BMR and Obese

If your BMR is 2400 but it's telling you if your sedentary to eat at 2353 then something is amiss. Sedentary is 20% above BMR and if someone has any kind of life (j/k), then TDEE is well above that.

Going by Fat 2 Fit at my goal weight I should be at about 2370/day, MFP has me at 2470 when it is set at 1#/week. I usually end up 2-300 below that because I know I am probably under-estimating small things like creamer in my coffee.

So far doing that, in 13 weeks I have lost 15#. I have started walking more and doing more activity hoping to speed the loss up a bit.

This is the blog that made it so easy for me to understand:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/lillebanon/view/my-take-on-eating-more-to-weigh-less-254554

She suggests using the following website to determine BMR, TDEE, and your TDEE Cut (the 5-20% cut in calories you should take if you want to lose weight).

http://scoobysworkshop.com/accurate-calorie-calculator/

She recommends eating at your TDEE Cut everyday, regardless if you're exercising or not, and NEVER netting below your BMR calories. I started doing this last week and I've lost about 2.5 lbs, but as with everything, results may vary!

For me,
BMR = 2450
TDEE = 3750 (3-5 hrs/week of moderate activity, i.e. gym workouts)
TDEE - 20% = 3000

So I eat 3000 cals a day, and eat back SOME of my exercise cals when necessary in order to net my BMR .

[FYI when I set my activity to "Sedentary" (for my rest day calculations), my TDEE was below my BMR. For those days, I changed my goal to 10% reduction instead of 20% so that I would still eat at or above my BMR on those days.]

Check out the following group for more info, and good luck!

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/forums/show/3834-eat-more-to-weigh-less

There's no way your BMR is 2400 calories unless you are 6'9"+.

To give you an idea, I'm 6'0" 220lbs @ about 19% bodyfat with a 405lb squat, and my BMR is ~ 2100ish.

The BMR calculators are all estimates, and they all are off.

My BMR is slightly higher than yours (tested) and yet I am 2 inches shorter and just over 20 pounds smaller than you with a higher bodyfat %. The only way to really know I guess is to get it tested. I have no idea if 2400 could be right, though it does sound like a lot.

I followed this advice and have broken out of a year long plateau!

Wow, that is accurate

Using that I came up with around 2300 cal/day to loose 1.1lb/week which is dang close to the 1.15lb/week I have hit.
For me it is M age 36, 307# 6' tall, sedentary.

For the OP: What do you have the weight loss set at per week? Your probably best off starting at 1#/week.

I'm only 149cm and 76kg. I was very sedentary before losing weight but now exercise 5 times a week. My TDEE comes up as over 2300 but I never eat more than net 1550. Never hungry, never tired etc.... I don't really get the TDEE... BMR makes a lot more sense to me

What is your TDEE at your goal weight? Isn't that is about what you will need to eat to maintain your goal weight.

2092.... I struggle as it is to reach 1550 daily as a net. I think eating an extra 500 calories a day would have no positive affect on my weight loss. I have never ate over 1550 a day, even at my heaviest, I was just completely sedentary, and what I ate was total crap.

If you really want to understand the challenges in weight loss for an obese person and what to do about them, read this. I warn you, this is very technical and VERY long. Its an amazing site in general, though and chock full of good info:
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/training-the-obese-beginner.html

There are 7 parts. Whoever told you that you don't need to worry about BMR is full of it.

old thread but just to note, MFP doesn't care about dropping below BMR on the goal screen it suggests on the food screen that you shouldn't but thats not a rule, jsut a suggestion., I was obese and now am in overweight territory, i highly doubt my body would go into starvation mode anytime soon or slow my motabolism which is naturally slow anyone given im an Endomorph type.

So if like mine the TDEE and BMR seem to be really close which they would be in the case of sedentary or light activity and you tell it you want to lose 2lbs a week that would put you below TDEE and below the BMR calculation too but are you killing yourself? i don't think so. BMR is just what you would need if you were in a sleep/coma state and didn't want to lose weight if you ate or were fed during those states you could gain weight.

The rule about not going below 1200 is just that 1200 for most people would be way too little to not feel starved and lethargic plus on 1200 you are not getting very many macronutrients which is what the body needs to survive. Calories are just the combination of those nutrients not the energy source itself.

atm at 199lbs, age 40 with a body mass of around 28%. Mine tells me my BMR is 1800 and my lifestyle is light, tho during a work week it's moderate but i digress, so at light i would need to eat 2400 to maintain, and to lose 1Kg a week i need to eat 1000 less calories a day which sets me 500 below the BMR figure at 1300

Overthinking it just stresses you out and the weight loss will stop if you are stressed, same as starvation mode, boredom, overtraining, under drinking water would all of these can lead to stalls in weight loss or unwanted gains. KISS principle,
Eat less calories then you need to live and you force the body to go into it's reserves for fuel when those fuels are depleted you need to refuel and when you reach your goal, start adding more calories back in to maintain weight or even more to bulk up muscle.