Science only please - the case against 1200 kcals

EvgeniZyntx

Re: Where did 1200 calories come from.

Using a 200 pound person @ 35% body fat as an example, with typical macro recommendations:

that just moves the question to "where did typical macro recommendations come from" surely ?

130 lb woman looking to be 120 lb at 20% BF LBM = 96 lbs.

96g of protein (really ??) = 384 calories
29g of fat = 260 calories
72g of carbs = 288 calories

Total 932 calories. Hmm.

That person would have a BMR of about 1400 (96/2.2*21.6+370 - based on K.M. equations) and a TDEE of about 1800 if sedentary. So cutting to 930 ish gives a deficit that is likelier to eat away LBM mass. And suggests that activity/diet must be very fined tuned to avoid that loss. Hmm.

candiceh3

Re: Where did 1200 calories come from.

Using a 200 pound person @ 35% body fat as an example, with typical macro recommendations:

that just moves the question to "where did typical macro recommendations come from" surely ?

130 lb woman looking to be 120 lb at 20% BF LBM = 96 lbs.

96g of protein (really ??) = 384 calories
29g of fat = 260 calories
72g of carbs = 288 calories

Total 932 calories. Hmm.

Yeah that is an interesting point. *scratches head* is it the case that so long as you meet a certain goal macros, that the calories don't matter?

DebbieLyn63

That 130 lb woman would have a BMR of about 1389 and a sedentary TDEE of around 1670.
If she ate 1000 cals a day, and was careful, she could reach her needed macros.
She should also be losing about 1.3 pounds per week.
At 120 lbs, her new BMR would be about 50 cals less, so she would be maintaining on around 1600 a day, without any additional exercise.
Or so Science would imply.

ETA Eating below 1200 a day without dr supervision is not advised by MFP. I am not suggesting that anyone should do this, only doing the math.

Mr_Knight

Where did the carb recommendation come from? I may have missed it if it were mentioned earlier.

It's a guideline I picked up from (I'm going from memory) someone in LeanGains land. I wouldn't take it as gospel, it's just a guideline. I would die eating like that, but I'm very active, and this is just looking at what a baseline intake level might look like, so it's sans-exercise.

Mr_Knight

that just moves the question to "where did typical macro recommendations come from" surely ?

There is plenty of literature on the protein and fat recommendations. The protein guideline used to be quite a bit lower. There are also people who insist it should be higher, but those tend to be in the hard(er)core strength training group, so their needs are probably not reflective of the general population.

130 lb woman looking to be 120 lb at 20% BF LBM = 96 lbs.

96g of protein (really ??) = 384 calories
29g of fat = 260 calories
72g of carbs = 288 calories

Total 932 calories. Hmm.

Indeed.

And suggests that activity/diet must be very fined tuned to avoid that loss. Hmm.

Absolutely! The closer you fly to the sun, the more attention you have to pay to your wings. You'd need to nail the macros and make sure it's all nutrient rich food. Meaningful amounts of exercise, especially if cardio, would likely need to be on top of this, unless there are significant fat stores.

mahanaibu

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/Mobile/article.aspx?articleid=1108368

This was a randomized controlled study that basically showed that metabolism decreases with prolonged calorie restriction.

The problem with 1200 cal diets isn't that you can't lose weight on them it's the fact that your bmr decreases and makes maintenance that much harder, and who only wants to eat 1500 cals the rest of their life to maintain weight. With that said I think people just have to be smart and have a maintenance plan in place to build BMR back up if they find they gain weight when eating 1500 cals and not think their only option is to drop cals even lower.

I'm sorry, but this is a terrible misinterpretation of this study. Please don't quote studies when you don't know your science.

This was not a study of long-term weight loss. It was a study to determine whether longevity markers improve on calorie restrictions. The study took place over six months. There was indeed a lowering of metabolic rate at all levels of dieting--even modest calorie restriction--but that's not news. We know that metabolic rate decreases during dieting. It was not a terrible drop.

Interestingly, the markers for longevity, such as fasting insulin levels, improved. As the study says, though, that's not the same as our knowing that calorie restriction as a way of life improves longevity (though studies have proven that it's true for rats).

But the study doesn't say anything about calorie restriction being a worse way to lose or maintain weight.

etoiles_argentees

It seems it was the good old Mayo Clinic:
http://www.diet.com/g/mayo-clinic-plan-endorsed-by-clinic

So it does. "For the person trying to lose weight, the medically accepted calorie allowance is generally 1,200 calories per day for women and 1,400 calories for men."

Oh no, I've posted another arbitrary number for people to argue about.

Noooo.... It was endorsed in all the text books.

EvgeniZyntx

that just moves the question to "where did typical macro recommendations come from" surely ?

There is plenty of literature on the protein and fat recommendations. The protein guideline used to be quite a bit lower. There are also people who insist it should be higher, but those tend to be in the hard(er)core strength training group, so their needs are probably not reflective of the general population.

130 lb woman looking to be 120 lb at 20% BF LBM = 96 lbs.

96g of protein (really ??) = 384 calories
29g of fat = 260 calories
72g of carbs = 288 calories

Total 932 calories. Hmm.

Indeed.

And suggests that activity/diet must be very fined tuned to avoid that loss. Hmm.

Absolutely! The closer you fly to the sun, the more attention you have to pay to your wings. You'd need to nail the macros and make sure it's all nutrient rich food. Meaningful amounts of exercise, especially if cardio, would likely need to be on top of this, unless there are significant fat stores.

Very selective quoting.

What I wrote was:
That person would have a BMR of about 1400 (96/2.2*21.6+370 - based on K.M. equations) and a TDEE of about 1800 if sedentary. So cutting to 930 ish gives a deficit that is likelier to eat away LBM. And suggests that activity/diet must be very fined tuned to avoid that loss. Hmm.

Your quoting suggests that I might be supportive of some magical protocol to avoid LBM loss. This is not the case.

IronSmasher

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