I'm just a little confused about the activity levels used for calculating your BMR. For sedentary, does that mean you do NO exercise WHATSOEVER and sit on your butt every single day - always? But if, for instance, you sit on your butt all day for 4 days of the week but work out (cardio & weight train) about 1.5hours for the remaining days, you can say you are "moderately active"? Or would that be lightly active? If you work out every day but aside from the working out, sit the rest of the day, is that very active or only moderately active?
I'm curious because I work a desk job and pretty much don't move for about 8.5 hrs during the day, then drive home, make dinner, sit some more while I eat, then work out for about 1.5 hours - I do this from Mon-Thurs and then increase my workout times for the weekend to about 2hrs Saturday & Sunday. On those days, I don't sit around at all and am usually moving. What activity level would this be?? Please & thanks!
I also sit on my butt 8+ hours a day. Usually do some running around and stuff, cooking, etc.
Ok, well I think part of the problem is that you are confusing how these numbers work.
BMR is Basal Metabolic Rate - this is the number of calories your body will burn just by living. If you did absolutely NOTHING by lie in bed all day. This number will only change as you age, or as you lose weight. Google BMR calculators and you are likely to find several at other sites. It seems to CC does not focus much on BMR, which is neither good nor bad, just another way of looking at things. However, all my reading suggests you should NEVER eat less calories than this number.
From BMR you can THEN figure out how many calories you will burn in a day. The formula, I believe for sedentary is BMR x 1.2. I leave mine at sedentary and then add in exercise. This keeps me from over estimating my burn on a day when I have to skip my workout.
Once you have these two numbers, you will be able to see what your initial deficit is. For instance: Currently at 208 pounds, 5'10" and 37 years of age, my BMR is approximately 1715 calories (an average of a couple different sites). Using the 1.2 calculation I then get a daily sedentary calorie burn of 2058 calories. So, if I eat 1715 calories, I automatically have a 343 calorie deficit. In order to get more deficit, I simply add in exercise. My routine normally burns about 450 calories.
So at the end of the day, I have a deficit of 793 calories.
Make sense?
Thank you. Yes this makes sense.
Bára
regards from Iceland :)
Original Post by lonestar45:This is the BMR calculator that I use.
http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/
That calculator put my BMR as 1322, but on this website I'm at 1760 for sedentry. No wonder I'm not losing any weight, that means if I want a calorie deficit of 500 I'd have to be eating under 1000 calories a day... now I'm confused and worried.... which should I be looking at?
NO, BMR is if you laid in bed sleeping AAALLLLL DAY. Sedentary is being awake, getting up to use the bathroom, cooking your meals, taking a shower, clicking the remote, getting food. So no, 1760 for sedentary is accurate. Now if you are exercising a couple days a week, I find that some just add the exercise on. For example you burn 300 add to 1760 which is 2060.
You really should not eat below your bmr, however to lose 1 pound a week at a sedentary level you would have to eat 1260, 500 cal deficit a day. On days you exercise you could eat 1560 or stay at 1260 to get the extra couple hundred cals.
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