My basal metabolic rate is 1238. My workout burns approx 400 calories. Will I lose weight?

aleena2975
aleena2975 Posts: 31 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
On a 1900 calorie diet?

When I adjust my protein fat and carbs goal myfitnesspal tells me to eat 1900 calories. With my exercise burn it's gone up to about 2300 calories. Will I still lose weight with this deficit?
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Answers

  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,292 Member
    edited May 15
    Go back and re-do the MFP setup forgetting your desired protein and other macro goals.

    Just mentally keep your protein goal in mind as a minimum and eat it regardless of your allowance for protein on MFP. Consider your minimum fat level for health (which tends to be fairly easy to hit if your protein goal is higher than MFP's default). And your basic fiber goals.

    Beyond that worry about your total calories regardless of what happens to the other macros.

    You are using two different settings, increasing your base calories and then adding the exercise as if you had not manually increased your base calories by inserting macros in grams.

    Either that, or you'd better be a very very active person in addition to and separately from your exercise.

    Yes... if you are hitting the 15+K step range BEFORE your 400Cal of exercise (i.e. if you are achieving an activity factor of about 1.8x), eating at 1.54x BMR--your stated 1900 Cal goal--will result in ~321Cal of deficit.
  • tomcustombuilder
    tomcustombuilder Posts: 2,242 Member
    You'll lose weight with a consistent weekly calorie deficit over time. Trying to mathmatically figure everything will give you a starting point however after a month or so you'll be able to review how those numbers are affecting your weight and at that point you'll adjust things and then review again later. You'll do this until you find your sweet spot calorically.
  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,874 Member
    You've mentioned BMR and workout, but that's only part of the picture.
    Your TDEE (which is what is the basis for calculating your intake to lose weight) = basal metabolic rate (BMR) + non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT - daily life) + thermic effect of food (TEF - to digest food) + exercise activity thermogenesis (EAT - your workouts)

    So the missing thing here is how active you are in daily life. That's what's meant by 'activity level' in the MFP goal set-up by the way (it confuses many people) - activity level is without exercise, exercise is logged separately and then increases the goal calories.

    So yeah, go through the set-up again checking your settings, like PAV8888 says.
    Use that as a starting point and then check in a month if you've lost weight at the intended rate, as tomcustombuilder says.
  • aleena2975
    aleena2975 Posts: 31 Member
    Hey yall, yes my activity level is set to light!
  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,874 Member
    Other thing you might want to consider: where is this 400 kcal number coming from? Depending on the source of that number, the estimate could be inflated. What exercise and duration?
  • aleena2975
    aleena2975 Posts: 31 Member
    I go to burn boot camp. They do high intensity and strength. I just have my watch record a workout during those.
  • ecowperthwaite
    ecowperthwaite Posts: 5 Member
    FWIW I learned to not let MFP add my exercise calories. As Lietchi points out, TDEE = BMR + NEAT + EAT + TEF. What I've found is that, for me, setting MFP to light activity gives me the same TDEE (give or take 10%) as when I calculate those things the hard way (ie using the nutrition science algorithms). Rather than deal with all that complexity, I just use that setting in MFP and then tell MFP I want to lose 1 lb/week. That sets me up for a 500 kcal deficit per day.

    For the record, I am 57, have a desk job, lift weights 3x week, moderate cardio 3x week, and rest on Sunday. I like the simplicity of my method above much more than all the other complexity. YMMV
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,292 Member
    edited May 15
    There is nothing wrong with adding correctly calculated exercise calories truly spent and eating them back if they are not already included in your goals. It is expected in fact.

    Your numbers as stated don't pass the sniff test because of simple arithmetic

    MFP lightly active is 1.6 * BMR.
    Then it deducts your deficit from that.
    Deficit is at least 250.
    250/1250 = 0.2

    So, if set to lose weight, and lightly active, your base goal cannot be more than 1.4x BMR before exercise

    Your stated goal is 1.53x before exercise

    So you have manually changed settings

    Re run setup without imposing your own eating goal for protein, fat, etc
  • mtaratoot
    mtaratoot Posts: 14,362 Member
    ecowperthwaite wrote: »
    FWIW I learned to not let MFP add my exercise calories. As Lietchi points out, TDEE = BMR + NEAT + EAT + TEF. What I've found is that, for me, setting MFP to light activity gives me the same TDEE (give or take 10%) as when I calculate those things the hard way (ie using the nutrition science algorithms). Rather than deal with all that complexity, I just use that setting in MFP and then tell MFP I want to lose 1 lb/week. That sets me up for a 500 kcal deficit per day.

    For the record, I am 57, have a desk job, lift weights 3x week, moderate cardio 3x week, and rest on Sunday. I like the simplicity of my method above much more than all the other complexity. YMMV

    Not quite.

    NEAT includes BMR. If running a 500 calorie per day deficit, thermic effect of food (TEF) is probably a non-issue, so for all intent and purposes, TDEE = NEAT + EAT.

    Your TDEE is different on the days you do cardio versus the days you lift weights versus the day you don't exercise. Do you just average out those to get a single TDEE number? The magic of the NEAT method is it accounts for different amounts of exercise on different days. It's easy for me because I wear a tracking device. Before those were available, it would have been more work to estimate caloric burn from exercise. It's easy now. I like that my numbers change. My hunger sure does. If I do a 15 mile hike, I eat a lot more than the day I rest. If I do two hours of SCUBA diving, I eat a lot more than a day I have a leisurely bike ride.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,540 Member
    ecowperthwaite wrote: »
    FWIW I learned to not let MFP add my exercise calories. As Lietchi points out, TDEE = BMR + NEAT + EAT + TEF. What I've found is that, for me, setting MFP to light activity gives me the same TDEE (give or take 10%) as when I calculate those things the hard way (ie using the nutrition science algorithms). Rather than deal with all that complexity, I just use that setting in MFP and then tell MFP I want to lose 1 lb/week. That sets me up for a 500 kcal deficit per day.

    For the record, I am 57, have a desk job, lift weights 3x week, moderate cardio 3x week, and rest on Sunday. I like the simplicity of my method above much more than all the other complexity. YMMV

    MFP uses "nutrition science algorithms", unless you mean something way different than I do by that term. (Basis is Mifflin-St. Jeor.)

    FWIW, I've learned to follow the MFP estimating approach, which works great for me, since my main exercise, a fairly significant contributor to my calorie needs (probably around 15%+ most days), is both seasonally variable and weather dependent in season. I don't find it complex at all. (I admit I've invested some thought in how best to estimate the different types of exercise I personally do. I think trying to understand that stuff is fun.)

    As a bonus (possibly more important to me since I'm reaching the era of statistically more likely physical surprises), estimating exercise separately has made it easy for me to maintain my weight through periods when I'm not able to exercise, or at least not the normal exercise load. (I'm talking about things like illness, recovery from injury or surgery - things that can interrupt my normal plans for up to several weeks at times.)

    I'm not saying you shouldn't do what works best for you: I feel the opposite. I do think it's more helpful to new folks to explain the tradeoffs between the methods, rather than criticizing alternatives.

    TDEE method works best for some people, MFP method works best for other people. Either one can work fine. Where things derail, I think, is people mixing the methods without understanding how either is intended to work.

    As a pure aside, I use the MFP method, but not the MFP calorie estimate. If I told MFP I wanted to lose a pound a week and followed its calorie goal long term, I'd quickly end up in a very bad spot (weak, fatigued). Another thing new folks need to understand is that the base calorie estimate is . . . just a statistical estimate. It can be high or low for an individual; in rare cases, quite surprisingly high or low. Tom upthread is right on about using the first multi-weeks' experience to adjust if needed.

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