Another minimum daily calorie question

Micah_Johnson

I've read quite a bit about the effects of getting too few calories (muscle loss, hair loss, etc.), but my question is about the most common form of calculating a reasonable minimum.

I'm a big guy (6'1" and about 275 lbs), and I've been working out and dieting for about five weeks now (lost about 12 lbs, too). I just got a fitbit as an early Christmas present, and the calorie calculation for me that the app provides highlights a question I've had for a while now, after having made similar calculations with online resources.

The fitbit app tells me that a guy my size and height, if he wants to aggressively lose weight (2 lbs/week), should eat about 2,500 calories/day. That seems like a lot of calories to me, especially for someone who's trying to shed the fat quickly. I've limited myself to a max of 1,900/day, and I've been losing steadily (although the scale jumps up and down slightly from day to day, the overall trend is obviously downward).

The thing is, I'm also lifting weights five days a week (three days upper body, two days dedicated to squats). I know that physiologically it's not the most efficient approach to try to simultaneously build muscle and lose fat, but I'm in this for the long haul, lifting weights brings genuine joy to my life, and so I'm not really interested in focusing solely on losing weight and then building muscle, or vice versa. I'm of the opinion that I'll just establish the routine that I would like to spend the rest of my life doing, and if it takes me a bit longer to lose the weight than it could have, then so be it.

So, we've finally reached the question. Should I be eating 2,500 calories/day in order to stave off muscle loss? I'm getting stronger, so it seems like my muscles are doing fine. I'm just curious to hear from those in the know.

SideSteel

One potentially confounding issue is that calorie intake and expenditure are both estimations with a rather high degree of error and so consequently, what you eat and what you believe to be eating are usually two different things.

Having said that, I think there are some other metrics that I would look at IN ADDITION to calorie intake that may affect whether you decide to adjust your intake up or down.

1) Rate of change in weight. I'd say between .5 and 1.5% change in BW per week is likely to be a sweet spot for most people.

2) Food focus/hunger. Do you feel fine?

3) Gym performance. Are you able to increase your training performance over time so that you are getting stronger?


If you're within that sweet spot for rate of change in bodyweight, and you're good on the other two metrics, I wouldn't change anything.

As you get leaner, I would decrease the rate of change of weight which means a smaller calorie deficit because muscle preservation will become exceedingly difficult when you have less body-fat to make up the energy gap.

Finally, make sure you're keeping protein at reasonable levels (~1g/lb target BW is likely sufficient) to assist in muscle growth or muscle retention.

GottaBurnEmAll

SideSteel wrote: »

One potentially confounding issue is that calorie intake and expenditure are both estimations with a rather high degree of error and so consequently, what you eat and what you believe to be eating are usually two different things.

Having said that, I think there are some other metrics that I would look at IN ADDITION to calorie intake that may affect whether you decide to adjust your intake up or down.

1) Rate of change in weight. I'd say between .5 and 1.5% change in BW per week is likely to be a sweet spot for most people.

2) Food focus/hunger. Do you feel fine?

3) Gym performance. Are you able to increase your training performance over time so that you are getting stronger?


If you're within that sweet spot for rate of change in bodyweight, and you're good on the other two metrics, I wouldn't change anything.

As you get leaner, I would decrease the rate of change of weight which means a smaller calorie deficit because muscle preservation will become exceedingly difficult when you have less body-fat to make up the energy gap.

Finally, make sure you're keeping protein at reasonable levels (~1g/lb target BW is likely sufficient) to assist in muscle growth or muscle retention.

/Thread

eugenia94102

To lose weight in a sustainable way you should eat more than your BMR and less than your TDEE. Use a variety of on line calculators and average them out.
When you eat a calorie deficit the energy your body needs has to come from somewhere and the human body has established pathways on where it comes from, nothing you can do will change these paths. Therefore, don't worry too much about "losing muscle". Keep exercising.
Good luck.

trigden1991

Read what @SideSteel wrote. Then read it again.

californiagirl2012

Your body gives you the best answer over the various calculators and opinions. The more body fat you have the more wiggle room you have for eating a little deeper deficit but pay attention to how you feel. Hunger is tricky as you can eat at maintenance and over maintenance and still feel hunger. All the cumulative stress is huge, eating deficits and workouts can cause stress too, so it's a matter of dosing the "stress" according to your day, week, season of life.

You can certainly lose fat quickly while building muscle. Prove it with your own body, that's what I did, and I have the pictures and dexa scans to prove it. Pay attention to how you feel; Do you have enough energy for workouts, recovery, and to complete your daily responsibilities, are you sleeping well, are you overall feeling well, and are you binging? Those will give you the clues for eating enough, or dosing out the workout intensity properly, etc.

AnvilHead

trigden1991 wrote: »

Read what @SideSteel wrote. Then read it again.

^ This. You're not going to get any better/more comprehensive advice than that.