BMR, BMI. Harris Benedict Equations, etc, what's it all mean?

Ok, I'm still confused about exactly how many calories I need to burn and eat each day to lose around .5 - 2 lbs a week.

I'm 21 years old, 6'3" and 260 lbs so far, I was 280 about a month ago. My goal is to try to get below 200.

I cut all unhealthy stuff out of my diet such as fast food, Doritos, eating a box of pizza, soft drinks, etc. and started eating more veggies like brocoli and carrots, apples, bananas, green tea, lots of water, whole grain rices, cereals high in fiber, etc.

I think I eat about 1000 calories a day (was probably less than that) if I'm counting everything right, and I was losing about 4-5 lbs each week, which I heard was unhealthy. I heard you should never go below 1200 without consulting a doctor. 1000 doesn't even feel that bad to me, I don't ever get starved hardly. A lot of people don't believe me when I say that, but that's how I've been doing for the past month. I check the calories and serving sizes on everything, and what I drink usually contains 0 calories.

I was eating about 3 meals a day only, but trying to bring that up to 5 small meals a day now to increase my metabolism. For exercise, I've been biking on a exercise bike every day. I try to use it 3 times a day and it says I burn about 365 calories (10 miles each time). It's very a very long and boring task but I know I gotta do it every day or I'll gain weight back. The resistance belt on my exercise bike burned off from wear and tear though....so I'm not sure how much it really is. I did turn the resistance knob to the lowest setting in hopes it'd be somewhat accurate.

I weigh myself on my digital scale everyday. People say you should do it only once a week or you'll get discouraged, but I don't. I like to keep a careful monitor on my weight. I weigh every time after I eat, after I exercise, etc. to see how much of an effect it's had. I notice I weigh the least in hte morning, and I'll gain like 4 - 5 lbs through out the day and it's enough to freak anyone out, but then that weight is gone again next morning, interesting.

BMR
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I found how to calculate your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) off some website which is, the amount of calories your body burns on it's own to function, when you're sleeping, etc.

My BMR is 2528.7 which means my body burns 2528.7 calories a day on it's own, that sure is a lot.

Harris Benedict Equation
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It tells you how many calories you need to consume daily to maintain your weight.

BMR ( 2528.7 ) + Moderate Exercise ( 40% of BMR which is 1011.48 ) = 3540.18

Even with moderate exercise, I need 3540.18 calories daily.

That's a loooot of calories. I couldn't even get myself to eat that much a day if I wanted. I'd probably get stuffed half way. That's like eating 4 Burger King whoppers every day.

Body Fat Percentage
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I weigh 260 and have a waist size of 40 inches. My body fat % is 19.33% which is "acceptable". That means about 50 lbs of my weight is body fat. That good, bad? I'm guessing I'd have to get down to about 222 lbs to get about 8% body fat and notice that six pack, but my waist size would also decrease as I lose weight, so it's just a guesstimate. 222 still seems like a lot.

Body Mass Index
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BMI (body mass calculator) is a lie IMO....it says I'd have to be like 160 lbs just to be a normal weight? Yeah right that's way too skinny even for what I want.

So what do I do?
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A lot of this stuff doesn't make much sense to me, and is probably more complicated than I'm making it out to be.

Like I said I eat about 1000 calories a day and try to burn more than 1000 each day, it's a hard and boring, but eh....I wish someone could just do the math for me and I'd take care of the rest. I've been eating less, exercising more. The way these websites are explaining it though, seems I should be eating more and exercising more. That's good, in my case, I just wanna make sure I'm doing the right thing and that I'm not gonna gain back the weight I've already lost so far.

At my current weight....how many calories should I REALLY be consuming and burning each day?

It sounds crazy to have to eat 3000+ calories a day, and trying to burn more than 3000 off a day through exercise sounds almost impossible. I don't think I even consumed that many calories daily when I WASN'T exercising and gaining weight. I think I'm burning a lot of calories off already just from my confusion and trying to find the right answer from an accomplished expert that know what I'm talking about, and what they are talking about. *sigh*

Please help if you can, thanks.

Jago - welcome. I'm fairly new here, but not new to this whole weight loss stuff. First of all head on over to Fitday.com and set up an account. It is a online journal. You record what you eat and it figures out the calories. It also has a quick questionnaire and will figure out the amount of calories you need each day to lose weight. My DH is 6'2" and yes 160 is a bit low. I'm not sure where you found your BMI chart that told you 160 is a good weight. I'm guessing closer to 180-190. If you use Fitday, you don't really have to go to all those other sites for numbers. You can also record your exercise on there an it will calculate what you've burnt. It will then figure out how much you ate, how much your body burnt, just being you and how much you burnt through exercise and then tell you how much of a deficit you created. you need to cut 500 a day to lose 1 pound a week. 1000 to lose 2 a week. Go check it out and come back and let us know if that helped. Good luck on your loss. oh BTW, the first couple weeks, you tend to drop more as you lose water weight first. Also check out the stickys on here for help with nutrition and exercise.

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Read the stickies in the forums, you will find most of the answers to your questions.

It is very unhealthy at your weight to be eating that little.
I can't imagine how slow your metabolism would be right now, your body would be trying to conserve energy because you are starving yourself, and will probably halt fat loss.

At your height and weight you could eat over 2500 calories and lose weight. And no, not burger king.
Read the stickied threads, you can really get a lot of useful information in there.

Your BMI is currently 32.3
At 160lbs your BMI would be 20.
A NORMAL BMI is 20-26 (or so)

At 200lbs your BMI would be 25 - Perfect.

So no the BMI is not a lie you were not calculating it right. If what you want is 8% body fat and lean muscle, don't even bother with BMI, as it does not take into account lean body mass.

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Starting Weight: 62kg - Current Weight: 57.4kg - Goal Weight: 52kg

Hey thanks for the info bigdogmom. I read up on BMI and stuff in nutrition class but that was so long ago and I didn't realize fitday did all that for you. I signed up but I'm going to have to look more thoroughly, cuz I didn't see where it did those things. That's awesome for somebody lazy like me, lol.

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Allright, thanks for the help austin, just wanted you guys to verify this all for me. If I can eat 2500 a day and still lose, that's great. That will actually be kinda hard for me, I'd get full easily because I'm so used to eating far less. Kinda ironic. XD

Thanks for linking me to the Fitday.com site bigdogmom, I will definitely sign up and use this. I'm gonna get me a TickerFactory.com weight loss ticker too because they look so cool, lol.

On fitday, if you check under the various tabs, you will see different charts. Mine looks a bit different because I opted to buy the one for my pc, so it has some extra stuff to it. However, if you look at the activites tab, it shows, your basal calories used (what it takes just to keep you alive if you stayed in bed all day) based on you height, then it shows how many calories are used from your lifestyle (sit at desk all day) that is something else that you told it about yourself. Then it shows what you burnt that day through exercise, if you recorded any.

Under the foods tab, it shows how many calories you have eaten, if you filled in your journal.

Then you can to to the reports tab and look at calories eaten vs. calories burned. If you see that you burned more than you ate, you will lose if you continue to do so. How fast is determined by the deficit.

I had to go back to my original on-line acct to check that out, it is a bit different than the pc version.

Hope that helps

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Jago you snuck in while I was giving more detail info. You are quite welcome for the help. Stop by my journal sometime.

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