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What is my ideal deficit?

eirelibra
eirelibra Posts: 2 Member
edited February 28 in Health and Weight Loss
This morning, I have been going around trying all sorts of BMR and TDEE calculators. The numbers are all different, but I get that there are different scale models they’re using.

My main question is this. If my BMR is 1918-2120 (sedentary to lightly active), and my recommended deficit takes my daily calorie intake to between 1500-1700, should I go lower than that?

I’ve been around 1400 cal for two months and aside from the initial glycogen store/water weight 10 pounds in the first three weeks (I’m not eating back my exercise calories) I’ve only lost 2 pounds since then.

Am I doing this wrong? Should I be eating more?

Answers

  • tomcustombuilder
    tomcustombuilder Posts: 2,328 Member
    Use your “around” 1,400 number as this number is already supplying you with actual data. Tighten up that number by getting more accurate with your counting every day so that you’re establishing a weekly amount.

    You’ll most likely find that you’re taking any more calories than you think. Plan on maybe lowering those a little bit once you get a handle on things.
  • Retroguy2000
    Retroguy2000 Posts: 1,975 Member
    edited February 28
    Your BMR is the calorie burn if you were in a coma, so your estimated activity level has no bearing there. Did you mean your estimated TDEE is 1900-2100?

    This is a good calculator. Note, as is typical except for MFP, this calculator includes your estimate of all of your activity including exercise:

    https://www.sailrabbit.com/bmr/

    I doubt you were carrying and losing as much as 10 pounds of water. Also exercise will promote water retention for muscle repair, and presumably you're doing more exercise. You probably lost a few pounds of fat in those first three weeks too. You're right to estimate your weight loss rate from after the first week though, since water does skew that.

    You should check that you're correctly tracking all input calories. All the entries are correct data? Portion sizes are correct? All sauces and drinks included? All treats? Are you weighing foods?

    If all of that is correct, then the data shows you're in a deficit of about 200 per day.

    As for "ideal deficit", it's probably the deficit you can reliably sustain. You don't give your current stats so noone can give a more definitive answer to that.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 35,426 Member
    One thing I want to underscore from comments above: Once you have 4-6 weeks of results data, or if a woman who has menstrual cycles at least one full cycle so you can compare body weight at the same relative point in at least 2 cycles, your best estimate of calorie needs comes from your results.

    - Add up all the calories you ate during the trial period.
    - Multiply the number of pounds you gained or lost over the same period by 3500 (the approximate number of calories in a pound of body fat).
    - If you lost, add that latter number to the number calories you ate. If you gained subtract that latter number from the number of calories you ate.
    - Divide the total by the number of days in the same time period.

    The result is the best estimate you can get of your calorie needs, in context of your own logging and activity habits at the time. Subtract 500 calories daily from that, expect to lose a pound a week.

    If you haven't logged consistently every day for that suggested time period . . . that's the first step.

    If the ultimate numbers you get seem punitively low, consider whether logging can be improved. That's not a diss; logging can be a surprisingly subtle skill, and most of us who've done it for a while (almost 10 years in my case) have had face-palm moments when we discovered some systematic oopsie in the situation.

    Another option, if the numbers are way off from what the so-called calculators suggest, is to schedule a visit with your doctor, ask for blood tests for relevant conditions (example: hypothyroidism), and ask for a referral to a registered dietitian for help, too. Taking your food logs with you to the doctor's office might be persuasive. :wink:

    Now, more specific to your post: You say you lost 10 pounds in 3 weeks, and have been at this for 2 months (say 8 weeks), losing only 2 pounds since that first 3 weeks. Sure, some of that first 10 pounds was reduced water retention and probably on average less food waste in your digestive tract than before, but high odds most of it was body fat. 12 pounds in two months, even 10 pounds or a bit less, isn't crazy slow. Really fast loss isn't health promoting, to say the least.

    A couple of things:

    Have you started new exercise anywhere in these two months? That will normally increase water retention for a while. Some other things can increase it, too, confusing matters on the scale for up to a small number of weeks.

    Also, one fairly common scenario is losing scale weight quite quickly at first, including some dropped water retention; then having some water retention rebalancing happen in the next couple weeks or so, maybe a little longer if hormonal (cycle related) water weight shifts are part of the picture. Some of the water weight comes back, essentially, masking fat loss on the scale for a while. At two months, you're around the maximum amount of time it would take most people to start to see the scale dropping again, but details about your situation might matter (such as, but not confined to, the hormonal question).

    Without more details, I guess what I'd suggest is to hang in there for a bit longer, and might as well work on tightening up logging while waiting, maybe read some of the "Most Helpful Posts" section here in Getting Started or Health and Weight Loss topic areas here in the MFP Community. There are some good tips in there.

    If you have complete data for the two months, you can do the arithmetic to get your own calorie-needs estimates, too. If you don't have complete/consistent data, I'd recommend working on that. That also means carefully logging any cheat days or oopsies, if those should occur . . . as they do for most normal humans. :lol:

    You say your goal is 1400. If that's actually 1400 plus exercise calories in the MFP way, I'd also suggest reality-testing the exercise calorie estimates. Experience folks here may be able to help with that, if you say what you're doing for how long, what the calorie estimate is, and where you're getting it.

    Personally, with the calculators saying what you're indicating for you, I wouldn't immediately go below 1400, even though that may be necessary once things are pinned down more clearly with personal experience data. Cutting every time there's a scale stall can lead to bad outcomes, and fast weight loss creates health risk. Personally, I like treating this process as a fun, productive science fair experiment, testing and adjusting based on results.

    Best wishes!
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,558 Member
    edited February 28
    No you shouldn't go lower than that yet (possibly ever) :wink:

    Your weight loss seems to be fine for the time period. Measurements are long term not day to day. Weight trend apps/web sites (trendweight.com, libra android, happy scale iphone), the stuff Ann mentioned about comparing the same points of your cycle. etc

    You didn't explicitly mention it but you mentioned glycogen. Are you going keto? Because lowered glycogen stores primarily affect people on ketogenic diets who have to understand the water weight manipulation aspect of keto or risk thinking that eating a sugar cube on their birthday means that they gained a kg and their "diet" is now blown forever.

    If you are doing keto more (but far from all) of that 10lbs would be water weight but if you're not, most of it would be fat stores.

    As mentioned you're saying 12 lbs in 8 weeks.... so you're totally within the 1lb + range your (chosen) numbers indicate that you would expect.

    A 25% (actual effective) deficit out of your (actual) tdee is, actually, pretty aggressive... and would not have much support to be made larger.

    Sure. We do tend to mention: 1% of body weight per week is just about the limit for speed, especially longer term. But then there is the little subtext which goes: 0.25% to 1% with more long term success for most people in the 0.5% and lower range ;-) and you're within that so far!

    Total weight loss is total deficit you can create. Deficit x time. And until you conk out the time side has no limits, especially when you get to maintenance! :wink:

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