Low Calorie Limits
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Don't be Sedentary.
Sedentary is less than 4000 steps daily every day of the week.
Basically a bump on a log - no family or home and the responsibilities that come along with it, no pets, no exercise.
Basically walk to car to drive to work, walk into work, don't get up during the day for anything but lunch you brought and bathroom, back home, sit on couch or chair and watch TV/computer until bed time.
Weekend is the same except short time at grocery store, no shopping time for other stuff.
That's sedentary.
If that's your plan going forward - then frankly you'll have bigger issues than losing the weight and your eating level being low.
Increased daily activity and some exercise is what vast majority of successful maintainers must have in their lives.
You likely won't maintain if you aren't having some good exercise right now during the loss - you'll lose muscle mass for sure, the amount of deficit will determine how much.
It's why at races you'll see so many short women, running is a way to get their eating level up to a point they can enjoy things with family.2 -
here are my stats 5'3", 148 - I've lost close to 12lbs in the last 5 months eating close to 2200 calories a day under the guidance of a RD - I'm probably on the more active side of the spectrum, but have some weeks where I resemble a sloth
my hypothesis is that the OP may have engaged in low calorie dieting for long enough that her NEAT may have accommodated over time0 -
I could make so much money selling ads on a web calculator that told girls to eat 300 calories daily to lose weight. So. Much. Money.
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JeromeBarry1 wrote: »I could make so much money selling ads on a web calculator that told girls to eat 300 calories daily to lose weight. So. Much. Money.
That's true. And for those that held out till bitter end following that plan - you'd never have to worry about them coming back to complain of wanting refund for bad advice.0 -
Don't be Sedentary.
Sedentary is less than 4000 steps daily every day of the week.
Basically a bump on a log - no family or home and the responsibilities that come along with it, no pets, no exercise.
Basically walk to car to drive to work, walk into work, don't get up during the day for anything but lunch you brought and bathroom, back home, sit on couch or chair and watch TV/computer until bed time.
Weekend is the same except short time at grocery store, no shopping time for other stuff.
That's sedentary.
If that's your plan going forward - then frankly you'll have bigger issues than losing the weight and your eating level being low.
Increased daily activity and some exercise is what vast majority of successful maintainers must have in their lives.
You likely won't maintain if you aren't having some good exercise right now during the loss - you'll lose muscle mass for sure, the amount of deficit will determine how much.
It's why at races you'll see so many short women, running is a way to get their eating level up to a point they can enjoy things with family.
What this man said.
While it is theoretically okay to lose 1% of one's weight per week, it's not okay to do so if you're not getting adequate nutrition to do it.
I'm short (5'1") and old (54) and currently weigh 120 pounds (have put on weight recently due to some bad eating decisions and stress eating) and could get adequate nutrition to lose at the rate of a pound a week because my TDEE is around 2,000 calories a day because I'm active.
I didn't start out this way. I was as sedentary as sedentary could be. I made a conscientious choice that I did not want to settle for eating a paltry amount of food for the rest of my life. Not only that, I knew that developing the habit of being active was good for me and my medical condition. Win-win. It was a no-brainer.
OP, you have selected an aggressive rate of loss for someone who is completely sedentary.
You have two choices.
You can either resign yourself to the fact that you cannot achieve quick, healthy loss (remember, you need adequate nutrition while you're losing weight) and cut back to a reasonable rate of a quarter to a half pound a week loss, or you can greatly increase your activity.
Remember, to increase your TDEE, not all activity has to be purposeful exercise. I get a lot of calories from pacing around while I'm on the phone or while something is cooking in the oven, for example. I spend a lot of time on my feet being inefficient in my daily tasks (I put each piece of laundry away individually, for example). Those calories add up.
Some people seem to have this romanticized notion about eating very little that I fail to understand. I was a fat whole foods vegetarian and I still love those same foods. I don't want a life with teeny tiny portions of my beloved fruit and veggies.3 -
deannalfisher wrote: »here are my stats 5'3", 148 - I've lost close to 12lbs in the last 5 months eating close to 2200 calories a day under the guidance of a RD - I'm probably on the more active side of the spectrum, but have some weeks where I resemble a sloth
my hypothesis is that the OP may have engaged in low calorie dieting for long enough that her NEAT may have accommodated over time
I am such a fan of activity trackers with move reminders for people who have this problem. I got one to preemptively address it even though I haven't low calorie dieted in years, and my TDEE went through the roof.1 -
TavistockToad wrote: »Those numbers only look to be right for a very sedentary person. Are you sedentary OP?
Yes I work a desk job.
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livingleanlivingclean wrote: »Perhaps you need to reconsider your goal. You are already within the healthy weight range for your height - if you want to change your body composition, take up resistance training. Eat at maintenance, do a recomp. Increasing muscle mass will increase your bmr.
I don't think she needs to reconsider her goal. I'm 5'3, 125 (was 120 at one point) and it's not especially thin. It also doesn't require eating below 1200 to get there (although I don't think eating below 1200 is always horrible). I got there eating around 1600 most of the time.
I'm currently thinking about making a real effort to lose another 5-10 lbs, and intend to do so eating more than 1200, as my main concern is lowering my BF%, and losing in a way that does not maximize lean mass retention is not of interest to me. For a woman of my age lean mass is hard to build, I'm not going to torch it unnecessarily.1 -
Maxematics wrote: »Maxematics wrote: »
To maintain current weight: 1616 calories
To lose weight: 1116 calories
So yes for me, I need to be eating less than 1200 calories to lose weight.
No you don't. You'd need to eat less than 1200 calories to lose one pound per week. You could lose half a pound per week if you ate 1366 calories.
Mathematically correct, but practically not very helpful for most people.
Mainly because the smaller the deficit is the easier it is to erase it with errors in measurement and logging. Even if you are very careful real life leads to at least some estimation for most people.
Maybe OP CAN lose weight on more calories, or maybe not.
Calculators are just a place to start. Then you need real personal data to see if the calculator results are correct for you.
If it is working and you can stick with it keep going.
If it isn't working (compliance, results) then you need to change something up.
This is why I said assuming she is actually that sedentary and then went even further by comparing my actual calorie needs to what the calculator claimed. Obviously the only way the OP will find out is by trial and error, but I will never ever support someone eating a low calorie amount unless they're an outlier or they are working with medical professionals. It is my understanding that the OP has made several threads in which they are trying to get support in approaching weight loss by over-restriction of calories.
Trial and error are telling me that I am not losing weight at 1200 calories a day. I was losing well at 900-1100. It is what it is, but I don't think I will ever be allowed to have huge numbers of calories. My point is that my current daily limit to maintain my current fat size of 154, is only around 1600 calories. So not a lot of calories even then.0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »livingleanlivingclean wrote: »Perhaps you need to reconsider your goal. You are already within the healthy weight range for your height - if you want to change your body composition, take up resistance training. Eat at maintenance, do a recomp. Increasing muscle mass will increase your bmr.
I don't think she needs to reconsider her goal. I'm 5'3, 125 (was 120 at one point) and it's not especially thin. It also doesn't require eating below 1200 to get there (although I don't think eating below 1200 is always horrible). I got there eating around 1600 most of the time.
I'm currently thinking about making a real effort to lose another 5-10 lbs, and intend to do so eating more than 1200, as my main concern is lowering my BF%, and losing in a way that does not maximize lean mass retention is not of interest to me. For a woman of my age lean mass is hard to build, I'm not going to torch it unnecessarily.
I agree with this. OP's goal is perfectly reasonable.
I also agree that OP should not be eating less that 1200 because losing lean mass is nasty business.
Sarcopenia is a concern the older you get.1 -
jaelbaby12001 wrote: »Go low carb instead of low calorie? Adjust your macros so that your body hits Ketosis and burns stored fat (takes about 2 weeks to get there) instead of burning carbs and storing everything else. Low calorie diets trigger your body to go into "starvation mode" and store all calories instead of using them.
No, that's not how it works. You lose on low carb (I'm kind of low carb and plan to try going lower) by having a calorie deficit.0 -
TavistockToad wrote: »Those numbers only look to be right for a very sedentary person. Are you sedentary OP?
Yes I work a desk job.
So do I. Doesn't make my lifestyle sedentary, and from what you described in another thread, neither are you. You're a working mother of young kids that likes to hike on the weekends. Me too! That's not sedentary. You mentioned before having a FitBit. How many steps do you average/day? What does FitBit say your total calories burned is?3 -
Maxematics wrote: »Maxematics wrote: »
To maintain current weight: 1616 calories
To lose weight: 1116 calories
So yes for me, I need to be eating less than 1200 calories to lose weight.
No you don't. You'd need to eat less than 1200 calories to lose one pound per week. You could lose half a pound per week if you ate 1366 calories.
Mathematically correct, but practically not very helpful for most people.
Mainly because the smaller the deficit is the easier it is to erase it with errors in measurement and logging. Even if you are very careful real life leads to at least some estimation for most people.
Maybe OP CAN lose weight on more calories, or maybe not.
Calculators are just a place to start. Then you need real personal data to see if the calculator results are correct for you.
If it is working and you can stick with it keep going.
If it isn't working (compliance, results) then you need to change something up.
This is why I said assuming she is actually that sedentary and then went even further by comparing my actual calorie needs to what the calculator claimed. Obviously the only way the OP will find out is by trial and error, but I will never ever support someone eating a low calorie amount unless they're an outlier or they are working with medical professionals. It is my understanding that the OP has made several threads in which they are trying to get support in approaching weight loss by over-restriction of calories.
Trial and error are telling me that I am not losing weight at 1200 calories a day. I was losing well at 900-1100. It is what it is, but I don't think I will ever be allowed to have huge numbers of calories. My point is that my current daily limit to maintain my current fat size of 154, is only around 1600 calories. So not a lot of calories even then.
Total calories consumed b/w 900-1100, NET calories b/w 900-1100, or measuring only the cals in foods you eat and ignoring those from alcohol, as you mentioned in another thread?
And you may have mentioned this and I forgot, but are you using a food scale?2 -
Don't be Sedentary.
Sedentary is less than 4000 steps daily every day of the week.
Basically a bump on a log - no family or home and the responsibilities that come along with it, no pets, no exercise.
Basically walk to car to drive to work, walk into work, don't get up during the day for anything but lunch you brought and bathroom, back home, sit on couch or chair and watch TV/computer until bed time.
Weekend is the same except short time at grocery store, no shopping time for other stuff.
That's sedentary.
If that's your plan going forward - then frankly you'll have bigger issues than losing the weight and your eating level being low.
Increased daily activity and some exercise is what vast majority of successful maintainers must have in their lives.
You likely won't maintain if you aren't having some good exercise right now during the loss - you'll lose muscle mass for sure, the amount of deficit will determine how much.
It's why at races you'll see so many short women, running is a way to get their eating level up to a point they can enjoy things with family.
Right, this. Also, different calculators are more and less accurate. I have a good idea of my LBM, so I used Katch-McArdle (I have similar stats to OP's goal -- 125, 5'3, but am older, which means if anything my TDEE would be less, all else equal).
K-McA tells me that my maintenance if sedentary is 1550 (higher than that claimed by OP above, and I think 1450 for someone my size in her 30s is quite unlikely). Also, it's hard to be truly sedentary -- I'm lightly active just through daily activity, no exercise.
So, for lightly active, I have a maintenance of around 1776, according to K-McA -- my own estimate would have been around 1800, so that's reasonably close.
With moderate activity (working out some, light running over the course of the week in addition to the activity mentioned above), it's more like 2000.
For very active (which is where I usually end up), it's more like 2200.
Now, when very active I find it hard to do an aggressive deficit and would probably eat around 1800 to lose.
The easiest for me just to maximize weight loss would be to be lightly active (around 1800) and eat around 1300. But because I have athletic goals I end up at a higher TDEE, which ironically makes it harder for me to manage a deficit than it was (or else I just don't care enough).
Anyway, some probably do have to eat below 1200 to lose, but not a healthy person of my stats (and since my stats are basically the same as those the OP was using...).0 -
GoldBikiniGoals wrote: »So I just took a quick few seconds to pop your stats into some of my fave calcs (Scooby, IIFYM, etc) and the numbers you have seem to be a little off. Even averaging, your BMR is around 1450-1500 and your TDEE -- even at sedentary -- is at or above 1700, which means that to lose 1 lb per week (-500 cals) you would be eating 1200.
You're on the shorter side yes, but you are certainly not an outlier. I have women in their 60's the same height and weight as you on my friends list successfully losing on much more than 1200 calories.
The 1200 calorie minimum isn't just this magical line in the sand, it's been so latched onto by the weightloss/fitness/health community because below that amount of calories it becomes incredibly hard for your body to get the type of nutrients it needs; most often because with fat being the highest calorie macro, people tend to eat less of it which actually then hinders your vitamin/nutrient absorption even if you're eating the "right" foods. So many people (women especially) think they're fine until a couple months in when they begin to lose hair or see colour/texture changes to their nails etc.
Ideally, if your stats take you below 1200 to create a reasonable loss per week you should be doing something to make up the difference. If you feel that 986 calories is magically the only number you can lose at, how about exercising to create the room to eat more? In the long run it will absolutely benefit you from a health standpoint. I'm not even saying you have to do much, but how about a nice hour long walk after dinner or a zumba class with a friend a few times a week?
If you do continue to insist on eating below 1200 calories to lose, it's your life. You do you. But please do you in a way that includes frequent checkups with a medical professional who has the ability to order blood tests etc.
My biggest fear for you is that you lose the 30 lbs you want to and then realize that you're still incredibly unhappy with your body composition because you cared more about being right than you did about your health.
I did this two years ago and was very happy with the end results of my body at 124 lbs.0 -
Don't be Sedentary.
Sedentary is less than 4000 steps daily every day of the week.
Basically a bump on a log - no family or home and the responsibilities that come along with it, no pets, no exercise.
Basically walk to car to drive to work, walk into work, don't get up during the day for anything but lunch you brought and bathroom, back home, sit on couch or chair and watch TV/computer until bed time.
Weekend is the same except short time at grocery store, no shopping time for other stuff.
That's sedentary.
If that's your plan going forward - then frankly you'll have bigger issues than losing the weight and your eating level being low.
Increased daily activity and some exercise is what vast majority of successful maintainers must have in their lives.
You likely won't maintain if you aren't having some good exercise right now during the loss - you'll lose muscle mass for sure, the amount of deficit will determine how much.
It's why at races you'll see so many short women, running is a way to get their eating level up to a point they can enjoy things with family.
Yeah I count a 15 minute walk at lunch as exercise. I rode my bike for 30 minutes around the court this weekend. Overall I not very active. Weeding the garden is not exercise, nor is mowing the grass on a tractor, while consuming a beer. Which is the only way I am getting through lawn work.
I am not a runner. The dog is trained to walk himself. So yes I am sedentary.0 -
WinoGelato wrote: »TavistockToad wrote: »Those numbers only look to be right for a very sedentary person. Are you sedentary OP?
Yes I work a desk job.
So do I. Doesn't make my lifestyle sedentary, and from what you described in another thread, neither are you. You're a working mother of young kids that likes to hike on the weekends. Me too! That's not sedentary. You mentioned before having a FitBit. How many steps do you average/day? What does FitBit say your total calories burned is?
I no longer have a fit bit, but my phone says I am doing 3000-5000 steps a day.
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WinoGelato wrote: »Maxematics wrote: »Maxematics wrote: »
To maintain current weight: 1616 calories
To lose weight: 1116 calories
So yes for me, I need to be eating less than 1200 calories to lose weight.
No you don't. You'd need to eat less than 1200 calories to lose one pound per week. You could lose half a pound per week if you ate 1366 calories.
Mathematically correct, but practically not very helpful for most people.
Mainly because the smaller the deficit is the easier it is to erase it with errors in measurement and logging. Even if you are very careful real life leads to at least some estimation for most people.
Maybe OP CAN lose weight on more calories, or maybe not.
Calculators are just a place to start. Then you need real personal data to see if the calculator results are correct for you.
If it is working and you can stick with it keep going.
If it isn't working (compliance, results) then you need to change something up.
This is why I said assuming she is actually that sedentary and then went even further by comparing my actual calorie needs to what the calculator claimed. Obviously the only way the OP will find out is by trial and error, but I will never ever support someone eating a low calorie amount unless they're an outlier or they are working with medical professionals. It is my understanding that the OP has made several threads in which they are trying to get support in approaching weight loss by over-restriction of calories.
Trial and error are telling me that I am not losing weight at 1200 calories a day. I was losing well at 900-1100. It is what it is, but I don't think I will ever be allowed to have huge numbers of calories. My point is that my current daily limit to maintain my current fat size of 154, is only around 1600 calories. So not a lot of calories even then.
Total calories consumed b/w 900-1100, NET calories b/w 900-1100, or measuring only the cals in foods you eat and ignoring those from alcohol, as you mentioned in another thread?
And you may have mentioned this and I forgot, but are you using a food scale?
I log all alcohol. I overestimate foods. So I might eat only 2 tostito chips, but I still log a 1/2 a serving. Or log a full container of greek yogurt but I never actually finish it.
I just do not burn calories. I was anorexic as a teenager so my body might have gotten use to functioning on no calories back then. Hard to say. But recent blood work says I am fine nutrition wise. I just can easily see the trend and I weigh myself no less than 3 times a days. The number goes down when I eat way less than 1200. I gain when eating close to 1200. This happened the last time I did this as well.0
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