Caloric restriction for weight loss

euterpe68

what is everyone shooting for in terms of daily caloric restriction? I have read so many different opinions. Just wondered if anyone knew the best calculation.
Thank You!

pinggolfer96

500 calorie deficit from maintenance to preserve muscle mass. If severely overweight or obese, cleric restriction can be increased for a limited time til their weight is in a controlled range for their height/ gender/ age....etc. (: that's my recommendation(:

lemmie177

I've read 20-25% of your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) is a good # to shoot for. In practice, I'm usually around 20% (TDEE is ~2000, so I eat ~1600). I've found that I can do 25% for awhile but will eventually start getting cold/tired/not wanting to move, which will throw off TDEE anyway.

jgnatca

Your own results are your guide. Try a couple hundred calories lower than your maintenance, follow that guide for a couple weeks, weigh yourself, then adjust accordingly.

Working2BLean

4000 a week from 4 bike rides of 1000 calories

Eat at close to break even.

I like exercising it off more than not exercising and eating less

GsKiki

I would suggest try out few options and see what feels the best for you. I am currently on 1100 calories per day, but plan on increasing it to 1200 soon.
No person is the same, you need to find what works for you. I would say aim for deficit that will still give you enough energy to do your daily chores, but always leave you almost full after meals. One week should be enough to try it out. If you feel weak, tired or grumpy, you probably chose too big of a deficit.
If you need some ideas for recipes or more ideas and tips feel free to add me

RuNaRoUnDaFiEld

GsKiki wrote: »

I would suggest try out few options and see what feels the best for you. I am currently on 1100 calories per day, but plan on increasing it to 1200 soon.
No person is the same, you need to find what works for you. I would say aim for deficit that will still give you enough energy to do your daily chores, but always leave you almost full after meals. One week should be enough to try it out. If you feel weak, tired or grumpy, you probably chose too big of a deficit.
If you need some ideas for recipes or more ideas and tips feel free to add me

OP I would ignore this advice as eating that low would not be safe unless you are very short and sedentary.

As others have said work out your TDEE and eat 500 calories or so below it. Slow and steady is the best way.

abatonfan

I think most MFPers follow either NEAT (what MFP currently uses) or TDEE (total daily energy expenditure).

NEAT takes how many calories you burn per day when doing basic activities of daily living. If, for instance, you are a floor nurse and on your feet for most of your day, you would burn more within those 24 hours compared to someone with similar stats who works at a desk job (this is why it is important to be honest when selecting whether you are "sedentary", "lightly active", "active", etc. when first calculating your calorie goal). If you do any purposeful exercise, you should log it into MFP's exercise diary and consume back a portion of those calories earned (MFP's exercise estimates are overestimated). For instance, let's say that I am working at a desk job and burn 1500 calories before exercising. I go for a 20 minute jog this morning and log it into MFP; MFP says that I burned 200 calories from that jog. As a result, I should shoot to consume 1600-1700 calories. In order for you to lose weight, you have to eat less than what you burn per day -if you set your goal to lose weight, MFP already took this into account and subtracted 250-1000 calories from your daily goal (depending on what pace you selected for weight loss -1 pound a week is equal to a 500 calorie daily deficit). The bare minimum MFP recommends is 1200 calories for women and 1500 (?) for men, so even if you have it set to lose 2 pounds a week, if you're only burning 2000 calories per day MFP will have you eating 1200 calories + exercise (800 calorie deficit instead of 1000).

TDEE is slightly different. TDEE takes into account the exercise you perform within a week and the calories you burn by living/doing activities of daily living. By taking the average calories burned within a week, it will give you a calorie goal to consume every day, regardless of if you exercised more or less that day. For instance, let's say I burn 1500 calories a day when sedentary but do that 20 minute jog four times a week. In a week, I would burn 11,300 calories. The TDEE method would divide these total calories burned by 7 (total days in a week) and tell me that I should consume 1,614 calories per day in order to maintain my weight. In order to lose, the TDEE method recommends subtracting a percentage of the TDEE based off how aggressive you want your goal to be, typically about 15-25% (this also shows that people who are heavier or burn more per day might lose weight at a more rapid pace). I decide to subtract 20% of my TDEE to create my calorie deficit, so I consume 1291 calories, which is a 323 calorie deficit (about 0.75 pounds lost per week).

What is best depends on what works for your lifestyle. Many people like TDEE, because their calorie goals are consistent across the entire week (as long as you average out to your calorie goal for the week/month, it's perfectly fine if some days are under your goal and some days are over). Other people like the way NEAT emphasizes the importance of exercise and the concept that being physically active earns you more calories.