Should you eat into your BMR ?

donyellemoniquex3
donyellemoniquex3 Posts: 2,384 Member
edited December 18 in Health and Weight Loss
:happy:

Replies

  • CassieReannan
    CassieReannan Posts: 1,479 Member
    BUMP
    Wondering this myself. My net goal is 400 cal under my BMR.. not sure if right.
  • determinedbutlazy
    determinedbutlazy Posts: 1,941 Member
    Your base metabolic rate is the amount of calories you need to maintain healthy body and brain function if you lay in bed all day and don't move.

    You should be eating OVER your BMR, or your body does not have enough calories to function normally. You add exercise or even daily movement to the equation and staying under your BMR leaves you terribly under-fuelled.
  • Mommyof3texans
    Mommyof3texans Posts: 347
    Your base metabolic rate is the amount of calories you need to maintain healthy body and brain function if you lay in bed all day and don't move.

    You should be eating OVER your BMR, or your body does not have enough calories to function normally. You add exercise or even daily movement to the equation and staying under your BMR leaves you terribly under-fuelled.

    This. You should be eating between your BMR and your TDEE.
  • yesca192324
    yesca192324 Posts: 72
    Hmmm...i can't figure out how to link previous forum links?? Cause, theirs a great forum topic on here that is helping me out a lot. I'll...try to send it as my address bar reads but...it has my username in it and :-/ I don't think thats right. Anyways here it is http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/567092--read-this-figuring-out-your-calorie-goals?error_user_id=4001378&error_username=yesca192324
  • CassieReannan
    CassieReannan Posts: 1,479 Member
    But if this is unhealthy why would MFP reccomend it?
  • meerkat70
    meerkat70 Posts: 4,605 Member
    But if this is unhealthy why would MFP reccomend it?

    It doesn't. It recommends you eat your exercise cals, precisely to avoid things getting unhealthy....
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
    there's no medical text that I have seen which specifically says anything about the BMR in terms of calorie intake while dieting. None.

    Of course I would be delighted to be provided with references to clinical studies or reliable texts as I'm always up for learning.

    The guy in my profile photo demonstrates that there's no such thing as "starvation mode where your body holds on to fat" either.

    I have read many clinical studies of weight reduction by dieting, many of them use a calorie deficit that puts the subject's food intake below their BMR. After all, a sedentary person has a TDEE that isn't far above their BMR, so a healthy cut from that takes you below the BMR. I don't believe medical researchers and ethics committees would take undue risk by feeding at less than BMR, nor would regulatory authorities permit/approve VLC Diets that are typically half BMR.

    So it's a good question - would eating 300 calories below BMR give a better weight loss than eating 200 calories above ? What evidence is there to support that ?
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
    It doesn't. It recommends you eat your exercise cals, precisely to avoid things getting unhealthy....

    The MFP goal setter does set a food intake calorie goal below BMR, especially in sedentary setting with a higher target weight loss.
  • amymckmuffin
    amymckmuffin Posts: 28
    I dont know what my TDEE is, I am bad at math lol, and i keep hearing that we should be eating between our BMR and TDEE. My problem is is that my BMR is just over 2k cal, is that not too much to eat if I want to lose weight? MFP has set my daily cal's to 1650 and i normaly eat around 1700 a day after exercise.
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
    I dont know what my TDEE is, I am bad at math lol, and i keep hearing that we should be eating between our BMR and TDEE. My problem is is that my BMR is just over 2k cal, is that not too much to eat if I want to lose weight? MFP has set my daily cal's to 1650 and i normaly eat around 1700 a day after exercise.

    If you're eating around 1700 you should do fine. If your BMR is over 2k then your TDEE is well over 2k esp with exercise so you have a calorie deficit of at least 500 and a food intake that nobody could argue against (though no doubt someone will !).
  • AngryDiet
    AngryDiet Posts: 1,349 Member
    One thing which I wonder is the premise here is that if you eat less than TDEE, your body will take the energy stored in fat cells to make it up, right? Hence you will lose fat.

    So why would your body not do the same thing if you also happen to be below BMR? Particularly if TDEE and BMR are close for an individual?

    Shouldn't the question be, how many calories can your body extract from fat cells per day? And as long as you make TDEE factoring that in, wouldn't you be safe regardless of BMR?
  • AngryDiet
    AngryDiet Posts: 1,349 Member
    Sorry, is that proven when TDEE might be just around 300kcal above BMR? Would a 500kcal deficit (1lb per week) really cause this?

    (I'm asking for my wife. This isn't an issue for me at present lol.)
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
    that's right.

    Calorie restriction, and / or weight loss, may lead to a reduction in metabolic rate but I haven't seen studies showing this to be much more than 150 - 250 calories/day and some studies can't find one at all.

    There's certainly not a magic intake level at BMR.

    My BMR is probably 70 calories per hour. What happens in the hours I don't eat ?
  • imaginaryplaces
    imaginaryplaces Posts: 123 Member
    The issue is if you eat too low calories, it will slow down your metabolic rate, and you will not lose any weight.
    Sorry, is that proven when TDEE might be just around 300kcal above BMR? Would a 500kcal deficit (1lb per week) really cause this?

    I am curious about this too. I haven't seen any science that supports that idea that a person can stop losing weight if they are in a true calorie deficit. I also have seen nothing that convinces me that eating under one's BMR is unhealthy for all people across the board.

    Purely anecdotal, but I have been eating under my BMR for the last 4 months, have lost 25 pounds and am still alive and healthy.
  • julysbaby
    julysbaby Posts: 97 Member
    so if my tdee is 2300, I just need to stay between BMR and TDEE? If so, when I take in 1700 I should still be developing caloric defecit, and thus lose????
  • Mommyof3texans
    Mommyof3texans Posts: 347
    so if my tdee is 2300, I just need to stay between BMR and TDEE? If so, when I take in 1700 I should still be developing caloric defecit, and thus lose????

    That's the idea, yes. I'll give you me as an example. I'm moderately active. My BMR is 1,321 and my TDEE is 2,047. I've set my calorie goal at 1,638 (a 20% deficit). I've dropped .4 each of the last two days after just upping my calories to this less than a week ago.

    Can you lose weight eating below your BMR? Probably for awhile, yes. I would just rather eat more and still lose and keep my metabolism going. Plus, if you're active, you need the energy to fuel your workouts and to keep working harder at them.
  • AngryDiet
    AngryDiet Posts: 1,349 Member
    so if my tdee is 2300, I just need to stay between BMR and TDEE? If so, when I take in 1700 I should still be developing caloric defecit, and thus lose????

    Yes, in your example you'd have a deficit of 600 kcal per day. Which should yield just over half a pound per week of weight loss.

    (Whether it would be all fat is another question entirely.)
  • julysbaby
    julysbaby Posts: 97 Member
    so if my tdee is 2300, I just need to stay between BMR and TDEE? If so, when I take in 1700 I should still be developing caloric defecit, and thus lose????

    That's the idea, yes. I'll give you me as an example. I'm moderately active. My BMR is 1,321 and my TDEE is 2,047. I've set my calorie goal at 1,638 (a 20% deficit). I've dropped .4 each of the last two days after just upping my calories to this less than a week ago.

    Can you lose weight eating below your BMR? Probably for awhile, yes. I would just rather eat more and still lose and keep my metabolism going. Plus, if you're active, you need the energy to fuel your workouts and to keep working harder at them.
    Thanks!!!
  • mmapags
    mmapags Posts: 8,934 Member
    there's no medical text that I have seen which specifically says anything about the BMR in terms of calorie intake while dieting. None.

    Of course I would be delighted to be provided with references to clinical studies or reliable texts as I'm always up for learning.

    The guy in my profile photo demonstrates that there's no such thing as "starvation mode where your body holds on to fat" either.

    I have read many clinical studies of weight reduction by dieting, many of them use a calorie deficit that puts the subject's food intake below their BMR. After all, a sedentary person has a TDEE that isn't far above their BMR, so a healthy cut from that takes you below the BMR. I don't believe medical researchers and ethics committees would take undue risk by feeding at less than BMR, nor would regulatory authorities permit/approve VLC Diets that are typically half BMR.

    So it's a good question - would eating 300 calories below BMR give a better weight loss than eating 200 calories above ? What evidence is there to support that ?

    Quite honesty, your picture doesn't prove anything. There is no data as to what this person was consuming for calories daily and for how long. Anyone eating insufficient nutrition will eventually look like the subject of your picture. You picture also doesn't tell us anything about this person's health and how the state they are in affected thier life span and quality of life.

    The term "starvation mode" refers to when the metabolism slows as the autonomic nervous system percieves a survival threat from lack of sufficient nutrition. It isn't that you body hold onto fat. It's that you body burns less calories daily. If you are trying to lose weight, that could be problematic. It is definilty problematic from a health point of view. For short periods you probably can eat below BMR. To do that for an extended period probably can be done also. Just because things can be done, doesn't mean it is wise to do so.
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