School me on HR, BMR, and exercise

I would say at your place, you don't need to know a thing about HR, BMR and exercise. Use a tool to get a calorie goal and start losing weight through eating less, and if you feel like it, moving a little more. Keep it simple. This place makes a simple thing into rocket science. Good luck!

Heart rate is a measure of the exertion you are applying to the task and it is possible to make calculations for the calories burned and plenty of free calorie calculators (need to know heart rate) exist and of course Myfitnesspal has an excellent database but to learn anything about your heart rate you need to purchase a Heart Rate Monitor HRM (I have the cheapest Polar FT1,) and start to exercise or just wear it at work and see what happens to your heart rate during the day. There are plenty of resources that can tell you about target heart rate training and the "fat burning zone" but any activity burns calories, more vigourous the more calories.

BMR, has nothing to do with exercise and Myfitnesspal already calculates your BMR and then deducts the calories required to lose weight. Likewise, it calculates exercise calories and converts that information to your calorie goal.

The rule of thumb is that 3500 calories lost equals 1 pound of weight. So, 150lb is 525,000 calories. If your BMR is 2000 calories per day then to lose 1lb you need to cut to 1500 and that will take you 3 years to get to your target weight.

Stand 5 minutes every hour whilst awake - burn an extra 200 calories per day, walk about a bit during those 5 minutes an additional 200 calories. 400 * 7 is 2800 nearly a 1lb and target weight becomes 19 months.

Do 4 one hour sessions (or 8 half hour or 16 quarter hour) where your heart rate is elevated to 65% of maximum and burn another 3500 calories - 52lb in a year - invest in a personal trainer (rather than a gym membership) perhaps once a month for 6 months

Suddenly, 12 months and in theory you have hit your weight loss goal.

Edit: Some research is stating that 3500 is not the magic bullet number, raising metabolic rates via exercise may decrease that number. But apparently some people just do not respond to weight loss in this way and due to that quit health programs, a bit like "buyers remorse" - even so, my experience is restricted calories and exercise has made me lose weight. Sure it will do the same for you.

Figure out some activity you like to do (or are at least willing to do), and do it. Don't worry about keeping your heart rate in some zone. I recommend lifting weights.

...If your BMR is 2000 calories per day then to lose 1lb you need to cut to 1500 and that will take you 3 years to get to your target weight.

Just so we're not starting a newbie off with erroneous info - your caloric deficit is deducted from your TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure), NOT your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate). BMR is the amount of calories your body would burn if you did absolutely nothing but lie completely still in bed every day - it's the expenditure that your body takes to breathe, make your organs function, etc.

This and not what the other person said at all. Lots of tdee calculators around but its better to calculate it yourself. Remember if your on your feet all day your not sedentary. Sedentary is not moving around much in the run of a day. Eating anywhere below tdee will make you lose weight. If your not happy calculating your bmr you can get your rmr read by your doctor (a similar value that stands for resting metabolic rate).

Know that you can eat much more then what mfp tells you and lose weight as long as your below tdee. If you find yourself getting sick or ill and find your body is having a hard time repairing itself i highly recommend it. Also if your one to fall off the band wagon eating at a smaller deficit is much easier to stick to. Its a balance between urgency to lose weight for health reasons and ease to stick to and less likely to suffer health issues due to different deficiencies and the like..

Heart rates will be all over the place for different people. Generally 60 is a good resting heart rate. Mine was 110 before. At 100 youshould see a doctor. Make sure its read by a sensible heart rate monitor. Max heart rate varies with age but if you find doing moderate activity approaches max heart rate like mine did be careful. Build up to things slowly. Especially for the sake of your joints.

http://thefitgirls.com/tdee-calculator.aspx

this one looks like a good site as well

TDEE calculations - great for people cutting with body fat of 8% down to 3% (ie bodybuilding) but for a person carrying 140lb of stored energy in fat content then I would stick to BMR with exercise and calorie deficit and learn to eat foods with high saiety levels and do not go low fat diet. You are not going to starve to death, enter starvation mode or any other expression designed to obfuscate weight loss. You are going to burn your onboard fuel, the fat.

^not this. The bmr calculation involves fat percentages. You can also get your rmr read by a doc. I was a sedentary blob who was nowhere near those numbers and it worked fantastic for me. I had 30 lbs to lose but i also have many friends of all sizes losing on this. But your bmr will be higher then most. That doesnt nean you have to durastically cut calories to start losing weight. Im not sure why the above poster thinks this. If you find that your onwell doing the low cal thing and you want to stop it all that doesnt mean something else wont work.

I do not think drastically cutting calories works, never said that never wrote that. I said you should stick to the MFP calorie guide, ie your daily target. which will change as you lose weight, so emphasising that point is weak.

My point is, ignore TDEE for a very overweight, inactive person. The fat is the calories being used to fuel the body, which is rather the point, not calorie deficit and then replace exercise calories - you will get nowhere fast.

The rest of your information is about as spurious and "your belief system" as it gets in terms of working out and heart rate. Heart rate is an excellent indicator for people who do not know what their body is capable of, or indeed to demonstrate that you are just not working out hard enough to really burn calories or look at Perceived Exertion Rate (PER). Of course, heart rate is not the scientific way for counting calories burned but few of us have the laboratory equipment for accurate measurement.

There is no easy way, but reduce calories and exercise or even stay eating the exactly the same and exercise - what is wholly evident through thousands of studies is that diet on it's own seldom works.

zOMG

Wow you're still going lol ok...But I suggest you seek help for your anger management problem. Some people when they eat to little get very moody, this may be you. I'm going to answer your questions incase someone is wondering where I'm getting my information.

a) Your heart rate monitor - I said Polar - you say Polar are inaccurate for WOMEN. But now you tested your HRM against a male ENGINEERS friend Polar watch and it was accurate.

I would say good observation, but this is not what I said. I said some of the polars are not accurate. And I didn't say anything about them being inaccurate about their heart rates. If you're going to get a good watch and you're paying for it, pay for one that works fully. Eastern Illinois University pointed out that Polar watches could be 33% inaccurate for EE.

b) Who said that MFP calorie recommendation is BMR, it isn't.

I have no what you're talking about, neither did I. What I think you're talking about is:

I would stick to BMR with exercise

To me this says BMR + exercise calories. Maybe you meant eat at a deficit that your body would use unconscious and then burn off more calories until you're barely living on anythinig, but that seems like a silly recommendation.

c) If you were unwell at 1200, I do not know where you were getting those 1200 calories. Could be 2 Big Macs or 3 Snickers. As opposed to saiety led foods.

I hate fast food (unless they sell wraps with veggies) and snickers. It usually came from fresh meat, leafy veg, peppers, cawliflower, carrots, broccoli and the like. I also make my own ezekiel bread so some of that was in there too for sandwiches and the like. Similar to what I eat now but a lot less of it.

I exercise and that exercise is about 690-900 calories

What are those numbers based on?

I am usually under my calories goal or 1800 and my BMR is 2387 leaving 587 calories

I hope you know that your deficit isn't 587 calories, thats a deficit of what you'd need unconcious, not your TDEE. And that doesn't leave 587 calories, that's minus 587 calories. If you are trying to net 587 calories, you have a eating disorder, not even myfitnesspal recommends this. And if you're exercising off 900 calories, that's below 1200. Not even myfitnesspal recommends this.

I rarely touch the exercise calories because the fat burnt is the fat I am trying to lose but under TDEE I would use some of the exercise calories as food and therefore sacrifice fat loss. It is simple math.

Have you calculated power outputs of your workouts? If you make energy graphs based on your exercise numbers you'll notice that they're curved. It will spike up and then level off, so there's a point that exercising doesn'tt add a lot of benefit. What makes you think the only thing you're losing is fat? What you're doing is not healthy, and it's not good you're recommending other people do this to themselves. Weight loss is simple math, and you're not doing it right. I can eat 5 times 500 and lose weight if I'm exercising.

So yes, ignore TDEE it obfuscates the numbers for people who are severley overweight or obese.

You are wrong.

if you do fail on one day that is a harmless blip rather than a disastrous one.

I had binge days that were up to 3500 calories while on my diet, at fancy restaurants, it wasn't a disaster at all. I still managed to lose my pound for that week in fact.

And do get a HRM and try to exercise at 65% to 75% of your guideline heart rate.

I'm not going to argue with this.

So, congrats again on 31lbs but I could have accelerated your result, guaranteed.

By what? Making me eat (BMR-500-900.....) ... minus 100 calories a day? lol. Believe me if I was slowing down on 1200, that would make me lose weight but I would have also been hospitalized.

Please snipe and contradict no more, you will not change my opinion and I think your experience though worthy is just wrong and outdated and sounds to me like someone looking for the easy way out. So, the OP can choose - fact or nearly fact.

What's outdated about eating sensibly in sensible portions and not running my deficits into the 3 digits or no numbers? What's wrong about it? What's easier about it? "sensible" or "Healthier" and full of natural vitamins are the words I would use.

Bump because of several horribly untrue statements. Will update when I have time.

It's so nice of you to stop back in and correct everyone. :laugh:

OP- Do you feel schooled yet? :bigsmile:

Oh boy... you're something and I'm not going to argue with you anymore, as you pointed out, you don't want to either. You shouldn't spew out lie and myth words if you have no backup though. Especially something thats proven to work.

The OP asked for simple advice. Mine is eat well, move more, if you are worried about heart rate and exercise then buy a monitor. I have the POLAR FT1, I can only speak about that and my friend has one and they are accurate. As for exercise, to help again I say with your weight OP, get a personal trainer once a month for 6 months if you can afford it. If not, get a group session. But a personal trainer would have saved me 15 months of trial and error gained from the internet.

But I well say that it's accurate for heart rate, not necessarily calorie burns (especially if it's based on V˙ O2max and HRmax) if you're a women according to the university of Illinois since there's a deviation of 33% for EE.

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Quit the snipes, or warnings will be issued to the offending parties. One way will not work for all, agree to disagree on this one please