Medical conditions and calorie requirements

catamitesregret

I'm currently coping on 1,300 kcal net per day and losing weight at about 1 kg per week, even though my BMR is apparently around 1,800 kcal/day. In theory, according to some websites, I should only be losing a pound a week on a 3,500 kcal deficit per week. However, I do have Sjögren's syndrome (an autoimmune condition). Although it's restricted to dry eyes, nose and mouth and some chronic fatigue, I'm wondering whether background immune system activity could up your body's calorie intake requirements. In other words, does being permanently ever so slightly ill mean your body needs more calories? This is something none of the websites deal with when calculating BMR, for instance.

Packerjohn

To be honest this is probably a question for your doctor or a registered dietitian.

Best of luck.

catamitesregret

For sure. But I tend to listen to my body as well, which is perhaps a more reliable source of cues than a five-minute consultation with an entirely uninterested doctor.

tiptoethruthetulips

I have Sjogren's too. For me currently its mostly dry mouth and some dry eye and nose.

I can't say that I have noticed my body needs more calories due to the Sjogren's.

Are you measuring and weighing all your food and drink? If not its possible you are not eating the 1300cals you think you are.

Are you exercising? If so, how much and to what intensity? How active are you with incidental acitivity?

I see you are male...lowest calorie intake for males is about 1500cals. Perhaps bump up to that and see how you go.

catamitesregret

tiptoethruthetulips wrote: »

I have Sjogren's too. […] I can't say that I have noticed my body needs more calories due to the Sjogren's.

Sorry to hear you’ve got it too.

tiptoethruthetulips wrote: »

For me currently its mostly dry mouth and some dry eye and nose.

My sense of humour is getting drier too.

tiptoethruthetulips wrote: »

Are you measuring and weighing all your food and drink? If not its possible you are not eating the 1300cals you think you are.

I’m weighing it meticulously. At 1,300 kcal/day there’s not a lot of room for manoeuvre, especially when trying to get enough nutrition in (and I’m not going to resort to low-calorie synthetic supplements).

tiptoethruthetulips wrote: »

Are you exercising? If so, how much and to what intensity?

Daily 45-minute walk at moderate pace. 5 days a week exercise bike for 60-75 minutes at a moderate pace. Due to the chronic fatigue, any hard exercise (e.g. running a few miles) makes me so spaced out that I feel like calling an ambulance. So I’m burning about 450-500 kcal daily. I also do about 50 push-ups, 50 sit-ups and 10-30 pull-ups daily.

Just to make clear: the 1,300 kcal is net, so I'm taking in about 1,750-1,800 and burning off the excess to hit my target.

tiptoethruthetulips wrote: »

How active are you with incidental acitivity?

Fairly sedentary due to the nature of my work.

tiptoethruthetulips wrote: »

I see you are male...lowest calorie intake for males is about 1500cals. Perhaps bump up to that and see how you go.

I see. I didn’t realize that. All I read was that you needed to calculate your BMR, and then to lose a pound a week you’d need to eat 500 kcal/day less than that, and to lose a kilo a week you’d need to eat 1,000 kcal/day less than that, and that it isn’t healthy to try to lose more than a kilo a week. To be honest, I can’t see how it could be healthy to eat 1,000 kcal less than BMR in a day. I’ve struggled in the past on 1,800, and now am doing OK on 1,300, and I think the difference is that I’ve switched to getting my energy from fats and proteins and cut the carbs. In the past, I was eating plenty of fruit, because it’s fairly low in calories. Probably I was overly reliant on fructose for energy, and therefore struggling with peaks and troughs in my blood sugar levels. Now I’m keeping carbs to 20% of my food intake, and focusing on vegetables, brown rice, some lean meat, some nuts, and even a bit of cheese. I still have a couple of pieces of fruit a day purely for variety and vitamins.

Treece68

I have celiac I know that if I get glutinated once I am healed I am hungry all the time for like a week. I just assume my body needs the nutrients it could not absorb while I was recovering.

deannalfisher

catamitesregret wrote: »

tiptoethruthetulips wrote: »

I have Sjogren's too. […] I can't say that I have noticed my body needs more calories due to the Sjogren's.

Sorry to hear you’ve got it too.

tiptoethruthetulips wrote: »

For me currently its mostly dry mouth and some dry eye and nose.

My sense of humour is getting drier too.

tiptoethruthetulips wrote: »

Are you measuring and weighing all your food and drink? If not its possible you are not eating the 1300cals you think you are.

I’m weighing it meticulously. At 1,300 kcal/day there’s not a lot of room for manoeuvre, especially when trying to get enough nutrition in (and I’m not going to resort to low-calorie synthetic supplements).

tiptoethruthetulips wrote: »

Are you exercising? If so, how much and to what intensity?

Daily 45-minute walk at moderate pace. 5 days a week exercise bike for 60-75 minutes at a moderate pace. Due to the chronic fatigue, any hard exercise (e.g. running a few miles) makes me so spaced out that I feel like calling an ambulance. So I’m burning about 450-500 kcal daily. I also do about 50 push-ups, 50 sit-ups and 10-30 pull-ups daily.

Just to make clear: the 1,300 kcal is net, so I'm taking in about 1,750-1,800 and burning off the excess to hit my target.

tiptoethruthetulips wrote: »

How active are you with incidental acitivity?

Fairly sedentary due to the nature of my work.

tiptoethruthetulips wrote: »

I see you are male...lowest calorie intake for males is about 1500cals. Perhaps bump up to that and see how you go.

I see. I didn’t realize that. All I read was that you needed to calculate your BMR, and then to lose a pound a week you’d need to eat 500 kcal/day less than that, and to lose a kilo a week you’d need to eat 1,000 kcal/day less than that, and that it isn’t healthy to try to lose more than a kilo a week. To be honest, I can’t see how it could be healthy to eat 1,000 kcal less than BMR in a day. I’ve struggled in the past on 1,800, and now am doing OK on 1,300, and I think the difference is that I’ve switched to getting my energy from fats and proteins and cut the carbs. In the past, I was eating plenty of fruit, because it’s fairly low in calories. Probably I was overly reliant on fructose for energy, and therefore struggling with peaks and troughs in my blood sugar levels. Now I’m keeping carbs to 20% of my food intake, and focusing on vegetables, brown rice, some lean meat, some nuts, and even a bit of cheese. I still have a couple of pieces of fruit a day purely for variety and vitamins.

you need to know BMR - which is what your body burns just by existing, plus your level of exercise (essentially total daily energy expenditure) and then subtract 500cal

deannalfisher

no online calculator is going to take into account individual caloric requirements - they are a population baseline - you need to tweak to fit your own goals

depending on how much weight you have to lose 1kg a weight might be too aggressive and you would do better to reduce your deficit

VintageFeline

catamitesregret wrote: »

tiptoethruthetulips wrote: »

I have Sjogren's too. […] I can't say that I have noticed my body needs more calories due to the Sjogren's.

Sorry to hear you’ve got it too.

tiptoethruthetulips wrote: »

For me currently its mostly dry mouth and some dry eye and nose.

My sense of humour is getting drier too.

tiptoethruthetulips wrote: »

Are you measuring and weighing all your food and drink? If not its possible you are not eating the 1300cals you think you are.

I’m weighing it meticulously. At 1,300 kcal/day there’s not a lot of room for manoeuvre, especially when trying to get enough nutrition in (and I’m not going to resort to low-calorie synthetic supplements).

tiptoethruthetulips wrote: »

Are you exercising? If so, how much and to what intensity?

Daily 45-minute walk at moderate pace. 5 days a week exercise bike for 60-75 minutes at a moderate pace. Due to the chronic fatigue, any hard exercise (e.g. running a few miles) makes me so spaced out that I feel like calling an ambulance. So I’m burning about 450-500 kcal daily. I also do about 50 push-ups, 50 sit-ups and 10-30 pull-ups daily.

Just to make clear: the 1,300 kcal is net, so I'm taking in about 1,750-1,800 and burning off the excess to hit my target.

tiptoethruthetulips wrote: »

How active are you with incidental acitivity?

Fairly sedentary due to the nature of my work.

tiptoethruthetulips wrote: »

I see you are male...lowest calorie intake for males is about 1500cals. Perhaps bump up to that and see how you go.

I see. I didn’t realize that. All I read was that you needed to calculate your BMR, and then to lose a pound a week you’d need to eat 500 kcal/day less than that, and to lose a kilo a week you’d need to eat 1,000 kcal/day less than that, and that it isn’t healthy to try to lose more than a kilo a week. To be honest, I can’t see how it could be healthy to eat 1,000 kcal less than BMR in a day. I’ve struggled in the past on 1,800, and now am doing OK on 1,300, and I think the difference is that I’ve switched to getting my energy from fats and proteins and cut the carbs. In the past, I was eating plenty of fruit, because it’s fairly low in calories. Probably I was overly reliant on fructose for energy, and therefore struggling with peaks and troughs in my blood sugar levels. Now I’m keeping carbs to 20% of my food intake, and focusing on vegetables, brown rice, some lean meat, some nuts, and even a bit of cheese. I still have a couple of pieces of fruit a day purely for variety and vitamins.

You subtract the 500 from your TDEE, or in the case of the MFP method it's from your NEAT with your exercise eaten back. So you probably have a much larger deficit than you intended.

You could also just be one of those people that is at the upper end of the bell curve for BMR averages. All calculators are just best guesses based on population averages.

AnnPT77

VintageFeline wrote: »

catamitesregret wrote: »

tiptoethruthetulips wrote: »

I have Sjogren's too. […] I can't say that I have noticed my body needs more calories due to the Sjogren's.

Sorry to hear you’ve got it too.

tiptoethruthetulips wrote: »

For me currently its mostly dry mouth and some dry eye and nose.

My sense of humour is getting drier too.

tiptoethruthetulips wrote: »

Are you measuring and weighing all your food and drink? If not its possible you are not eating the 1300cals you think you are.

I’m weighing it meticulously. At 1,300 kcal/day there’s not a lot of room for manoeuvre, especially when trying to get enough nutrition in (and I’m not going to resort to low-calorie synthetic supplements).

tiptoethruthetulips wrote: »

Are you exercising? If so, how much and to what intensity?

Daily 45-minute walk at moderate pace. 5 days a week exercise bike for 60-75 minutes at a moderate pace. Due to the chronic fatigue, any hard exercise (e.g. running a few miles) makes me so spaced out that I feel like calling an ambulance. So I’m burning about 450-500 kcal daily. I also do about 50 push-ups, 50 sit-ups and 10-30 pull-ups daily.

Just to make clear: the 1,300 kcal is net, so I'm taking in about 1,750-1,800 and burning off the excess to hit my target.

tiptoethruthetulips wrote: »

How active are you with incidental acitivity?

Fairly sedentary due to the nature of my work.

tiptoethruthetulips wrote: »

I see you are male...lowest calorie intake for males is about 1500cals. Perhaps bump up to that and see how you go.

I see. I didn’t realize that. All I read was that you needed to calculate your BMR, and then to lose a pound a week you’d need to eat 500 kcal/day less than that, and to lose a kilo a week you’d need to eat 1,000 kcal/day less than that, and that it isn’t healthy to try to lose more than a kilo a week. To be honest, I can’t see how it could be healthy to eat 1,000 kcal less than BMR in a day. I’ve struggled in the past on 1,800, and now am doing OK on 1,300, and I think the difference is that I’ve switched to getting my energy from fats and proteins and cut the carbs. In the past, I was eating plenty of fruit, because it’s fairly low in calories. Probably I was overly reliant on fructose for energy, and therefore struggling with peaks and troughs in my blood sugar levels. Now I’m keeping carbs to 20% of my food intake, and focusing on vegetables, brown rice, some lean meat, some nuts, and even a bit of cheese. I still have a couple of pieces of fruit a day purely for variety and vitamins.

You subtract the 500 from your TDEE, or in the case of the MFP method it's from your NEAT with your exercise eaten back. So you probably have a much larger deficit than you intended.

You could also just be one of those people that is at the upper end of the bell curve for BMR averages. All calculators are just best guesses based on population averages.

Yes to BMR being what you'd burn in a coma, so you subtract 500 from your TDEE (or from your NEAT as calculated by MFP, then eat back a realistic portion of your exercise calories).

And yes to the possibility of being statistically unusual, as another thing to consider. Most people are close to the averages the calculators use. A very few are not close. You could be one of them. (I am. I maintain on roughly 33% more calories than MFP would estimate, and lost at commensurately surprising levels. It's a good thing. ).

https://examine.com/nutrition/does-metabolism-vary-between-two-people/

But if you're male and active, unless you're quite old and quite small of stature, 1300 net would be very low calories indeed.

Regardless of any of that, though, your own weight loss rate is your best guide: Avoid losing more than 1% of your body weight per week, and even less as you get close to goal, for the healthiest results. (The first couple of weeks can be a little higher loss because of initial lost water weight and lower average digestive system contents. After that initial drop, the 1% is a reasonable maximum, as a rule of thumb.)