

    (BMR has nothing to do with a coma either, JFI)

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