Help please - calories and weight - Am I doing the math correctly?

23rochelle23

I’m gonna use a little rounding here so bear with :-)
And while this isn’t a strictly LC ? I’m endeavouring to stick to Keto macros and you guys are less scary than the rest of the group


5’3 and weigh 79kg/173lb

BMR = 1500

Current goal 1200cal (which I struggle to eat enough tbh)

Current deficit = 2100cal a week (so less than 1lb)
In order to lose 1lb/week I need to add 1400cal worth of exercise - 2lb a week would be 4900 worth of exercise (which from what I can gather is about 2hr of fairly high intensity exercise per day?!) this seems an absurd amount.

Even using TDEE as active (exercise and non sedentary job) which is obviously very variable it give me an extra 200odd cal deficit a day - so would be hitting maybe 1lb a week if I’m lucky.

My current macros are
5-10% carbs, 30-40 % protein 60% fat

Shall I just prepare myself for this to take forever? Can I drop say 100-200cal of food a day or perhaps a couple of low cal days and 1200 the rest? (I’ve not seen any actual study as to where this magic 1200cal came from or if it is for an ‘average height’ woman instead of a hobbit like me )

Otherwise short of growing a few inches (excuse the pun) does anyone have any recommendations for high cal burning exercise outside of hours of cardio?

I’m not aiming to get ridiculously low - 64kg which is the upper end of my bmi - body fat is 31% atm so just scraping into average with lean tissue of 120lb - hip to waist ratio of 7.1 ... so assuming I got to 20% bf without loss of lean tissue (doing lots of heavy weights so fingers crossed) I’d be at 65kg.

tcunbeliever

If your BMR is 1500 then your TDEE at sedentary is 1800 - which makes your deficit 4200cal/week if you are consuming 1200/day with no exercise/activity

(1800-1200) * 7 = 4200

1200 is the minimum MFP will give you, lower than that is not recommended without dr supervision because you do still need good nutrition. The average person can only metabolize about 1% of their body weight in fat in any given week, so for you to try to lose more than 1-1.5 lbs in a week you are going to lose muscle, not necessarily fat.

Lifting weights is good - cardio is awesome for heart health, stretching is also good to reduce the risk of injury.

baconslave

5-10% is definitely considered low-carb.
Anything under 120-150g is really. It's just not keto. People here are all over the place. I'm at 100g. Some are 75, 120, 50, 20. 50 and under is keto.

If you're concerned about losing lean tissue, definitely keep your protein higher. That way your body will be less likely to catabolize your muscle.

1lb per week is perfect. Safe and sustainable. Be aware that when you get within 20lb to your goal weight, your calorie requirements go down, so you have to cut your intake, so expecting more than a half pound loss after that is just setting yourself up for frustration and disappointment. All the noise people make about your body being a twit close to goal weight is true.

If you are looking to do cardio exercise but not spend hours, look into workouts that call themselves "HIIT." The majority out there are not really HIIT, which is you going 100% for short intervals during which you feel like you're going to pass out. What most people call HIIT is just interval training, BUT it's shorter and more intense than steady-state, longer cardio, so you burn calories in a shorter period of time. I did say it was intense though, right? It's doable though.

Calories- The "magic" 1200 is bullcrap. Whoever gets to eat the most while still losing weight wins. I'm not sure on the math here. Keto calcs are helpful for those specifics. So go fill out the one on Ruled.me or some similar. A super high deficit is unsustainable in the long term and most crash and burn and end up giving up. Eating a little bit more, but still at a deficit...yes, it will take 673 times longer than you want it to. But while you are doing all the right things and waiting for results, you are cementing the habits that will help you the rest of your life so that you can maintain much easier. Maintenance is forever. It's a lifelong marathon. No need to burn yourself out right out the gate so that you can't finish. Also, you can't preserve muscle or maintain fitness if you are exhausted from not having enough fuel.

I input your stats, but I didn't have age or BF% so this isn't accurate, but I came up with 1474cal at a 20% deficit. Will you lose a lb a week? I don't know. You never know anyway. Our bodies are going to do what they are going to do. Weightloss isn't linear. I've likened a weigh-in graph to the EKG of a cracked-out kangeroo.

I hope some of that is helpful.

23rochelle23

Thanks lovely humans - haha I have to opposite problem and tend to find it difficult to eat up to the amount of calories I’m supposed to have so 1200 I already feel like my day revolves around food

TCunbeliever thanks for redoing my numbers I think I was playing around with the calculators too long and had a brain explosion

Thanks for the other calculator baconslave that’s given me some new numbers to play with - it seems to presume you can consume higher cals on Keto and takes into acc bf% as well so I’ll just keep on cruising at 1200 and see what happens

Aside from being a bit Keto fluy today (ate carbs while on holiday last week so seem to have done this twice now) I’ve got plenty of energy at 1200

Thank you lovelies

baconslave

23rochelle23 wrote: »

Thanks lovely humans - haha I have to opposite problem and tend to find it difficult to eat up to the amount of calories I’m supposed to have so 1200 I already feel like my day revolves around food

TCunbeliever thanks for redoing my numbers I think I was playing around with the calculators too long and had a brain explosion

Thanks for the other calculator baconslave that’s given me some new numbers to play with - it seems to presume you can consume higher cals on Keto and takes into acc bf% as well so I’ll just keep on cruising at 1200 and see what happens

Aside from being a bit Keto fluy today (ate carbs while on holiday last week so seem to have done this twice now) I’ve got plenty of energy at 1200

Thank you lovelies

OHHHHHHHH....ok. Misunderstood the bit about 1200. Sorry.
Re: the calculators. It's good to get input from multiple places. It's all a YMMV anyway. Like I said, your body does whatever the heck it wants in the end, which may or may not be similar to what one or other calc says. We are a walking experiment.

My issue is not being satisfied with lower calories. If you feel like you need sneaks to get more calories into you later on, then ask, and we've got hacks.

23rochelle23

You’re so lovely :-)

I think I used to drink my cals in wine (oops) and milky coffee - haven’t had a glass in 3.5 weeks and mainly drink coffee black now (had a couple of BP coffees but unless I’m up early enough to have one before work it doesn’t happen and can’t do at work as 99% of my coffee intake is while driving)

Been snacking on macadamias and salami sticks as high fat snacks
Just had peanut butter on celery covered in salt to try and banish this headache before the gym along with some paracetamol.

chinatowninchina

And I'm just adding you're doing the correct thing keeping your salts up so you don't get 'keto'flu, it's a totally avoidable thing as long as you have enough salt!