Health & Fitness Thread - 1/18

Jan 18, 2016 14:59:51 GMT TankTop said:

I am off today. I stayed up way too late soul searching last night.

Hello, my name is TankTop and I snack too damn much! Not only do I snack, I have been letting sweets creep back in.

After some soul searching I have come to the conclusion that I am hungry. I have been eating low cal for so long to lose that I am terrfied of increasing my calories, but I don't want to lose any longer. I keep eating these little sweets and telling myself it is okay because I need to increase my calories. I am still within the MFP calorie recommendation, but I know they are not the right foods.

My plan this week is to eat more. I am going to add more snacks in that are healthy and good for me.

Currently I work out 6 days a week. I am an elementary school teacher, so I am not sitting all day. I would not consider it a physically active job either. As it stands I have MFP set to 1500 calories, but only eat 1200-1300 most days m

MFP says I should eat 1830 calories at a lightly active setting to maintain
MFP says I should eat 2090 calories at an active setting to maintain
Katy Hearn's calculator says I should eat 1326 for BMR to maintain
Katy Hearn's calculator says I should eat 1989 for TDEE to maintain
(Found the Katy Hearn calculator by reading the maintaining boards on MFP)

I am so confused on what I should be eating??? Anyone have any idea?

I had an eating disorder in my college years, so I am very careful and worried about that creeping back in. I want to be healthy more than I want to look good in jeans. KWIM? However, I worry that I am not objective enough or seeing things for how they really are.

I am thinking of eating 1500 calories for a few weeks and seeing where that gets me. Thoughts?

For reference, your BMR is the number of calories you would require for basic bodily functions - blood pumping, hair growing, basic.  If you were in a coma and didn't move at all, you would burn your BMR.  My best piece of advice is to never eat below your BMR (total calories, not net). 

Your TDEE is your total daily energy expenditure - the number of calories you burn in total at a given activity level.  That would be the coma-level of your BMR plus any movement you do during the day.  Brush your teeth, cook dinner, get the mail, run a marathon?  Those all increase your TDEE.  The more active you are during the day, the higher that number gets.  To lose weight, you want to eat at a calorie level less than your TDEE but greater than your BMR.

MFP creates your calorie goal based on how active are you during the day without exercise.  Are you a construction worker or a kindergarten teacher who is always on your feet moving around or are you an office worker who is planted in front of the desk all day? Because of this, they will give you a lower calorie goal and encourage you to 'eat back' your exercise calories (because they aren't calculated into their initial calorie recommendation).  This is where they get the notion of 'net calories'.

So, for example, my BMR is 1284 - that's the number of calories I burn by just being alive.  MFP says that I burn 1500 calories a day (my BMR + what little activity I have given I work at a desk).  My actual TDEE is around 2000 calories - that's my BMR + what little I burn in my day-to-day activities + my dedicated exercise.

If I follow MFP, and told them I wanted to lose .5lbs a week, their calculators would suggest that I should eat 1250 calories a day - a deficit of 500/day to lose a pound (3500/week), 250 calories a day to lose .5 pounds (1750 calories per week).

But I'm not going to eat 1250 calories a day because it's below my BMR and I'm not keen on starving myself.  Instead, what I would do is exercise. 

If I burn 500 calories exercising, my TDEE would be 2000 calories - the 1500 calories that MFP has calculated + 500 calories of exercise. If I want to lose .5lbs a week, I would now eat 1750 calories (2000 calories - the 250 calorie deficit needed to lose .5lbs/week) or, as MFP calculates it - 1250 calories that initially suggested + 500 calories of exercise that I did. However it's calculated, I'm still eating above my BMR and below my TDEE and, therefore, I'm still losing weight.

TL;DR - start with 1500 calories and see what happens.  It's above your BMR of 1326 so you're good there.  Just throw in a bit of exercise or movement to make that 1500 is fewer calories than what you are burning.