Maybe s tupid question

Look up TDEE.

Ok, I hope this breakdown is helpful in answering your question.

Your calories burned each day are your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE). So the equation would look like this:

TDEE= BMR + Exercise + Daily Activity (non-exercise physical movement). In maintenance, you would eat the number of calories equal to your TDEE. For weight loss, you would eat less than your TDEE in order to create a calorie deficit (eating less than you burn).

MyFitnessPal's calorie estimate is BMR + Daily Activity - Calorie Deficit = Calorie Goal. MFP expects you to add in your exercise calories and eat those back, because you are already eating less than you burn with the built in calorie deficit.

You do not need to burn off all the calories you intake, because you need calories to fuel your BMR and daily activity, as well as any exercise. Your calorie goal will change over time as you lose weight.

This is how I do it -

Home > Settings > Update diet/fitness profile

Make sure your information is all accurate and then you save. Then:

Home > Goals

You'll see your target calories and macros. It's best to pick sedentary activity and add your exercise calories manually so that your calories aren't over-estimated.

Not at a computer so not sure which BMR equation you're using.

You got the theory right... BMR x activity factor = tdee. These are of course estimates.

And some start from BMR and some start from RMR which are sort of thought interchangable; but aren't quite the same as BMR would be slightly lower than RMR.

In any case...the app uses a formula that is considered fairly accurate (Mifflin St Jeor's formula) for BMR and then assigns an activity factor of 1.25, 1.4, 1.6 and 1.8 to the various levels.

Don't overthink it.

Start with a level you think represents reality and a weight loss target that doesn't exceed 25% of your expected burn for the day.

For most people that will be a target deficit of ~500 Cal. Obese and more active people may correctly be achieving tdees such that 750 or 1000 Cal deficits make sense.

Start eating and logging and monitor what you log as intakes and expenditures vs your trending weight via your own averaging or an appropriate web site or app (trendweight.com, weightgrapher.com, libra android, happy scale iPhone)

Compare your results over 2-3 weeks (male) 4-6 weeks (female) to account for water retention caused by hormonal fluctuation, and adjust your deficit or logging or both to account for reality!

Easy Peasy

milesy1971 wrote: »

thanks......i think my biggest problem with tracking calories is the nightly family meal - the wife cooks normally so to work out calories per serve always seems problematic

im sure others have the same issue.any advise on how you handle this?

It's OK to take swags at such meals. You'll soon discover if you are over or under estimating based on your actual weight loss and can adjust your portion sizes.

You could actually log all the ingredients in the recipe Builder comma measure the final quantity of output comma and therefore calculate the calories of the portion that you measure out for your self. That is what I tend to do but I like to be as accurate as I can with my measurements, something which is not a universal requirement for success. On the other hand if results are not happening as per expectations being more accurate may increase your chances of achieving them.

Hoshiko wrote: »

milesy1971 wrote: »

swags?

Scientific Wild *kitten* Guess? Is my guess.

Depending on your wife's calorie counting/estimation skills you could also ask her to help you keep track or estimate the overall calorie count of the meal, and use that to help you figure out a ballpark figure for your serving. That way, when you search the database for similar foods you have some idea of what to choose.

Yes, SWAG is your best guess.
I often just pick the most reasonable generic dish entry I can find in the database. It saves much time versus entering a new recipe for each meal. You can fine tune it by tweaking the serving size when you think the calories are a bit off.

OP, just download myfitness (MFP) onto ur phone n set up a profile. MFP will work out the numbers for u n spits out a number for ur daily calorie allowance. then u just log ur food intake as accurately as u can n maybe do some exercises n the weight will come off.

it will most likely not work if u and/or ur chef is not willing to contribute in logging ur food. its like playing the piano. while a small percentage of people can learn it by ears without lessons, most of us has to take lessons. weight loss is the same. a few of us can do it successfully by feel n eyeballing everything while most of us has to use a tool like MFP n do the homework consistently.

good luck!