Accounting for massive calorie deficits.

JeromeBarry1

Yesterday I weighed 198.2 lb and logged 74 minutes of "Bicycling, 10-12 mph, light (cycling, biking, bike riding)", which traveled 9.7 miles for 662 calories. I consumed my usual 1600 calories without adding any for the exercise.
This morning I weighed 195.8, a loss of 2.4 lb. While some unclear portion of my loss was part of an ongoing weekend whoosh, the exercise certainly was a factor in that. If you bike to work every day, firstly you're going to lose weight rapidly if you don't eat back some of the calories, secondly you're going to lose weight anyway so the problem of eating enough diminishes over time. You would be wise to keep close watch of your calories in, calories out, and weight, so that you don't exceed a loss of more than 1% weekly.

rankinsect

VintageFeline wrote: »

We cannot base his burns on our own, especially if you are a female. He's a 290lb male, it takes a lot of energy to move yourself. My burns now are half what they were when I started 50lbs ago and I ate most of my burns back then (admittedly from an HRM but i don't always do steady state either).

It's not that likely that 50 lb actually equals a real 50% reduction, although it would equal some.

There's another effect, though - HRM calculations tend to overestimate burns in those with low cardiovascular fitness and underestimate burns in those with high fitness. That's because heart rate is only one of two variables needed to calculate cardiac output, and there's no way to measure the other (stroke volume) at home. As your heart gets stronger, it moves more blood per beat and requires fewer beats to supply the same level of oxygen to your tissues.

So if you built a significant amount of cardiovascular fitness over those 50 lb., it's likely your actual calorie burns haven't changed as much as the HRM estimates.

kshama2001

kwb1984 wrote: »

robertw486 wrote: »

For long term endurance stuff or certain exercises, I just really get sick of eating back all the calories on certain days, and finding the balance between recovery food and what is smart/safe can be tricky.

No kidding. I'm sitting here 300 cal short of my normal 2300 goal and still needing to find room for another 1250 on top of that just to eat back half my exercise calories, and I don't know how I'm going to do it. Got some salmon in the skillet and squash in the oven and I'll have extra bleu cheese on the salad and see where I'm at.

Next time I'll eat more earlier in my day.

Yup, moving forward eat more during the day. Otherwise, have pizza or other calorie dense foods for dinner.

GauchoMark

You sound a lot like where I was about 4-5 years ago. I started out at 305. In my avatar, I'm at 180. The biggest thing I can suggest -

You are overweight because you have bad eating/exercising habits, but you are changing that. Right now, you don't need to worry too much about not eating enough. You have plenty of energy reserves and unless you are eating less than 1200 or so TOTAL calories, you will likely get the nutritional needs. It is a myth that you must NET more than your BMR (or else you'll die!), especially when you have a lot to lose. So, what I need to tell you is this - DON'T MAKE YOURSELF EAT! You will just be changing one bad eating habit for another, which you will have to break sooner or later. If you have the energy you need to workout and feel fine, don't eat back those calories unless you are hungry, weak, or otherwise NEED food.

That said - don't go crazy. You still need to make sure you aren't dropping weight so fast that you get baggy skin and lose muscle mass. If that takes treating yourself to a hamburger for lunch on a workout day, then so be it, but don't force-feed yourself. Set up your deficit, then make sure you are eating about 1g protein per lb of lean body mass and you will be in good shape.

Once you get down to your last 30-40 lbs, you will want to START worrying about undereating. In your last 20 lbs, you'll want to control weight loss to 1 lb/week and hit that protein goal. Your last 5-10 lbs or so will be at 0.5 lbs/week.

Of course, right now do plenty of cardio and mix in some weights. As you get leaner, you will probably want to transition to a 50/50 cardio/strength mix, and then at your leanest you will probably want to be mostly weights. This helps preserve muscle mass while on a deficit.

jennifer_417

I'm gathering that you haven't been doing this for very long. You may just need to give your body time to adjust to the caloric demands you're putting on it. In other words, there's a good chance the hunger and fatigue you're expecting will catch up with you at some point. Meanwhile, as long as you're sure your calorie burns are accurate, then you really should make sure you eat enough calories, whether you feel hungry or not. I believe the recommended minimum for males 1500 NET, that is, after exercise.

SLLRunner

Birddog6424 wrote: »

Funny that people think because a person is large and overweight that they have extra energy stores to pull from.

The same folks who thought the camel's hump was full of water I suppose.

Well, what do you think fat is?

Never heard a camel's hump had water, but it is extra fat storage for those long treks through the desert. In other words, that hump is energy storage.