Beginning to think it's Calories consumed vs. NET instead

Tabi, you don't want mine...lol. You know what I am going to say:-)

bump, very interested in comments

The issue is people not understanding the terms they are using. Or, they are underestimating the calories they are actually eating, or overestimating their burn.

For example, just in this thread someone said they don't know why anyone would eat over BMR.

BMR means basal metabolic rate. It is the number of calories they would feed you if you were in a coma, just to keep you alive.

I think what I am saying is that if you eat at your maintenance or close to your TDEE then if you exercise it down below your BMR it does not seem to effect the weight loss...... actually those that do this seem to be having the best results, very little loss in lean mass and scale movement.

If people use this site correctly, then their amount that MFP gives them, plus their exercise calories to equal net calories SHOULD come out to about the same as if you figured out your TDEE and then just reduced calories by 15-20% and exercised.

The problem I believe is that everyone chooses the thing that says "I want to lose 2 pounds per week" because, who wouldn't you know, and it puts them below their actual BMR.

I try to focus on eating around what my BMR is, regardless of how many calories I burn. I'm finding that I lose weight when I do this and have been doing so consistently. I ignore the Net and just make sure my total calories eaten is around my daily goal.

I only struggled with net calories when I started working out. Before I was working out, net calories were fine because I had no exercise to speak of, which meant calories consumed = net calories.

My TDEE is 2600 and my BMR 1600. MFP used to set net goal for 1700 net calories. I would try to reach that goal, but found myself eating about 2500-2600 calories a day to do so. This seemed counter intuitive since that's how much I would eat to MAINTAIN and I wanted to lose.

Now I ignore net. I pay attention to my TDEE and BMR. I always consume above my BMR and I take my deficit from my TDEE. I eat about 2200 calories a day which is a 400 calorie deficity from TDEE. Basically I target somewhere less than TDEE but more than BMR for calories consumed.

Here's another way I think of it:

I have 12 lbs to lose, which means I have 42,000 calories in excess storage (3500 calories = 1 lb, so 12 lb x 3500 = 42,000 calories). I need to burn those storage calories off.

I burn a total of 2600 calories from living/breathing/pumping blood (BMR) and exercise/normal life. But I feed my body 2200 calories a day and then it uses 400 calories from my 42,000 calories of storage to cover my energy needs of 2600 calories. I am whittling my 'storage' calories, or excess pounds away at 400 cal/day.

ETA: And I meant to say that this took trial and error over a 2 month plateau for me to figure out. Once I figured out that I was eating enough calories to maintain my weight, it was no suprise I wasn't losing. Then it took a few more weeks to find the sweet spot. At a 400 calorie deficit I lose about 0.5 lb/week. I'm also doing heavy lifting and very close to my goal weight, so I'm not surprised.

I asked a personal trainer about this concept last night. He states that you don't have to eat back what you burn. He states just eat something after exercising. He said he problem that people are having is that they eat 50-75% of the burned calories back and their body holds on to those calories. Once you have gotten your body adapted to a good steady work-out routine then you should eat about 25-50% of those calories burned but no more.