So, BMR, TDEE, Jebus I'm confused.

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dellieve
dellieve Posts: 35 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Alrighty, so after setting up a goal of wanting to lose 2lbs a week (I'm currently at 231lbs or 105kgs), it's telling me that I should average about 1500cals a day.

Fair enough, i'm still trying to work out whether or not I should be eating back my exercise cals as well, but that's not what this topic is about (if you have the answer though I'd love it)

So I went to Fat 2 Fit and used their tests there. I go to the gym 5 days a week, 3 days cardio, 2 days strength training.

Based on my details, it's telling me to eat ..Moderately Active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk) 2855

Is that serious? MFP is telling me to eat 1500, and Fat 2 Fit is telling me to eat nearly double that at 2855??

Am I doing this wrong, I'm severely confused right now.

Replies

  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
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    You told fat2fit all your exercise and it give you a target of 2855.

    MFP only considered the "normal" activity and took off a deficit to arrive at 1500. 2 lbs/week is a 1000 cal deficit so MFP estimated your energy expenditure without exercise as 2500 (TDEE).

    Revised : F2F works on a different philosophy - it sets you intake as maintenance for your target body weight, so the two can't really be compared. F2F also says "It is OK to eat a few hundred calories less per day (200-300) to speed up your weight loss at this point."
  • ladyraven68
    ladyraven68 Posts: 2,003 Member
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    Alrighty, so after setting up a goal of wanting to lose 2lbs a week (I'm currently at 231lbs or 105kgs), it's telling me that I should average about 1500cals a day.

    Fair enough, i'm still trying to work out whether or not I should be eating back my exercise cals as well, but that's not what this topic is about (if you have the answer though I'd love it)

    So I went to Fat 2 Fit and used their tests there. I go to the gym 5 days a week, 3 days cardio, 2 days strength training.

    Based on my details, it's telling me to eat ..Moderately Active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk) 2855

    Is that serious? MFP is telling me to eat 1500, and Fat 2 Fit is telling me to eat nearly double that at 2855??

    Am I doing this wrong, I'm severely confused right now.

    F2F includes your exercise calories, MFP doesn't, F2F will give you the maintenence calories for the goal weight you input, getting you used to eating like the thinner you.

    If you want to include your exercise cals, and not eat them back, so you are steady all week, put your current weight as your goal weight, so you get your estimated current TDEE, then deduct 20% for your deficit.
  • KenziesMomma11
    KenziesMomma11 Posts: 258 Member
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    I am also very confused. F2F gave me 1313BMR and told me to eat 1688 for sedentary (I'm a stay at home Momma). I took the 1313 x .2 to get 20% and that gave me 1575.6 which would be my TDEE.

    HOW MANY CALS SHOULD I BE EATING? 1313? 1688? 1575?
  • cathid327
    cathid327 Posts: 3 Member
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    Another confused one here, for sure!! When I first began MFP I thought that the daily caloric goal was very low, in fact too low for me. I had already used numerous calorie calculators online that all gave me higher goals. Still I have used the 1200 as the baseline and eaten more calories when I workout which is about 5-6 days a week but it has been difficult.

    I am 5'11" currently 178 pounds and when I used the F2F calculator for BMR I got 1586 (using the Harris-Benedict formula). So, if you are not suppose to eat below your BMR why does MFP give such a low calorie goal? I have since changed my baseline goal to 1589...I hope I am headed in the right direction.

    Can someone bring some clarity on this issue, please??
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
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    There are different philosophies being used, and comparing them is like comparing religions.

    F2F suggests a food intake that will maintain your body at it's *target* weight. In other words if you eat like F2F says and exercise like you do now you'll keep going at those intakes and expenditures "for ever".

    You lose weight with the F2F approach because the smaller future you will have a lower BMR, TDEE etc than the current one, so a deficit is created which will be bigger for bigger target weight losses.

    If you buy their philosophy, do what they say. I don't think it has any particular basis in science, and it will take infinite time to reach your goal unless you do as they say and subtract 200-300 cals a day from the recommendation.

    The MFP calorie goal is a subtraction designed to achieve your weight loss of say 2 lbs/week (= 1000 cals per day). The calorie goal is subtracted from your non-exercise TDEE ie normal life energy expenditure. If you exercise on top of that then you can either increase the deficit, eat more to cancel out the exercise, or something in between.

    Hope that helps.
    I should also add that "not eating below your BMR" is an arbitrary restriction / philosophy favoured by some, it isn't built into any of the calculators discussed above.
  • blaklabz
    blaklabz Posts: 4
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    When I calculated calorie intake using Jillian Michael's formula from "Making the Cut" book, (I'm 4'11") it calculated that I should eat 1225 and exercise to lose 1 lb per week...which worked perfectly for me, but usually 1 to 2 times per week I would not track as well. MFP has me at 1200, which based on my past experience soundsabout right to me. It's low, but as I said, I incorporate at least 1 "off" day a week. I think the key is to try out calories + exercise, and tweak to what works for you or what your body seems to like. It usually takes my body 2-3 weeks to realize "hey, we're doing something healthy now" for results to start to appear.
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
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    then deduct 20% for your deficit.

    now we have 3 competing philosophies

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