How to know your caloric needs?

There are metabolic lab tests where they measure the gaseous products in what you exhale, under specific test conditions. That will provide a good measurement of your resting metabolic rate (RMR) during the test. RMR is quite close to BMR.

These tests cost money; how much varies. Look for a sports lab or metabolic lab at a university or major health center near you, see if they offer the test. Make sure that's the test they do, the breathing one: Many places claim to test BMR with a bioimpedance device (electrical current thingie). Those are very much an indirect estimate.

Other methods of determining Basal Metabolic rate are just estimates, probably close enough for most people. MFP has a BMR calculator (so called, really an estimator); so do other sites on the web.

MFP's is here:
https://www.myfitnesspal.com/tools/bmr-calculator

All of them use a research-based formula that will tell you what's average for people similar to you. People don't vary hugely (small standard deviation), very few people are extremely far from average.

Why do you want to know your BMR? It's really not useful for weight management purposes. What matters is your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure). That's how many calories you actually need to be alive, leading your real life. You can get a reasonably accurate estimate of that by tracking your eating carefully for multiple weeks, plus your body weight, then doing some simple arithmetic.

Neither RMR nor BMR is the amount you'd burn if not very active. More info here about BMR, RMR, and how they're estimated.

https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/difference-between-bmr-and-rmr

joowelz wrote: »

Hi @AnnPT. Maybe it's BMR then and I just got the term wrong. I am frustrated with how hungry I am on this medication and refuse to believe that my caloric limit is 1600-1800 when I want to keep eating closer to 2,000 calories. I'm wondering if my metabolism has sped up, making me hungrier. Today was a good example. I weighed my dinner - 130 grams of basmati brown rice, one fillet of highliner breaded haddock and a spinach and carrot salad with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and within an hour I was hungry again. So I ate another 70 grams of rice. After couple of hours after that, I had 175 g of plain Greek yogurt with monk fruit sweetener and some frozen blueberries. I feel good - not stuffed, just satisfied - but my calories are now well over 2000! This is driving me crazy. There is only so much green vegetables a person can eat and they don't fill you up the way rice, cheese, nuts and cookies do.

I'm very doubtful that a medication would speed up your metabolism. They can increase appetite, however. I'm not expert, but I believe the mechanism for that appetite increase is typically via hunger/satiation hormones rather than faster metabolism.

If metabolism gets faster by X calories per day, and we ate X more calories per day, that doesn't change our calorie deficit or surplus. For example, if we burn 1500, eat 1500, and maintain a steady weight; then take a medication that speeds metabolism and burn 500 more, so burn 2000, but also eat 2000 because of increased hunger, we should hold a steady weight in both cases.

If a medication spikes appetite, but doesn't speed up metabolism, that's when weight gain (or slowed loss) can happen.

I don't know of any safe medications that meaningfully speed metabolisms - if they existed, people might take them for weight loss. There are quite a few medications that increase appetite (without an equal effect on metabolism), including some that are prescribed on purpose for people who need to gain weight.

I can't advise you about what to eat, beyond what I said on your other thread, i.e., https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10861546/please-review-my-food-diary-on-april-4

From what you write, the things that you find filling (rice, cheese, nuts, cookies), I don't, mostly. I find protein and veggies/fruits most filling. (This is not a criticism: People tend to vary lots in what they find filling, just as individuals vary in what they find tasty. That's to me just normal variability between people, not a criticism . . . but it means I'm not much able to give you advice, because we're different in that way. Unlike you (as it sound like), I can eat quite the volume of veggies: I try to eat 800+ grams most days, and it's not unusual for me to eat 400g+ of something like broccoli or cauliflower at a time.)

I'm truly sorry that this is being a struggle for you, and wish I could help. I hope you can find a solution!

Not seeing any benefit in getting your RMR (resting calories) tested unless you are actually at rest all day, every day.
RMR is just part of your caloric needs and for weight management you need to work from your total needs.

What actually happens to your weight when you consistently eat 2000cals a day over a period of several weeks?



Assuming you have been on this medication for four weeks or more if you want an estimate of your weight maintenance calories corrected for your personal logging inaccuracy (all those cup and spoon measurements for example) do this:

Add up all your calories eaten over last four weeks.
Add 3500 for each pound of weight lost in that time (or subtract 3500 for each pound gained) to that total.
Divide that number by 28.

joowelz wrote: »

Are there any digital devices that can take your metabolism measurements throughout the day?

No, not accurately, outside of a metabolic lab.

I still don't understand why you think your metabolism has sped up?

You know that your appetite has increased.

I still don't understand why you think that that metabolic increase is or might be the cause of increased appetite.

From another thread**, IIRC, you've seen your scale weight increase. Given details there, there's potential that at least some of that gain is water retention. Water retention increase is a common side effect of some medications.

** This thread: https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10860487/devastated-9lbs-gain-from-antidepressant-after-reaching-my-goal

In that thread, you report gaining 9 pounds in 6 weeks, while eating around 2000 calories because of increased appetite, when it sounds as if you feel that your maintenance calories are 1600. (The timeline is a little unclear to me, because you posted on March 30, saying you'd started the medication because of events in March, and the medication caused gain, so was the timeline for the gain actually 6 weeks?)

To gain 9 pounds of fat in 6 weeks, you'd need roughly a daily surplus of 750 calories, but the difference between 1600 and 2000 is 400, not enough to account for 9 pounds of fat gain (unless your metabolism has slowed down by an improbably large amount, or some other calorie burn has decreased). I'm having trouble making that math add up.

If your calorie intake has increased due to increased appetite, and you continue to gain weight steadily over a long period, your eating has outpaced your metabolism + activity calorie burn. That would be true whether your metabolism has sped up, or stayed the same.

Appetite is a variable independent of metabolic rate, i.e., we know it's possible to have cravings/appetite beyond our calorie needs. (Some medications can trigger that.)

I gather (from the thread I linked above), that you feel you'd been maintaining at 1600 or thereabouts. At 5'6" and 163 pounds (numbers from the other thread), a TDEE calculator (Sailrabbit) estimates your maintenance calories at 1700-1800 if sedentary. Both Sailrabbit and MFP estimate your BMR/RMR (so something close to "metabolism") as something more like 1400-1500. In the diary day you asked us to look at, you report jogging for half an hour at 5mph, accounting for that as 100 calories (which ExRx.net suggests would be 250+ net calories), and there are other implications in your posts that your activity level is above sedentary. Individuals differ, and I don't know what your job or daily life are like, but there's at least a chance that 1600 is below your actual maintenance calories.

When eating below maintenance calories for a period of months, some people experience appetite increase. When newly at actual maintenance calories, based on people's posts here, it's not unusual to experience appetite increase. (The implication in one of your posts is that your intended calorie restriction ended in February, which would imply maintenance intention in February or March.) So, for those and other reasons, it's possible that your appetite increase isn't from the medication, or not entirely from the medication. (FWIW, it seems more probable on the surface of it that the medication is a factor in the increased appetite, as you believe.)

Some medications can reduce or increase spontaneous movement in some people. Spontaneous movement - things like fidgeting (or not) but other things as well - can make two similar people have different calorie needs by up to low hundreds of calories daily, according to research. Spontaneous movement is not part of metabolic rate.

Some medications can decrease sleep quality/quantity, perhaps subtly. Decreased sleep quality/quantity can increase appetite, while simultaneously reducing spontaneous activity.

If your calorie intake has increased because your calorie need has increased (because metabolic rate has increased, or for any other reason), and your increased eating does not exceed your increased calorie need, your weight will at most stay stable (within normal daily fluctuations) over a multi-week period.

Your weight will only increase over that multi-week period if your calorie intake due to increased appetite is enough to exceed your all-source calorie needs.

In that context, why is metabolic rate important information?

There are many possible explanations for increased appetite, and many possible explanations for weight gain. Why are you narrowing down on metabolic rate increase, which - to me - seems like one of the objectively less likely explanations for either?

Again, I truly sympathize. I'd like to help. It makes sense for you to be forming hypotheses about your recent unwanted scale-weight gain, and exploring those. Unless I'm missing something, I just don't see "metabolism increased, so appetite increased more than metabolism" as the most probable explanation of scale weight gain in the context of resuming a medication.

joowelz wrote: »

In his book Make the Connection, Bob Greene (Oprah's trainer) says overweight people must learn how to recognize true hunger and eventually - after a period of calorie tracking - start eating mindfully to satisfy their true hunger, rather than count calories forever. When I first followed his program 15 years ago, I lost a considerable amount of weight and was fit. I believe his approach to weight loss is wise and holds true even today. He also talks about how recognizing the signs of hunger and satiety should be the cues that tell us when and how much to eat. Given this, I am wondering if my increased hunger is a reflection of my body's changing calorie needs. That's all.

@AnnPT77 You wrote: "I gather (from the thread I linked above), that you feel you'd been maintaining at 1600 or thereabouts. At 5'6" and 163 pounds (numbers from the other thread), a TDEE calculator (Sailrabbit) estimates your maintenance calories at 1700-1800 if sedentary"

Nope, my weight loss calorie target has been 1,600. My goal is to lose a half a pound per week. For maintenance (which I have not done yet, because as soon as I hit my goal weight, I went on the antidepressant [eschitalopram] and gained weight), I would target 1600 + 250 = 1850 calories.

I exercise regularly 3-4 times per week for between 30-60 minutes. My workouts consist of running at a pace of 5mph - 6mph, online HIIT routines, aerobics and stretching. The rest of the time I am sedentary. Desk job, working from home, etc.

I am just trying to get ahead of this recent weight gain by figuring out a strategy based on facts. If I do trial and error for a few more weeks, I could gain even more weight if my tactics are wrong.

You are right that the 9 lbs weight gain 6 weeks after starting the medication was partly water because my most recent weigh-in showed only a 6 lbs weight gain. To me this is logical. Between September and March, I reached my goal of 159 lbs, mainly through calorie counting and aerobic exercise. Then I had a serious anxiety attack in March, which necessitated going on the medication eschitalopram. During the first two weeks on eschitolapram, you actually lose your appetite so my weight dropped to 157 lbs. After week two, your appetite comes back (thankfully), and as your anxiety starts decreasing and your body feels more relaxed/balanced over the next four weeks, your appetite increases more than before you started the meds. I am currently 163 lbs. I got this way because I have not been able to feel satiated with the same amount of food as before the medication. I feel hungrier, and when I feel hungry like that, I'm lightheaded, irritable and can't relax. A 100 gram serving of rice is no longer enough, I need much more. Greek yogurt with berries doesn't fill me up anymore, I need that spoonful of fatty peanut butter to go with it to feel like my stomach is filled.

This is very frustrating and distressing because I have been on and off antidepressants for years and each time I go on, my body blows up from a size 10 to a size 14. Mind you, I have never fought against the weight gain THIS hard before. I just don't have a precedent to go by. I don't know what I can do, if anything, to reach and stay below 160 lbs while taking eschitalopram for the rest of the my life.

Does that make sense?

Yes and no.

What makes sense: Taking needed medications. That you're experiencing increased appetite, and finding that challenging when you'd like to maintain a lower weight. That you feel frustrated and distressed by struggling with these issues. That you'd like a solution, and soon would be better than later.

What doesn't make sense: Bob Greene's very generic advice about appetite in overweight but otherwise healthy-ish people being applied to special cases (such as potentially medication-triggered appetite increase) where appetite and satiety clues can absolutely mislead.

You say "If I do trial and error for a few more weeks, I could gain even more weight if my tactics are wrong." That's true.

I'm not sure what "trial and error" means to you, exactly, in that context. But if you believe your maintenance calories are 1850, and you eat 2000, you'd expect to gain just about 1.3 pounds in 30 days. That is not a lot.

What if you let yourself eat the extra temporarily, but work on figuring out whether other changes in eating patterns (or other factors) can improve your satiety so that you can inch the calories back down again? (By other factors, I mean things like sleep quality/quantity, exercise (with special attention to managing intensity, because intensity can increase appetite), stress management techniques, etc.) You got quite a few suggestions on your other thread about eating pattern changes you could try. Have you tried them, or do you just somehow know they won't work, or . . . ?

Also, talk with your doctor.

You thought you'd gained 9 pounds. Now you think 3 pounds of that was water, because you lost it again. Are you sure that the remaining 6 pounds, or a reasonable chunk of it, is not water? If you went for 6 weeks, eating 150 calories above your maintenance calories, you'd expect to gain at most about 1.8 pounds of fat. I know that's an approximation, but 1.8 is pretty far from 6.

I don't know what you should do, and - while I 100% am not in a position where I want to be telling you how you should feel - I'm concerned that you may be feeling stress disproportionate to the probabilities in the situation. Unhelpfully, stress is another thing that can increase water retention.

joowelz wrote: »

@AnnPT77 It's interesting you brought up exercise intensity. I try to continually up my jogging intensity because Bob Greene's book says that as your miles per hour increase, your weight will drop. It definitely makes me ravenous though. According to Greene, you jack up your metabolism with each intense aerobic workout, so you can eat a bit more.

Do you recommend I slow down my running?

Well, he's a professional and I'm not. (All I have is the education I got for rowing-coaching certification, plus self-study.)

What I think is that in practice, a lot of these questions are more practical than theoretical, i.e., that we can experiment and figure out how things work for us. If you run slower, and your appetite is less, maybe you're further ahead in all-day calorie balance?

I can go into some of the theory, but that's going to be an essay:

Objectively, miles per hour doesn't directly determine body weight, and it's bizarre to me that anyone would say that. What's true is that if you run for half an hour, running fast will burn more calories than running slowly (at the same body weight). Obviously, if you burn 100 calories more while running, but eat 100 calories more than you used to, there's no change in calorie balance so no weight change generated. Your weight doesn't automatically drop from running faster; it drops if you burn more calories running than you eat because of any appetite spike from that running.

It think it can't be simultaneously true that running faster drops body weight, but jacks up metabolism so you can eat more . . . unless it's perfectly calibrated so that you only want to eat an extra amount that's still less than the extra burn. That doesn't seem plausible, to me, from my own (non-running) exercise experience.

FWIW, the ExRx running calculator estimates that at my body weight, running for half an hour at 7 mph would burn 161 more calories than running for half an hour at 6 mph. That's a meaningful number of calories, around 7% of my TDEE. You'd have to tell me how much harder it would be to run at 7 vs. 6 mph, because I'm not a runner.

There's a kernel of truth to the idea that increased exercise increases metabolism, but there are several catches in practice. In other words, that's an oversimplification, too, and maybe misleading.

Minute per minute, holding exercise type and body weight constant, more intense exercise has a higher EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption) compared to lower intensity exercise. That means when you stop doing exercise (in either case) you burn calories at a higher than resting rate for a while after exercise, and that amount is bigger for the more intense exercise.

But three catches:
1. The extra calorie expenditure is estimated as a percentage of calories burned during the exercise session.
2. Intense exercise has a higher fatigue penalty, i.e., we can be inclined to rest more (maybe subtly) during our day after X minutes of intense exercise vs. X minutes of moderate exercise.
3. Some people find that intense appetite spikes appetite more than moderate exercise, or that some types of intense exercise do. (This seems to be somewhat individual.)

A person can exercise for a longer time period at moderate intensity than they can at high intensity (this is just a physiological truth, true of everyone from beginners to elite athletes: The difference is what objective intensity counts as "intense", i.e., a pace that would be very intense for me would be super-easy for an elite athlete in my sport).

EPOC varies with exercise type, exercise intensity, and exercise pacing (like intervals vs. steady state), so it gets complicated. Because of that, I can't give you a real numeric example, but I'll say that among the highest EPOC estimates I've seen are around 15%. In other words, 15 calories of EPOC benefit for every 100 calories of exercise. Now, there is some EPOC from less intense exercise, but even if we pretend it's zero, we're not talking numerically large differences here, from common amounts of exercise.

Making up numbers, if someone goes all out, hardest effort they can sustain for X minutes, and burns 250 calories, the EPOC at 15% is 37.5 calories. They can't go longer in that session, because we defined it as "maximum effort for time period", and presumably they'd be pretty wiped out.

Would they be so wiped out they'd rest more later during their day, such as by putting off some non-urgent but effortful errand or chore, watching TV instead of playing frisbee with the kids, go to bed a little early, whatever? They might. Would that wipe out the EPOC? Could it wipe out the EPOC plus some of the exercise calories? Hard to say.

What if they're one of the people whose appetite increases when they do intense exercise? If their goal is weight loss, will they eat more after the exercise, counter some of the EPOC benefits or even the EPOC plus some of the exercise calorie benefit? They might.

In contrast, let's pretend there's some manageable exercise they could easily do for the same X minutes, maybe only burn 100 calories. Whatever that is, we're managing the intensity so that they don't get much fatigue penalty, or much appetite spike.

For that person to come out calorie-neutral in body weight terms between the two scenarios, in all-day calories, they'd have to rest 187.5 calories more, or eat 187.5 calories more or some combination adding up to 187.5 calories. If that happens, they've wiped out the advantage of the more intense session, in weight management terms.

On top of that, it's very possible that they could do that same moderate exercise for a longer time period, maybe even 2 times X minutes, if they had the time, and burn 200 calories, narrowing the caloric gap between moderate and intense exercise that way. I'm not saying a person would or should do that, just that it's more possible to go longer with less-intense exercise, if that's a fun thing to do. The duration of intense exercise is more self-limiting, because intense things can only go on for so long, physiologically.

(I don't think the 100 vs. 250 for the same time period is a ridiculous gap in favor of the moderate exercise, by the way. About the maximum calorie burn I could really get in a solid half hour on a rowing machine as a li'l ol' lady lightweight rower, but not a pathetically bad one, would burn around 290 calories at my body weight. I'd be pretty wiped out after, probably rest more that day. In contrast, half an hour at a 200 calorie per half hour pace would be pretty manageable, no big fatigue penalty; I could probably double the time and still be OK.)

You mention feeling ravenous after running faster, and I know runners talk about "runger" happening that way. Do you have any reason to believe the appetite spike is proportionate to the increased calorie burn? Personally, for the exercises that have actually spiked my appetite, I haven't seen it be proportionate. For example, strength training seems to spike my appetite, but strength training burns relatively few calories. (I've figured out how to manage that spike better with timing of snacks, BTW.)

So: From what I understand, there is a "metabolic increase" of a sort from intense exercise, but it tends to be numerically small. There's also a fatigue penalty from intense exercise, which may or may not counter-balance (arithmetically wipe out) the "metabolic" benefit, and in extreme cases, maybe even some of the benefit from calories burned during the exercise. If the intense exercise also spikes appetite disproportionate to the calories it burned, that's a consideration.

Personally, I don't think there's a single objective answer to any of this. I think it's sort of an "experiment and find your personal sweet spot" thing, from a calorie standpoint.

Big caveat: Calorie burn isn't the only important thing about exercise, and in my person view not even the most important reason to exercise. Going at maximum intensity all of the time is IMU 100% not the best way to improve fitness. No elite athlete trains that way, so why would us everyday Joes and Janes do that? All maximum intensity all the time increases injury risk, besides . . . and for me, it gets to be non-fun to be pushing, pushing, pushing every. single. time. (Especially when I know it's not a good route to fitness or health!)

joowelz wrote: »

In his book Make the Connection, Bob Greene (Oprah's trainer) says overweight people must learn how to recognize true hunger and eventually - after a period of calorie tracking - start eating mindfully to satisfy their true hunger, rather than count calories forever. When I first followed his program 15 years ago, I lost a considerable amount of weight and was fit. I believe his approach to weight loss is wise and holds true even today. He also talks about how recognizing the signs of hunger and satiety should be the cues that tell us when and how much to eat. Given this, I am wondering if my increased hunger is a reflection of my body's changing calorie needs. That's all.

@AnnPT77 You wrote: "I gather (from the thread I linked above), that you feel you'd been maintaining at 1600 or thereabouts. At 5'6" and 163 pounds (numbers from the other thread), a TDEE calculator (Sailrabbit) estimates your maintenance calories at 1700-1800 if sedentary"

Nope, my weight loss calorie target has been 1,600. My goal is to lose a half a pound per week. For maintenance (which I have not done yet, because as soon as I hit my goal weight, I went on the antidepressant [eschitalopram] and gained weight), I would target 1600 + 250 = 1850 calories.

I exercise regularly 3-4 times per week for between 30-60 minutes. My workouts consist of running at a pace of 5mph - 6mph, online HIIT routines, aerobics and stretching. The rest of the time I am sedentary. Desk job, working from home, etc.

I am just trying to get ahead of this recent weight gain by figuring out a strategy based on facts. If I do trial and error for a few more weeks, I could gain even more weight if my tactics are wrong.

You are right that the 9 lbs weight gain 6 weeks after starting the medication was partly water because my most recent weigh-in showed only a 6 lbs weight gain. To me this is logical. Between September and March, I reached my goal of 159 lbs, mainly through calorie counting and aerobic exercise. Then I had a serious anxiety attack in March, which necessitated going on the medication eschitalopram. During the first two weeks on eschitolapram, you actually lose your appetite so my weight dropped to 157 lbs. After week two, your appetite comes back (thankfully), and as your anxiety starts decreasing and your body feels more relaxed/balanced over the next four weeks, your appetite increases more than before you started the meds. I am currently 163 lbs. I got this way because I have not been able to feel satiated with the same amount of food as before the medication. I feel hungrier, and when I feel hungry like that, I'm lightheaded, irritable and can't relax. A 100 gram serving of rice is no longer enough, I need much more. Greek yogurt with berries doesn't fill me up anymore, I need that spoonful of fatty peanut butter to go with it to feel like my stomach is filled.

This is very frustrating and distressing because I have been on and off antidepressants for years and each time I go on, my body blows up from a size 10 to a size 14. Mind you, I have never fought against the weight gain THIS hard before. I just don't have a precedent to go by. I don't know what I can do, if anything, to reach and stay below 160 lbs while taking eschitalopram for the rest of the my life.

Does that make sense?

An increase in appetite isn't necessarily a change in your body's calorie needs. If it related to medication, it is most definitely not. Medications can mess with hormones which can lead to increased appetite...this has nothing to do with your body's actual calorie needs. If you've been gaining weight, you are eating beyond your body's calorie needs.

The only really substantial change in your body's calorie needs are going to be derived from a change in size (bigger person requires more calories than smaller person), or a change in exercise or overall activity. BMR is pretty much a static thing...it changes slightly with age, but that's down, not up.

If you've been gaining weight, you need to eat less, period. You are exceeding your body's calorie needs. Your increased appetite is most likely due to your medication...it doesn't alter your calorie needs...if *kitten* with your hormones.