My road to eating above BMR (and what TDEE means)

This blog is going to be somewhat all over the place, but bare with me.

A while ago I wrote a post on how I upped my calories from 1,200 to 1,500 to break a plateau. I am happy I did this, because eating at 1,200 is something you should really never do (but desperate times call for desperate measures, right?). I had been eating at 1,500 calories for a while and started asking myself why not take it another step further and find out what my BMR and TDEE are (how much I need to eat to maintain my weight)?

In the Insanity Nutrition Guide, they use the Harris-Benedict equation, which calculates how many calories your body burns every day. If I remember correctly, this number was somewhere close to 2,500. Meaning I should be eating that, at the LEAST. I kind of waived the idea of eating that much.

But lately I have been hanging out at some message boards and learning more about nutrition, as you all know I love learning. I decided to set aside my fear and really see what my BMR and TDEE were.

For those of you who don't know:

BMR = Basal Metabolic Rate. Which is the amount of calories your body needs to survive, if you would be in a coma or lay in bed all day, sleeping. That means, that this is the least amount of calories you SHOULD be consuming. Anything below that will mess up your metabolism, because it will slow down.

TDEE: Total Daily Energy Expenditure. This calculation is a rough guesstimate of how many calories you burn considering the level of activity. So it takes into consideration your daily chores (showering, brushing your teeth, cooking, eating, sitting at the computer, walking) but also your exercise level.

To calculate your TDEE, you need to know your BMR and then based on your activitiy level you get a number that is your TDEE - what you should be consuming to maintain your current weight. To lose weight, recommended is that you eat TDEE - 20%. My number here is 2,285. I need to eat this many calories to lose 1 lbs body fat per week. This is based on the simple calories in/out theory.

So, I have been experimenting with this for about a week now and I wanted to log my experience with it. Now, I started eating at 2,200 for a bit, not caring about what my calories consisted of. Because my metabolism is basically screwed up from eating way below my BMR, I gained (water) weight, 1.4 kg in a week. This is my body adjusting, from years of eating at an unhealthy low calorie level.

Yesterday I decided to drop to 1,800 calories. Why? Honestly? I don't know how much more weight gain I can take, even though this is all water weight and will come right off, I think shocking my metabolism won't work for me (mentally and emotionally). So I will stay at 1,800 calories (which is real close to my BMR of 1,843) for a while. Maybe for a month (I lost 0,8 of the 1,4 kg within a day), maybe when I reach goal weight.

As for now, 1,800 calories seems to work just fine for me. It is not too difficult to consume 1,800 calories in a day, and still eat healthy and a nice step up from 1,500. And if I can continue to lose body fat successfully this way, why not, right?

I hope that at the end of the year I will have my metabolism back to where it should be. I hope that by then I will be able to eat close to 2,500 calories and maintain my weight.

If you are interested in knowing what your BMR and TDEE is, you can calculate it here. If you have any questions on this topic, feel free to message me!