Male here - Apparently I need 1800 calories per day?

Fatvaporizer

Hello. I'm new to these forums, and I'm loving it so far. Great people with the same goals all helping each other out to succeed. My question is, the basics are that you need to be in a calorie deficit in order to lose weight, right? So it would only make sense to 'eat as little as possible you can in a day, and workout as much as possible,' that way the calories you get from working out would be more than what you gain from food. But then, I've read and heard all around that for a male, I have to get about 1800 calories a day regardless? It might sound a little bit stupid, but let's say I ate lunch, and that was about 800 calories. Dinner time comes but I'm not hungry so I decide not to eat for the rest of the day, therefore my overall calorie intake for the day would be 800 calories. Let's say I burned 400 calories by working out that day. So that would mean ( MY BMR + 400 ) - ( 800 from food ) = calories total burned that day, right?

That makes sense, but to get to the point. What if I don't get that 'prescribed' 1800 calories, even if I'm not hungry. Would that be detrimental to my overall weight loss or anything? If so, would I have to force myself and say 'oh, no, I need to eat more to fulfill my daily 1800 calories, and purposely eat something just to do that...? Thank you for taking the time to read this. All advice is greatly appreciated.

pacificsaint

I'm not an expert but eating at that low of a deficit would mean that you would lose lean muscle mass as well as body fat. I'm sure someone more knowledgeable will chime in to explain other negative consequences of being in such a low deficit

jemhh

Having a very low calorie day once in awhile is okay. Making it a regular habit to eat like that most days is a problem. I would suggest aiming for an average of 1800 per day over the course of the week.

A huge deficit will speed your weight loss but remember that weight loss and fat loss are not the same thing. Your goal should be to lose primarily fat rather than muscle. Eating in a moderate deficit will help with that over the long term.

rileysowner

No.

The important number is not BMR but TDEE. That is Total Daily Energy Expenditure

BMR is what your body burns just by existing. That is keeping your lungs breathing, your heart pumping, your brain and other organs working. You burn it whether you do anything else at all. Although not completely accurate it will serve as a close enough picture, if you were in a coma you would burn your BMR.

The next part of TDEE is NEAT. That is Non Exercise Activity Thermogenisis. Basically the moment you start moving, you will start burning more than your BMR. All those non exercise activities, moving around through the day, cooking meals, doing the various tasks that are part of life all add to your BMR. Even an extremely sedentary person will burn about 1.2 times their BMR just from neat.

The final part of TDEE is EAT, Exercise Activity Thermogenesis. That is the calories you burn that are part of intentional activity.

These three added together will give you your TDEE, and that is what you want to create your deficit off of, not your BMR.

Now to your actually question. You asked if it wouldn't be best to eat as little as possible. At first glance that seems to make sense. The less calories you eat, the bigger your deficit, the faster you will lose weight. However, there is a problem with this.

First, you need a certain amount of nutrients (vitamins and minerals) to remain healthy. To get those you need to eat sufficient calories since nutrients come through food. By eating very little you will create nutritional deficiencies and gradually become more and more malnourished. This is something that is not going to be obvious to you in terms of how you feel until it progresses to the point where it has already done a fair amount of damage. You will find that you will start losing hair, your nails will become brittle, and other things like that. That is part of why you should not eat as little as you can.

Second, your body can only burn off a limited amount of fat in a day. The more fat you have, the more it can burn, but there is still an upper limit even then. Any calorie deficit that goes beyond that limit will be made up not by fat, but by lean body tissue, primarily muscle, but also from other organs as well. That is not a good thing both in terms of losing these things, but also in terms of maintaining the loss later. That lean tissue is more metabolically active, so if you lose it, you burn less calories when you reach your goal making it harder to maintain that weight.

Third, taking that approach of eating as little as you can also messes up your hormones, and the effect is long lasting when the deficit is sever. There as a study with people eating 500 calories a day through the diet phase of 10 weeks. Even a year later the hormones related to weight loss and gain were still messed up.

Fourth, doing this is going to lead to lack of long term compliance to your calorie deficit. In other words, you will fall off the weight loss wagon this way.

All this means that the approach you are considering is not only a bad idea, but a very bad idea. It is pretty much a recipe for failure.

Instead, realize first of all your goal is not simply weight loss but fat loss. To lose fat you should seek to run a moderate deficit from your TDEE. I would suggest using the calorie amount Myfitnesspal gives you when you set your goal to 1 pound per week unless you are very obese then 2 pounds a week would be ok. This moderate deficit will help you lose primarily fat and will help spare lean tissue like muscle. Also realize that Myfitnesspal sets your deficit off of BMR plus NEAT. That means when you exercise you would be taking your deficit from moderate to extreme. That is why you need to eat back the calories you burn exercising. However, in light of the inaccuracies of things like ellipticals with estimate, eating 50-75% of them makes sense.

I hope this helps.

rileysowner

Oh, I should add that if you have struggled with weight for a long time, your sense of hunger is messed up. That means not eating just because you don't feel hungry, or because you feel hungry is likely the worst way to start. You need to learn what an appropriate amount of food is so that in time, probably a year or so, you start to hopefully learn proper hunger signals rather than the messed up ones you (and I) have now. This will hopefully happen, but it may not and like me you may need to keep logging no matter what. Either way, excessive under eating will not help you with this, it is just going from one eating disorder (eating too much) to another eating disorder (eating way too little).

juliet3455

Here are a few links to good posts that have been helpful to so many people.

http://fit101.org/the-step-by-step-guide-to-losing-weight-with-myfitnesspal/

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/833026/important-posts-to-read/p1

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1234699/logging-accurately-step-by-step-guide/p1

Fatvaporizer

Thank you guys! Thanks riley especially for the elaborate explanation!

DeviatedNorm

Another issue I've found with trying more extreme calorie-cutting is that you set yourself up for more hunger, more frustration, and a higher chance of giving up. It's better to miss out on 200 calories a day if that's sustainable for you than to try to cut out 500 calories a day only to find after a week that you're binging and giving up.

JeromeBarry1

@Fatvaporizer , I'm 2x your age and started this weight loss journey January 25 completely ignorant of the wisdom you've received on this page. Be humble enough to receive it. I've lost 84 lb so far, and have less than 30 to go to reach my goal and it will be easy with all I've learned from the fine community on this site.

Fatvaporizer

JeromeBarry1 wrote: »

@Fatvaporizer , I'm 2x your age and started this weight loss journey January 25 completely ignorant of the wisdom you've received on this page. Be humble enough to receive it. I've lost 84 lb so far, and have less than 30 to go to reach my goal and it will be easy with all I've learned from the fine community on this site.

84 lbs so far? Wow! Congratulations! That's a lot! Yeah, this community is so great. Like I said, it's a community of like-minded people chasing the same goal So we all help each other out. Keep going, 30 lbs left, you're almost there

billglitch

I am eating low carb high fat and have been since January. I am eating 1500 cals a day, am not hungry and have no cravings. MFP says I should eat about 2000 or so. I have lost 105 pounds so far, with no exercise. No loss in muscle, lots more energy. My goal is to lose another 30...maybe more. I am not changing horses mid stream. I am not saying that the way i am doing it is right or that anybody else is wrong but many times we are told "they say" this or that and who knows who "they" are.

psuLemon

billglitch wrote: »

I am eating low carb high fat and have been since January. I am eating 1500 cals a day, am not hungry and have no cravings. MFP says I should eat about 2000 or so. I have lost 105 pounds so far, with no exercise. No loss in muscle, lots more energy. My goal is to lose another 30...maybe more. I am not changing horses mid stream. I am not saying that the way i am doing it is right or that anybody else is wrong but many times we are told "they say" this or that and who knows who "they" are.

It would be rather difficult to loss no muscle mass without any kind of resistance training How did you measure that?

Michael190lbs

billglitch wrote: »

I am eating low carb high fat and have been since January. I am eating 1500 cals a day, am not hungry and have no cravings. MFP says I should eat about 2000 or so. I have lost 105 pounds so far, with no exercise. No loss in muscle, lots more energy. My goal is to lose another 30...maybe more. I am not changing horses mid stream. I am not saying that the way i am doing it is right or that anybody else is wrong but many times we are told "they say" this or that and who knows who "they" are.

I was a power lifter super strong carried lots of Fat and Muscle looked like just a big dude 22" arms, huge chest and legs. Asthma from allergies just kept getting worse Doc told me to lose some weight I would feel better. I took it to the extreme and lost over 100lbs I can Guarantee you half of it was muscle if not more than half. When you lose size you lose Muscle the End. I'm currently 178lbs but I'm a Ripped 178-180 lbs that can do Back flips, 20 pull ups, run a 5k any time of the day or night and I wouldn't change my current weight or abilities for anything but health!! I feel fantastic!!! I did this eating 1800-2000 calories currently eat 3200-3500 and maintained it for over a year. My breakfast this am is 1800 calories.

My advise get there losing a 1lb a week and lift as heavy as you can to maintain muscle for future body.

billglitch

Michael190lbs wrote: »

billglitch wrote: »

I am eating low carb high fat and have been since January. I am eating 1500 cals a day, am not hungry and have no cravings. MFP says I should eat about 2000 or so. I have lost 105 pounds so far, with no exercise. No loss in muscle, lots more energy. My goal is to lose another 30...maybe more. I am not changing horses mid stream. I am not saying that the way i am doing it is right or that anybody else is wrong but many times we are told "they say" this or that and who knows who "they" are.

I was a power lifter super strong carried lots of Fat and Muscle looked like just a big dude 22" arms, huge chest and legs. Asthma from allergies just kept getting worse Doc told me to lose some weight I would feel better. I took it to the extreme and lost over 100lbs I can Guarantee you half of it was muscle if not more than half. When you lose size you lose Muscle the End. I'm currently 178lbs but I'm a Ripped 178-180 lbs that can do Back flips, 20 pull ups, run a 5k any time of the day or night and I wouldn't change my current weight or abilities for anything but health!! I feel fantastic!!! I did this eating 1800-2000 calories currently eat 3200-3500 and maintained it for over a year. My breakfast this am is 1800 calories.

My advise get there losing a 1lb a week and lift as heavy as you can to maintain muscle for future body.

I doubt most are power lifters. My point was that there is more than one way to do it.

AnvilHead

billglitch wrote: »

Michael190lbs wrote: »

billglitch wrote: »

I am eating low carb high fat and have been since January. I am eating 1500 cals a day, am not hungry and have no cravings. MFP says I should eat about 2000 or so. I have lost 105 pounds so far, with no exercise. No loss in muscle, lots more energy. My goal is to lose another 30...maybe more. I am not changing horses mid stream. I am not saying that the way i am doing it is right or that anybody else is wrong but many times we are told "they say" this or that and who knows who "they" are.

I was a power lifter super strong carried lots of Fat and Muscle looked like just a big dude 22" arms, huge chest and legs. Asthma from allergies just kept getting worse Doc told me to lose some weight I would feel better. I took it to the extreme and lost over 100lbs I can Guarantee you half of it was muscle if not more than half. When you lose size you lose Muscle the End. I'm currently 178lbs but I'm a Ripped 178-180 lbs that can do Back flips, 20 pull ups, run a 5k any time of the day or night and I wouldn't change my current weight or abilities for anything but health!! I feel fantastic!!! I did this eating 1800-2000 calories currently eat 3200-3500 and maintained it for over a year. My breakfast this am is 1800 calories.

My advise get there losing a 1lb a week and lift as heavy as you can to maintain muscle for future body.

I doubt most are power lifters. My point was that there is more than one way to do it.

I'd like to know how you determined that you lost no muscle mass. Because unless you're taking prodigious quantities of anabolic steroids, that didn't happen. Especially on a HFLC diet and no exercise.