BMR, TDEE and proper calorie intake

I just learned the basics a bout Basal Metabolic Rate, Total Daily Energy Expenditure, and calorie intake.  I went through the equations and came up with some alarming numbers.  I now have questions and am wondering if I'm screwing myself up by eating too few calories. (well not now cuz i'm overeating but when I do the 1500.) According to my calculations I should be taking in 2510 calories a day to lose weight.  I also read that severely decreasing your calorie intake can be detrimental. One of the sites recommended not dropping below 1800 calories a day for men. What should I do?  Julie you're the pro!!  Help!!??   Also, if I start getting more exercise it's going to adjust these numbers so I have to determine what a good caloric intake should be. I was trying to do 1500 but maybe that's too little and could be why I'm wanting to overeat so much, maybe I really am hungry? I used these sites: http://www.shapefit.com/basal-metabolic-rate.html http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/ http://www.bestdallaspersonaltrainer.com/energy-expenditure- calculator.html BMR: 2614.76 TDEE: 3138  (Sedentary) Calorie Deficit: 627.6 Calorie Intake: 2510.4

I will say that those calculators seem to be more for muscle machine people, however, I had said that to you at one point:  is 1500 too low?   I mean, if you were eating 25-2800 caloires before, why would you not lose eating 1800 daily?  Just simple math there.  Now, as you lose, 1800 may not work at some point, but really now?  1500 is pretty low for someone who is young, male and weighs a lot. Sure it can be done, by by all appearances, it seems to be setting you up to fail.

 Ding ding ding!   Makes sense.  I have probably been starving myself all along and now my body is revolting.  I'm thinking I was probably eating more like 4000-5000 calories a day before March.  My previous helping of that spaghetti bake my wife makes would be 2 1/3 dinner plates with 2 pieces of the toast.   Maybe it's time I stop beating the crap out of myself.  Hmm, but do I try 1800 or 2000?  I need to reduce by at least 600 calories and I'm gonna say my average intake was about 3000 per day just to be safe so perhaps 2000 calories a day is my goal if I continue to walk 2 miles a night.. If I don't walk then perhaps 1800 calories.  Whatcha think? Seems like it's too many calories.  Oh do you really think it's for muscular people?  The TDEE calculator allowed me to adjust for a sedentary lifestyle. Of course now I understand why you have to reduce your intake the smaller you get. Makes much more sense now.  It's funny, I stumbled onto this information by reading something on the tops website abou****ching TV burning 18 calories and I was like WTF, REALLY? So I searched it and then read about BMR and searched on that and found TDEE, etc and wow, who knew!?

I say that those are for muscle machines because they say I can eat 1800 calories a day and lose - NOT  double NOT.  I guess they are a one size fits all approach, and we all know what that means.  I guess men don't have those one size fits all sizes - right?

Yeah we have those sizes they just put a X's in front of the L's to make us look tough! :)

Yeah, so maybe your supper last night wasn't really that out of line.  Just your feelings toward it.  If your body thinks you are starving it, it will hold on to every bit of fat that it can.  Frustrating I know, but it is a survival mechanism that served our ancestors well. Our bodies haven't caught up with modern technology and don't realise we don't need to store all that fat any more.  Oh and Neecee is absolutely right.  Add more vegetables.  And QUIT beating yourself up.  If a good friend messed up, would you talk to them the way your inner voice is talking to you.  I doubt it.  Let go of the guilt.  Try the BMR guidelines for a few days and see how it goes.    

I've heard about that starvation fat storage thing. In fact I tried to explain to my wife that her 1 meal a day eating habits is what is making her maintain but of course she won't believe me. heheh  Thanks for the help.  I think I will try eating just a little more than I had previously but not quite as much as I did yesterday. I had about 3-5oz of flank steak, about the same of grilled chicken, a cup of sauteed veggie medley and about a 1/4 cup of black beans for lunch. I feel satisfied and not stuffed.. The way I like to feel in other words. I haven't had any snacks today and only a banana for breakfast.

I don't know if this will hel*****t but thought maybe you could do a comparison or something. Hubby has been on a diet for the past 3 weeks eating 1800-2000 calories a day and has lost 16 pounds so far. He started out at 220 and thats without any exercise. He drinks at least 100 ounces of water a day. I think you could eat that much if not a little more and lose nicely. Candy

This is one of those IMO kinda things, and I will be the first to admit that I don't understand why the lady sitting next to me at work eats 4-5 times in a 9 hr. day and no telling what all after work, and she weighs 120lbs. and I eat three balanced meals a day and can't seem to shed what I used to call my baby weight (I finally had to admit that was ludicrious, as my baby is now 15...LOL).  BUT, I went to a seminar with a bunch of accountants a couple years back, and the trainer from the Tennesse Titans came and spoke to us, he asked how many of us skipped breakfast on a regular basis, and of course many of us were guilty. He explained to us that breakfast (not just a banana) was the most important meal of the day.  I know we have heard this a lot, but the way he explained it made mucho sense. We need fruit, protein, calcium, grains, and fats, and vegetables to make our body perform efficiently.  With breakfast being the meal that gets you up and gets you going in the morning, it would be better to have more caloric intake then than later in the day.  He explained how you wouldn't leave your house going on a long trip without stopping to fuel up your car....your body also needs fuel to sustain it throughout the day with the biggest amount of that fuel needed (for most of us) in the daytime.  So to skimp on breakfast and lunch and eat our largest meal at night is counterproductive, but that's what most of us do. He also explained that if you go from 6ish at night to 12ish in the day w/o eating, you body does this mini-hybernation thing where it stores fat for future use.  So in other words our body does what we are trying to defeat.  I usually don't do veggies for breakfast, but I do try to make sure I get some grains, protein, dairy product, and fruit for breakfast everyday.....and on the week-end I try to do an omelette type thing with fresh veggies included.  AS I SAID, this is just my opinion, but that's my two sense worth. Can you tell I don't have much to do today?

Hiya Chris,      Without doing any figures, I would say that 1,500 calories a day for you is too abrupt a change.  (That's my max, and I'm only a 5'5" girlie girl. :-)  I'd try the 1,800 for two weeks and see if that doesn't allow you more satisfaction throughout the day.  And remember to spread those calories out as evenly as possible.  And yes, anything your body perceives as sudden starvation is going to put the brakes on your weight loss metabolism-wise.      I find most of the online calculators to be wildly variable.  If I'm REALLY playing the numbers game, I'll use the old equation the HMR medical weight loss program had us use.  Women got to multiply their weight by 11 (men got to multiply by 12....so unfair :-0) to calculate what they needed to maintain WITHOUT exercise.        So for instance, that would make my current maintenance calories 1,628 with no exercise to stay at 148 pounds.  So if I wanted to lose a pound a week and continue to be a non-exercising slug, I could only eat 1,128 calories a day and still hope to lose a pound.  But now add in the magic of cardio exercise.  I do 350 calories on the treadmill (which doesn't even count what I'm burning with the handweights/arm exerciese), so that instantly lets me eat 1,478 calories a day and still lose a pound a week.  Now add in my two gym days (each worth another 500 calories a session), and I get to eat even more.   :-)  And basically, I throw enough other calorie burns in that I can actually manage 2 pounds per week at 1,500 calories.      Except for this week.  LOL  Other than painting, I haven't done anything even remotely close to exercise other than the leg lifts I do when I get into bed at night.  So I've chosen only to eat 1,250 calories a day this week since I'm doing jack squat.  But I finished the last of my re-certification courses today, so as of tomorrow, it's back to the Hamster Wheel for me.  :-)  I had such an urge to binge when I got home this evening (that old post-stress reward thingey), but I had my usual South Beach wraps instead and now feel completely past the urge.  Of course, it could be the fatigue thinking too since I only had 2 hours of sleep last night since I was cramming on EKG rhythms, what the right drugs/doses were for different rhythms in a code, the new changes in CPR, and all the algorithms for stroke/MI/etc....  I'm soooo glad I don't have to renew for another 2 years now.  :-)