Brand new: help with BMR/TDEE/diet calculations

mizzpfft
mizzpfft Posts: 8 Member
in Getting Started
Hi,

I am turning 50 soon and decided I wanted to get stronger, feel better and look great. Interested in gaining muscle and losing fat, but not large amount of weight. I also need a plan and an understanding of how to best go about this, because I have 'dieted'/eg restricted calories randomly for much of my life, with little to show for it. I just sprang for a DEXA scan and RMR/BMR testing, both of which were super helpful to see where I am (including bone density), but not sure where to go from here.

Current Stats

H/W: 5.2"; 126 lbs (goal--no number, but changes in below)

Body fat: 31.5% (goal between 24-26 % )

Here's the kicker:

My RMR was 986, which was calculated to be LOW (14% lower than expected), and the TDEE with 5 days/week weights plus cardio exercise (my *new* goal) is 1331.

My resting heart rate was also 49, so it was suggested I get a thyroid panel but assuming the above numbers are accurate, is there a way (besides gaining muscle) of raising my RMR? The person doing the scan asked me what I ate in a day and when I told her she said I was not eating enough, but if that were the case, wouldn't I be underweight??!!

(For what its worth, I generally have only coffee in the am, eat a light lunch and a moderate dinner--probably average around 1200 which is probably my tdee with the current level of exercise. However I have done very restricted diets (like during my 20s, when I was underweight) and times I go on vacation and eat fries and drink margaritas:).

I guess what I am asking is:

do I just cut down to the bare bones diet (TDEE minus 250 calories, which is 1081) to lose fat?

Or, should I first focus on weight training and adding protein (and calories??) to gain muscle first in the hopes of raising my RMR?

or both??!!







Replies

  • nanastaci2020
    nanastaci2020 Posts: 1,072 Member
    edited July 2020
    Not an area I am really familiar with but it sounds like you may want to do cycles where you alternate between bulking & cutting fat.

    Structured strength training program, where you alternate between eating at a slight surplus (+200-300 perhaps) for 5-6 weeks then eat at a slight deficit for 5-6 weeks. Repeat.

    You build muscle during the surplus and then lose fat during the deficit. Perhaps hang around in the strength training subforum - there are bound to be threads on this.

    Or eat at current maintenance, focus on strength training, and see how you feel about the changes in body composition to decide your next step.
  • mizzpfft
    mizzpfft Posts: 8 Member
    thanks, I will look into the strength program/forum
  • Semele0
    Semele0 Posts: 114 Member
    Hi, I'm not very familiar with RMR and similar calculation.

    But being of very similar height and initial weight maybe I can help you the same: one thing I noticed is that I was struggling at the beginning to understand why I gained weight because if I calculated what I ate in an average day I was around 1300 kcal. The mistake here was that my "average" day was more correctly my "ideal" day, meaning that I calculated what I would eat in a day where I had full control over my food and no special event etc. And those days were not the majority...
    Then I started to log everything I was eating for a couple of weeks, without trying to restrict, and I started to notice that I one day a colleague offered me a sweet, another day I ate an aperitivo or a gelato with some friends after work, another day we didn't want to cook and ordered a pizza, and in the end, my calories intake in average was around 1500, not 1300. It may seem a small difference, but this allowed me to understand that 1500 is my maintenance value, which confirmed online calculation which gave me values from 1400 to 1700.

    So maybe try to really understand what you eat on average for some time before setting your goal, to check what you eating is like when you don't restrict. Then I would suggest not to restrict too much (1080 is really low) and to start slow, but cutting some calories from the amount you are eating right now.

    Obviously doing weight training and workout will help you in raising your calorie expenditure, but I think it will be a long process, so if I were you I would like to start restricting a bit...

    To summarize, I would log everything without restricting for two weeks, while starting doing exercise and also try to understand how much I can do and what I would burn while exercising.
    Then I would start to gradually and slowly restricting from the average amount you are eating right now, without going under 1200 kcal, increase the amount of protein, and keep weight training.
    Then check your weight and see if you are going down or staying the same, and at what speed, and then eventually reevaluate your amount.

    It is a trial and error process.

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