MFP warning about eating under BMR

My BMR is 1510.6. So what does that mean??? Do I eat 1510 cals per day to stay at this weight?? Or do I eat that to loose. I'm lost. help!!

I agree.

Although I don't understand why people just don't use the tools here HONESTLY and accurately. If you actually input the correct info, it's unlikely to give you "bad" numbers. The low 1200 numbers are given to people who choose "Sedentary" and "Lose two pounds a week." Almost no one is Sedentary. And unless they have 50 or more pounds to lose, they shouldn't be set at two pounds. The site will prompt you to choose more reasonably, but people override the tool.

One of the big problems these days on the Boards is the ten thousand different ways to calculate what you should be eating.

I lost over 50 pounds by using this site only. I've kept it off. I didn't go to ten different sites to try to figure things out. I did it the way this site is set up. I used all the numbers given to me. I think people make it harder by trying to speed up the process, and reading too many forum threads.

Keep it simple.

My BMR is 1510.6. So what does that mean??? Do I eat 1510 cals per day to stay at this weight?? Or do I eat that to loose. I'm lost. help!!

That's the thing, it's complicated. And everything's based on averaged calculations, which makes for a good hopeful educated guess (which by my books is fine). You can find TDEE calculators online. They usually tell you which calculation they're using, and give you an estimate on how many calories you burn a day. I ended up using sedentary (office job) and eat back my exercise calories.

Google TDEE. Personally, I eat at maintenance and loose weight.

Here's an example of a calculator:
http://www.fitnessfrog.com/calculators/tdee-calculator.html

If you don't have any health problems or taking medications that make you magically gain weight, you should loose weight using this (I'm loosing about a pound a week)

Edit: I vote for the link JennieAL posted above :P

people are making it too hard on themselves.... all you have to do is calculate the BMR for you DESIRED weight and eat that.... or am I worng?!

If you mean TDEE, then yes that is one method, but not BMR.

people are making it too hard on themselves.... all you have to do is calculate the BMR for you DESIRED weight and eat that.... or am I worng?!

If you mean TDEE, then yes that is one method, but not BMR.

Ah. Then according to this, I could be eating 500 calories a day more than I am and still lose. But not lose 3 lbs a week. Which we'd all love if we could do it in a healthy way but no I don't want to be sick.

I would say eating at a tiny deficit has the disadvantage that many people get impatient with the snail's pace of their losses and give up. Eating at an acceptable but more aggressive deficit causes successes that breed more successes.

I disagree with this, eating at a moderate deficit is far more sustainable than eating at a large deficit
Many people eating at a large deficit feel too deprived and give up, or binge.

I guess it's how you define 'large' and 'moderate'. Those of us who don't feel deprived would probably consider our deficit moderate as well, despite that it's at or under BMR.

Research has shown that the people who succeed at this long term have (1) a sense of urgency and (2) a sense of self-efficacy. They want to get it taken care of and they know they can do it by sticking to their plan.

We must be reading different reserach, as my research has shown that people who lose quickly put it back on just as quickly, and people who do it gradually and slowly keep it off for longer.

as for deficits


Small: 10-15% below maintenance
Moderate: 20-25% below maintenance
Large: anything bigger than 25% below maintenance

The larger the defict the greater lean mass is lost, so having too large a defict is detrimental to fat loss.
Some people here eat at a 50% defict and then wonder why they still have a higher body fat % when they get to their goal weight.

So the FitBit will be underestimating the more intense exercise, but even jogging should be decent estimate of calorie burn. Circuit training won't be nearly as accurate though.

So you have the right idea if you are syncing FitBit to MFP. What you may do so you don't end up with these sync calories to eat as a surprise, is find a few days where the dog walking happened, but no formal exercise workout. Perhaps a weekend day unless you always workout then. See what your normal non-exercise TDEE is on those days.
So let's pretend that is 2500 cal burn (use your real stat for those 24 hr days). Your 2800 stat is including exercise, and MFP doesn't work that way, no exercise included in activity level. That's why you add it later.

Find your MFP BMR (tools - BMR Calc), it would be 1840 (Katch is 1790, pretty close). BTW, if you maintained your LBM until goal weight, you would be an 9% BF - not realistic, so you will lose some LBM.

So 2500 / 1840 is 1.35, that happens to be the multiplier for activity level Lightly Active.
So you set your activity level to lightly active, goal loss to 2 lbs.

Now, your 2500 stat may be high or lower.
2668 is 1.45, which is Active level.
2852 is 1.55, which is Very Active level. And with your dog walking included in normal daily routine, it really may be this high.

And I'd suggest rounding up if right in-between levels. In case your value is 1.40.

Now when you update FitBit site with real workouts, or MFP, your extra eat back will be useful.

And I'd suggest there on circuit training, take the middle of FitBit and MFP estimate. Both are wrong.

The research is not based on self-reported forums. It's actual research on actual dieters.

Speaking of, there is no actual research from actual authorities that says eating below BMR is dangerous or aiming for 2 lbs/week is dangerous. If there was, we wouldn't be on page 14 here. You can believe it all you like but without factual support, you can't really claim it's fact.

Okay, so I am using today as a rest day, because I want to know how much I really burn, just sitting and doing "normal" things. I'm on target to eat about 1750 cals today. I'm trying to eat close to what my BMR is based on the Katch-McArdle formula - is the Harris-Benedict formula better? Looking back at my fitbit, the highest I have burned is 3248 and lowest is 2510. My non-exercise TDEE is 2199, and based on what I've burned so far, I've calculated that my total calorie burn for today should be 2112, which is really close. I don't plan on keeping my LBM at 145, I know I wouldn't be able to maintain such a low BFP, I'm just trying to build muscle as well as burn fat, I assumed I would lose some LBM in the process. I had MFP set to lightly active, and it was giving me 1540 for my cals, but if I burn say 2840 on a workout day, that would leave me at a deficit of roughly 1300. Wouldn't that be too high of a deficit? I realized that both MFP and fitbit were over-estimating my circuit training exercises. They had them around 600+ for MFP and about 550 for fitbit. Now when I log circuit training, I multiple the minutes by 8.92, and I roughly get 214 at the lowest and 428 at the highest, which I think is a bit more accurate than what MFP and fitbit were projecting, but I could be wrong. Should I eat back my exercise calories? Wouldn't that be making my TDEE for 5 days of workouts a moot point? Should I be looking at my net cals or what I actually eat?