Hi everyone, I'm counting calories and I'm using the Lose It! app to do so.
Bottom line is: My BMR is 1727. The amount of calories I'm allotted a day is 1418, and I usually eat around 1200-1400. (This is calculated by the app.)
For both, I gave honest and accurate information.
I recently heard that I should never eat below my BMR, why is that? I've felt find with the amount of calories I've been eating, and being female, I don't really mind losing muscle. I'm not interested in gaining any at the moment.

I have never particularly enjoyed working out and don't think I ever will, so I haven't been exercising very much outside of doing a lot of walking to and from class.

Should I be eating below my BMR? My metabolism feels... fine, I guess? I'm not very in-touch with my body on these things, usually if I feel tired, its because I didn't sleep enough. I mean, I'm losing weight, but all of a sudden I'm hearing that netting below your BMR is bad for you. I'm pretty confused.

Are you clocking in exercise? If you do then your calorie allottment for the day goes up. I never clocked in exercise. I've always kept a general rule of eating around my BMR, only because it feels right. And I figure that my BMR is the amount of calories my body burns at rest so any movement I do beyond that is caloric deficit.

Are you satisfied with 1400cal a day? Have you set your weight loss settings too low on Lose it? I found that if I set it to losing 2lbs a week my caloric allotment was way too low for me to be satisfied. I kept it at around 1lb per week.

For the same reason that you must eat every 2-3 hours to keep your metabolism humming along.

For the same reason that you must eat breakfast to stoke your metabolic fire.

For the same reason that you must practice HIIT exercise to engage your flux capacitor and burn calories 24/7.

Finally, because if you don't your body will go into starvation mode and losing weight will be impossible.

All of the above are false. You're going to hear a lot of untrue things and some of them will come from people who have been very successful at losing weight.

Bottom line is that when you diet your metabolism slows down but not by much. If you restrict calories too heavily for too long you will suffer major negative consequences but simply going below your BMR doesn't matter.

I love HITT.

I've never heard that you shouldn't eat below your BMR. I eat below mine most days and I've been doing fine losing weight.

I would suggest that you might want to think about not caring if you lose muscle. I understand you might not want to be a bodybuilder, but everyone needs an adequate amount of muscle. As you age, you will eventually start losing muscle. This is part of the natural part of aging unless you do things to increase your muscle. My mother (in her 80s) can't take a bath anymore (she has to take showers) because if she sits down in a tub she doesn't have the muscle strength to get up. I don't think she ever cared about whether she lost muscle or not. But, now, she does care that she can't do lots of things because she doesn't have the strength to do it. And, she needed to be thinking about those things when she was younger.

I think it is a fallacy that you must or even should eat every 2-3 hours to keep your metabolism humming along. That was conventional thought but not so much now.

Many people do better with 3 meals a day and minimum snacking. They have compared success rates and the non every 2-3 hour folk do better at weight loss. Yes you want the best food possible to fuel you. But even when you eat good food the body has to do a lot of processing of it. Having time between eating gives your body a rest and ability to do other things.

Now if it helps someone consume fewer calories overall then it is OK. But by no means a necessary thing to do if you don't feel the need to.

At maintenance though, I don't know. Maybe it is better then. The studies were on people losing weight not trying to maintain.

I am eating every 2-3 hours simply because I find myself getting hungry every two hours or so and it keeps me from binging.
Yes, I am almost always satisfied with 1400 calories a day. The only time I find myself getting hungry is at the end of the day, if I've had something stupidly dense in calories. (yesterday without thinking, I drank a 16oz bubble milk tea for 360 calories! Oops!)
My weight loss goals are set at 2lb/week, but I figure as long as I'm feeling happy and satisfied with my calorie allotment, there's nothing wrong with that setting, is there? The idea is to lose as much weight as fast as possible, while still being comfortable and safe, right? In that case I'm feeling pretty good.

You can eat below your BMR. I mean, make sure you are getting enough nutrients and that you have the energy to engage in activities and live life, but if you are overweight enough you already have a lot of energy in storage. But don't blow off muscle! You will want it later, I promise, and it'll be harder to out it back on. You can minimize muscle loss by doing some kind of strength training as you lose. Whatever activity you like best that involves some resistance.

Otherwise, what if you get to your goal and you look and feel bad? You'll have painted yourself into a corner a bit and you'll probably have to gain weight back to gain the muscle you need to be healthy. Much easier to just work on it as you go.

What I learned is that your BMR is the amount of calories you need to keep your body alive if you're in a coma. Well, that's me paraphrasing, but that's the idea, it's what your body needs to keep you humming along in health if you're sedentary. But I really can't see it being an exact science. My bmr is around 1350. If I eat 1250 each day for a week, will my liver and kidneys suffer? I doubt it. I think it's just a suggested number to give people an idea of how many calories they can choose to consume, but of course, if you're more active, you'll need more calories if you lack energy.

If I work out 3x a week at the gym and eat below my bmr, I can't get out of bed most days, but upping my calories about 400 or so gives me extra energy. That seems to be the amount I can eat and still be in weight loss mode.

What is HIIT?

I will keep this in mind, guys!

It's a complete myth that you shouldn't eat below your BMR when trying to lose weight. Most experts advise not going below 1,200 calories per day, which is well below most people's BMR.

Just to clarify: BMR refers to your basal metabolic rate, which is the amount of calories you would burn in a day if you were sleeping 24/7. The number you quoted (1,727) sounds more like your TEE, or total energy expenditure -- the amount you actually burn in a typical day, which includes both sleep and wake time. Many people confuse BMR with TEE.

Freelance

John listed that trope as a fallacy, not a fact.

F.

I agree then :-). I have heard HIIT can be very effective though. It is High Intensity Interval Training: going all out in short time frames.

No, my TEE is more along the lines of 2004. I checked that as well.
I'm 16, around 200 pounds and 5'7". My age is likely where such a high number is coming from.

I know he was posting the second quote as a fallacy, I was pointing out that I tend to do that anyway.