Best BMR calc?

Copper23

Hey all,
So is there any consensus on this forum as to calculating BMR? Or basically, how many calories I need a day?

I have tried a few formulas I've seen on the web but they all seem a bit off.
Particularly that a lot of them multiply by age. If I'm the same weight at 20 or 30 years old I dont really feel I should be eating a third more calories.

So my life is a desk job these days so I spend 8 hours sitting down. My activity level depends on how active I get in the evening.

So I did the 8 week challenge with great results. I am embarking on another 8 weeks with a new goal but I'd like to refine things a bit.

To loose 1-2 lbs a week the calculations I've got have been anywhere from 1500-2300 calories a day. I think they are way off. Theres no way I'd lose 2lbs eating 2300 calories a day. To be honest I probably had 1200 some days and I felt it was a stretch but got results.

So anyway... all advice welcome and appreciated

Mellor

Copper23 wrote: »

If I'm the same weight at 20 or 30 years old I dont really feel I should be eating a third more calories.

Metabolic rate decreases with age afaik

Victoria.

I was looking at this one this morning. It allows you to calculate bmr and then plus activity.

http://preventdisease.com/healthtools/articles/bmr.shtml

rubadub

They are all just estimates, if you think it is too much or too little than adjust it to what you think it should be, and see if you get results and just adjust accordingly.

People fuel their cars this way so why not your body. If your car ran out of petrol every friday going to work you would learn to put more in on the monday, you would not sit about saying "but my calculations say I should be getting this many miles from my car", it is unnecessary theoretical calculations when you can see the real results empirically.

Calories have nothing to do with humans, 1 calorie increases 1 gram of water by 1degree Celsius, that is an exact repeatable science and how it is defined. You will hear that people will lose/gain 1lb of fat with 3500kcal, but this is only an estimate, yet some treat it like exact science. If you ate 3500kcal of uncooked rice you would get less usable energy from it than 3500kcal of overcooked rice. Also 3500kcal of alcohol will probably have less of an effect on your fat levels than 3500kcal of sugar. In one study prisoners were overfed and came to a plateau of fat gain, some were eating over 10,000kcal per day and unable to gain more fat.

Using calories as a guide to energy for humans is just one method, and it is fairly OK. You could similarly use weight or volume as a guide, like say "the average man needs 1kilo/1litre of food per day" -this will usually be open to more variation than calories if you just eat 1kg of food which gives lots of energy usable by humans. -but just like calories you could empirically work out what weight/volume of food in your usual diet will result in your required 1lb per week weight loss.