Anyone else got a low TDEE/BMR? (aiming for 1200 per day)

[SheRaaaaa]

Mine is 1509 so realistically, to see any significant loss I need to be around the 1200 mark each day.

Anyone else got such a low number? What do you eat?

I normally stick to low carb, high fat but I'm changing tack to calorie counting and raise my protein and drop my fat a bit. Carbs will only come from fruit or veg as I don't tolerate wheat etc. I'm also aiming for homemade/whole foods as much as possible too.

[Vegetus]

I'm yet to meet anyone in real life who can only eat 1200 calories to lose weight but it seems to be the majority on Mumsnet.

TDEE and BMR are different things, the former is total daily energy expenditure and basal metabolic rate is the calories you burn just to exist and nothing else so if your BMR is 1509 your TDEE is a bit higher and depending on activity levels could be far higher.

[SheRaaaaa]

They came out the same yesterday for some reason, I was confused by that too, unless the tdee calculator was giving me bmr too, I'll do it again today and have another look.

[kegofcoffee]

What's your height, weight and activity level?

I'm 5ft and 51kg, work out 4 days a week for 30-45 minutes. And am currently very very slowly loosing weight at 1750 kcal a day.

I'm not trying to loose weight anymore, I'm just working back up to find my maintenance kcal with the aim of keeping the weight off.

I was 56kg when I started to loose weight and lost 3.5kg over around 4 weeks of 1350 kcal a day high protein diet. No way would I have been able to sustain anything lower than that.

[SheRaaaaa]

I'm 5'1, 14st 5lbs and I've started c25k and I swim daily at the moment, only leisurely though, the pool is quite small. I sit at a desk all day. I'm 42 and post-meno too, because of this, the amount of calories I can eat if I want to lose anything at all is dire.

[FatAgainItsLettuceTime]

Ok so your TDEE is around 1750 if activity is set to sedentary, anything below that should result in a loss, the more you cut the quicker the loss but also the harder it will be to stick to and the more restrictive it will feel. So you're more likely to give up, this is going to have to be a long term change even if you cut drastically it will be months of sticking to it.

You'd be better dropping to 1500 and continuing your swimming.

[SheRaaaaa]

Since Monday, my food has looked like this:

Full fat greek yoghurt
10 almonds
3 walnuts
Fruit, yesterday I had 2 rings of tinned pinepple, the day before some galia melon

A small amount of monkey nuts or pumpkin seeds, I weighed the pumpkin seeds yesterday and the little bowl holds 15g

A bit of fruit, yesterday I had a nectarine, the day before the rest of the melon

Meat and salad for dinner. Yesterday I had pork in almond sauce and the day before tapa de magro, (pork in tomato sauce). I had those with salad, jarred beetroot, and a forkful of coleslaw.

2-3 litres of water a day and a couple of teas. I do have stevia though. And a teaspoon of milk.

I try to eat within an 8 hour window, but we've been eating dinner later, about 10ish, due to the heat, and I've had breakfast between 12 and 1.

[Saverage]

I've got a TDEE of 1440 (5ft 2, 10st 3, pretty sedentary apart from an hour's walk most days). I'm losing weight on 1200 calories, about a pound a week.

My diet is massively repetitive though, as I know it works and I like it. I'll vary it at some point to get more nutrients, I'm a bit too lazy about veggies. I don't let myself go hungry - if I am, I eat a few more nuts.

Breakfast - 4 tbsp Greek yoghurt, 1 tbsp seeds, 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar, berries. Mid-morning snack - 10 almonds / cashews.

Lunch - chicken or fish, cucumber, tomatoes, 1 tbsp tzatziki or hummus, hard-boiled egg, quarter of a slice of cheese. Maybe half a slice of rye bread if hungry.

Dinner - smoothie - 100ml kefir, half avocado, berries, spinach

[Chesneyhawkes1]

My BMR is 1,293. I'm 5ft 3, 8 stone.

I exercise a lot. 7-8 hours a week minimum, so I get extra calories for that but I don't eat them back.

Tbh I don't really loose or gain weight. I just stay the same. Even if I stick to 1,450 a week I don't loose, although usually I'll have a cheat dinner once a week, so that probably undoes all my good work.

I'm post menopausal since cancer treatment and I think that's not helped.

[Chesneyhawkes1]

I forgot the diet part 🤦‍♀️ mine is repetitive too:-

Overnight oats with protein powder

BOL type thing for lunch

Ready meal for diner - usually gym kitchen or something.

Snacks I have kvarg, banana, fibre one bars.

I'm going to read ultra processed people at some point and clean up my diet.

[SweetSakura]

At 5ft3 and 8 stone you don't need to lose weight though @Chesneyhawkes1

[Chesneyhawkes1]

@SweetSakura last year I was 7st 10 and I preferred how I looked.

But no I don't "need" to loose weight. Was just personal choice. But now I can't seem to anyway without being super strict.

[dudsville]

I clicked on your thread because I'm near my goal and wanted to see what tdee suggested my new maintenance will be when i get there, and thought this might be a chat about that. Reading your post though i wanted to say, i tried losing weight by massively increasing my exercise from couch potato to walking and riding a bike many miles most days plus calorie counting and weighing food. I'm peri, only have a few periods a year now, so i expectded weight loss to be harder, but to put so much effort in and absolutely nothing back over the course of nearly a year was so demotivating.

Recently, owing to a gallbladder problem i had to go on a low fat diet. I've always eaten healthy fats but never really paid attention to fat. At the moment any fat content has to be below 3% per 100g, sat fat below 1.5% and sugar below 5%. Now, this is a massive shift for me. I love oily fish, peanut butter, butter, eggs, cheese, hummus, but my motivator for sticking with this is the gallbladder pain is so severe. As a result of a gallbladder infection my appetite dropped, so what I'm saying is my conditions are unique, BUT long story short, in 3 weeks i dropped from 12.9 to 11.8 stone. Obviously that's too quick and my circumstances are different, but i never realised how much the fat content of my food contributed to my weight. I always thought cooking at home with good ingredients and not eating crap was good enough. I only ever wanted to get to 11 st and i think I'll finally make it. I have to stay on the low fat diet for at least another month but this morning thought i'd start calorie counting as well to make the best use of a sorry time.

High fat diets are really popular, and we need fat, but for me this along with the fear that comes with gallbladder pain was the key to weight loss.

[SheRaaaaa]

@Dudsville that's very interesting because a few years ago, I did have some success by following a clean version of Slimming World. I didn't have the hxb, syns or all the crap they push like muller lights, it was basically low fat clean eating, without carbs. So I'm thinking of going back to that.