Figured out my BMR... now what do I do with it??

espinozAgal
espinozAgal Posts: 160 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
My BMR is 1452. What does that mean exactly? How does this info help with weight loss? Help friends.

Replies

  • rileysowner
    rileysowner Posts: 8,319 Member
    That is the number of calories your body would burn if you literally did nothing all day, not moving at all, say in a coma. It is what is needed to simply keep you alive. The general suggestion, unless you are obese, is that you should not eat below your BMR for an extended period of time. So I would suggest you eat at least that many calories a day.
  • espinozAgal
    espinozAgal Posts: 160 Member
    ok... so should that be my daily calorie intake? will i lose weight that way, or do I need to eat less even though it's not recommended? MFP has me at 1200 a day. That is in order to lose 2 pounds a week (which is not happening by the way). I'm doing something wrong here.
  • moham23
    moham23 Posts: 5 Member
    some research suggest if want to loose 1bls a week then you should eat 500 calories less a day and the quicker you want to loose the less calories(there is a a ratio as to what to what you want to loose per week and how many calories less you should eat per day.) .But remember if you add excerise, the you you should eat more ( depends on what exerciise you do). hope this helps
  • FightingFATtoFightingFIT
    FightingFATtoFightingFIT Posts: 153 Member
    Read this article, it is very informative & should answer your questions.

    www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/538381-in-place-of-a-road-map
  • rileysowner
    rileysowner Posts: 8,319 Member
    ok... so should that be my daily calorie intake? will i lose weight that way, or do I need to eat less even though it's not recommended? MFP has me at 1200 a day. That is in order to lose 2 pounds a week (which is not happening by the way). I'm doing something wrong here.

    MFP is a tool, and not an intelligent tool, so it is only as good as the information put into it. Based on your ticker you don't have much weight left to lose. The less body fat you have, the less total your body can burn in a day. Thus, anything more in your calorie deficit will come from something else but fat, usually muscle. Here is a guide to that http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/61706-guide-to-calorie-deficits Basically where you are now, you should not be only eating 1200 calories net. You are hindering your long term weight loss, and your ability to maintain your weight later.

    As I said, your BMR is what you burn doing nothing, and by that I mean nothing, not moving at all. It is the amount you need to keep your brain functioning, your heart beating, your lungs breathing, and your body doing other necessary processes to stay alive. The moment you move, you burn more than your bmr. If you are sedentary it would be about 1.2 times your BMR. So if you at your BMR, even as a sedentary individual, you would lose weight.

    The really important number is your TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) it is the number of calories you burn based on your total activity for the day. A good TDEE calculator is http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/ and it will figure in a nice 20% deficit from your TDEE.

    Basically your goal should be to eat between your BMR and your TDEE. If you do that you will lose fat.
  • rileysowner
    rileysowner Posts: 8,319 Member
    some research suggest if want to loose 1bls a week then you should eat 500 calories less a day and the quicker you want to loose the less calories(there is a a ratio as to what to what you want to loose per week and how many calories less you should eat per day.) .But remember if you add excerise, the you you should eat more ( depends on what exerciise you do). hope this helps

    It is not simply research 3500 calories of energy are in one pound of fat, thus you need to have a cumulative deficit of 3500 calorie to burn off on pound of fat. Thus 500 deficit per day is 3500 calories deficit per week, so 1 pound. Similarly a 250 calorie deficit is .5 pounds per week and 1000 is 2 pounds.

    That is all straightforward enough, however, the difficulty comes in that your body can only burn so much fat in a day, and that amount is dependent on how much fat reserves you have. Thus, an obese person can have a large deficit and burn mainly fat, but a person who is not obese, and thus has smaller fat reserves, will only be able to burn of a small amount of fat in a day. An calorie deficit bigger than that will be taken from other resources, in particular from muscle. That is why as a person loses weight, the size of their calorie deficit should be reduced. I wish i could remember the numbers, but at the moment I cannot. It is at least in part why it is suggested that a person not eat for a long time under their BMR.
  • carrie_lou
    carrie_lou Posts: 44
    I am being told by MFP to eat 223 calories less than my BMR every day. Is this possibly why I am having such a hard time losing weight or should I be losing much more weight? I need to incorporate some kind of exercise into my daily life but I just can't find the time.
  • Mr_Knight
    Mr_Knight Posts: 9,532 Member
    My BMR is 1452. What does that mean exactly?

    It means that if (a) the number is accurate and (b) you eat that many calories then you are guaranteed to lose weight unless you go into a coma.

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