BMR vs. Daily Calorie Intake question

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RhythmGypsi
RhythmGypsi Posts: 79 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi there, my name is Jen, and I've been using MFP for a month and a half now. I've just started using it online in the past week; I mainly use it on my phone. I have a question about whether or not I am accidentally screwing myself over with my daily calorie intake levels.

MFP recommends for me, a 25 year old female at 5 foot 3 inches and 141 pounds, that my daily calorie intake should be 1,230. My goal weight is 115 pounds, and I do occasionally engage in mild exercise, which tends to be walking to and from a CVS up the street from where I live, since I do not currently have a car. I also always consume back the extra calories that I "earn" (I prefer to look at it that way :D).

To be completely honest about my exercising options, I currently do not have a gym close to me, and I find myself only exercising when I am in one. Currently, I couldn't afford one even if there was, but do-it-at-home physical exercise does not appeal to me in the least, and I prefer to be warm when I do exercise. Therefore, taking to the outdoors is not yet a viable option for me, thanks to the coming onset of Winter (I just moved to Ohio in early November).

Yesterday, while I was exploring the website, I noticed something that is not in the Android application, which is a BMR calculator. I decided that I wanted to check it out, and it told me that just to survive on a daily basis, my body needs 1,354 calories a day. I know that 124 calorie difference might not seem like much to worry about, but I know I won't feel okay about trying to engage in healthy and proper weight loss if I'm inadvertently starving myself.

I'm also worried because when I first started using MFP, I was in the middle of moving three homes (really complicated story), under a tremendous amount of stress, and I have only realized this week that I've lost 17 pounds in five weeks. That's not right. I -know- that's not healthy. Since I can't afford to seek advice from a registered dietitian, I've taken to the internet and books to try and figure out how to juggle all of this. It's not working very well, mainly because I am terrible at math, and not very good at balancing things.

MFP has been a wonderful blessing in the way that it helps me clearly and easily keep track of my calorie intake every day, but now I'm wondering if it's going to keep taking me on this road of crash weight loss. So, to sum up my question in one big lump, here it is:

Should I keep following my recommendation of 1,230 calories a day, or should I ignore it and start consuming 1,354 calories a day to satisfy my BMR recommendations? Or, should I raise the levels even higher? I can't tell if MPR has an option to where I can manually change my daily calorie intake number myself. I was trying to find out using the search option, but all it seems that I can do is change my goal weight.

Thank you in advance to anyone who might have a thought about what it is that I should be doing.

<3
~ Jen

Replies

  • lovelylovebug
    lovelylovebug Posts: 27 Member
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    Hmm... well you're BMR should have been calculated and taken into consideration when you put in your stats to MFP. It's telling you to eat less than that so that you lose weight. You can adjust how much weight you want to lose per week and your daily allowance will go up. I think 1230 is absolutely fine.... I'm on a 1200 diet and I'm 5'5 125 lbs, 22 years old. Anything under 1200 isn't good, but as long as you're at 1200 you're fine.
  • vettle
    vettle Posts: 621 Member
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    Ignore MFP and manually change your goals to at least your BMR. You can take a look at my journey on here and you'll see that eating more is required.
  • smb0701
    smb0701 Posts: 234
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    hi,
    i have changed my goal weight recently and that automatically changed my caloric intake recommendations. so try to change your goal weight and see what happens. i tried to go to a lower caloric intake that mfp recommended when i wanted to go lower in my goal weight which was 1249, i tried that for a wk and could not do it. i felt hungry all the time, so i put it back to my original goal weight, and every thing is working out fine. good luck:)
  • twilight_princess
    twilight_princess Posts: 270 Member
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    At least try out eating your BMR, you should really lose weight doing that as most waking activities require much more energy than resting. People do talk alot about starvation mode but I think that takes quite a while to kick in.

    I noticed that I had the biggest weekly weight losses when I was overeating more so I upped my net goal so I can eat more without having to do exercise to 'earn it' if I dont want to. You can lose weight by diet alone but that may not make you physically fitter.
  • smrtcar
    smrtcar Posts: 104 Member
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    I don't use a gym. I'm walking vigorously with a heart rate monitor on and am buring a minimum of 500 cals in less than an hour. You will burn less since you weigh 60 lbs less than me. Only eat back 60% or less of your calories to see weight loss.
  • meggawatt
    meggawatt Posts: 145 Member
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    Odd to read the replies and see how different each of our experiences are with MFP. I am 5'8 at 160 lbs with a 1200 daily calorie limit to lose 2 lbs per week. My BMR is much higher, about 1800 but I stick with my daily allowance. I always eat back the calories I earn with exercise and I stay full, most of the time. I've been doing MFP for about 5 weeks and see fantastic results not only on the scale but also in my clothes and inches lost. Not to mention how much better I feel about myself :-)

    Good luck to you!
  • Ready4Goal
    Ready4Goal Posts: 32
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    Your BMR is the number of calories your body burns just from being alive, breathing, heart beating etc..The more active you are the more it will be...Mine is about 1700 or 1800..I work out alot and hard and on some days I may consume that much but usually I each any where from 1400-1600..

    The formula is as followed: You would add how many calories you burn (during a workout session) to your BMR

    So if your BMR is 1354 and lets say today u workout and burn 300 calories you'd add those 2 numbers (1354+300) giving you 1654 then you would times that number by 1.2 (1654 * 1.2) which is the standard number they give for just sedentary work like walking from room to room cleaning etc.

    That equals 1984.8...That is the number you should use in order to figure out how to lose weight..So if u wanna lose a 1lb a week you'd subtract 500 from that number( giving you 1484.8 calorie intake) and 2lbs a week would be to minus 1000 BUT since subtracting 1000 would put u at a low unhealthy 984 MFP just put u at a low 1200 which is healthier...

    Now if u dont workout at all and just do normal things then you'd just take your BMR which is 1354 and times that by 1.2 (remember the standard number for sedentary work) putting you at 1624.8..To lose a lb minus 500 putting you AT 1125 (too low) which is why MFP put u at 1230 ( you must consume at least 1200 calories a day on any diet to be healthy)

    I'd suggest try to get more workouts in daily so that your calorie intake will go up a bit..but if u stay at not doing much to get a burn you will have to stay at 1230 calories a day to see a lose...

    Hope I helped and i didn't confuse u:)

    PS: those online BMR calculators are only an estimate..Only way to be sure sure is seeing a doctor.
  • CMmrsfloyd
    CMmrsfloyd Posts: 2,383 Member
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    You can change your goal to match your BMR if you want - I just did this recently. Click on 'my home' at the top of the site, then 'goals', then 'change goals' and then choose the custom option. Then you can manually set your calorie goal.
  • RhythmGypsi
    RhythmGypsi Posts: 79 Member
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    Thank you every one, for having taken the time to give me some feedback! I really appreciate all of this new information :)

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