1200/day calories

brandylj80 wrote: »

I used the BMR calculator on MFP and it calculates to be 1527 but only asks for age, weight and height. Quite a bit of a difference. I do not have my exercise calculated in to eat because it seemed MFP calculates calories burned quite a bit higher than what they actually are so if I do exercise I give myself a couple hundred calories play room. I am looking to lose 38 lbs and chose aggressive loss.

Choosing an aggressive rate of loss when you don't have much to lose (as you did) will often result in a goal that is lower than your BMR. You need a high deficit to lose a lot of weight quickly and not everyone has the body weight to support that high of a deficit. I recommend choosing a more reasonable goal.

Set it to "Lose one pound per week."

Be honest and as accurate as possible on the "Activity Level" (your daily routine.)

Log your Food and Exercise as accurately as you can for 4-6 weeks. Adjust based on your results AFTER 4-6 weeks. It's the same experiment we all have to run.

Let's be sure we're all using the same terms for the same things:

BMR = Basal metabolic rate, roughly the calories you'd burn if you stayed in bed all day doing nothing (REE, resting energy expenditure, and RMR, resting metabolic rate, are something slightly different, but close)

NEAT = Non exercise activity thermogenesis, the number of calories you burn doing all of the things you do - job, home chores, non-exercise hobbies/play, etc. - not including intentional exercise. NEAT also includes BMR. NEAT is the number MFP estimates from your profile settings, then takes off some calories to create a deficit based on your weight loss target rate, and gives you as a daily goal.

TDEE = Total daily energy expenditure, which is NEAT plus intentional exercise, a.k.a. all of the calories you burn in a day doing everything you do.

BMR/REE/RMR can be measured in a lab (still subject to some error/variation, but it's a measurement). Most of us work from an estimated BMR (from a so-called "calculator"), not a measured one.

NEAT and TDEE can't be measured in any practical way (you'd have to be locked in a metabolic chamber, and they're different every day in practice anyway). We all use estimates from these either from the so-called "calculators" (to start) or from our own experiential data (once we have enough to make realistic estimates).

+1 to the idea that 2 pounds a week is too fast a loss rate with only 38 pounds to lose, unless goal weight is unusually high for your size. Losing too fast not only risks setbacks from unsustainability, it risks:

* losing more than the minimum of lean tissue (like muscle) alongside fat,
* causing potential fatigue/weakness (that can reduce effective calorie deficit and slow weight loss, through fatigue-induced inactivity),
* makes it more difficult to achieve adequate nutrition, and
* creates physical stress that can increase water weight retention and even compromise one's health.