1000 calorie deficit NOT for people with healthy BMI
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OH, and one more thing about the "magic number". I have a beautiful friend who is 20 pounds lighter than me. About six months ago, we went shopping together, and tried on the exact same dress in a store. She needed two sizes bigger than me. So, she weighs less, but I am smaller.
If you're muscular at ALL, scale numbers really, truly don't matter.:flowerforyou:0 -
Thank you for posting this!
:happy: :happy:
I have about 10lbs to lose, not exactly sure since I have a morbid fear of the scale, but that's what I kind of would like to see. I want every ounce of that to be fat - preferably on my tummy and inner thighs, but hey, I'll take what I can. Right now I am in a very healthy range, I think I'm at a 22-23 BMI. I'm not sure of my body fat, but I'd assume its around 24-25. I had it checked 3 years ago and I'm a little bigger than I was and it was like 22, so I figure that's about where it is.
The site tells me that I have a BMR of 1400, which shocked me because that seems really low to me. But I was thinking that if I ate 1200, its only a 200 calorie deficit.
I'm starting to realize that all this time when I thought I've been taking in enough calories to burn fat, it may not be enough and I might be gaining it? I've noticed that I've lost an inch or so, but I'm kind of hitting a plateau here.
I think I'm going to try changing my settings for a month or so and see what I can do.
Is this a good assessment, or am I completely off?
Hard to say without knowing numbers, but I never have a problem with someone eating a little more as a trial, my only fear usually comes from eating too little as a trial. Gaining a pound or two isn't the end of the world, but losing kidney function or partial liver function could be!
At this point for you it could be as simple as your carb/fat/protein ratios and how much weight training you are doing. When you are at these points in your exercise/diet life, you may, in fact, benefit from a session or two with a good certified trainer. It can be tough when you are here, the tweaks become much smaller, and the timelines grow much longer at this point, everything must be thought of in a much more long term scale then just straight weight loss.
I am 5'8 and I guess 145ish. I feel like my BMR should be a little higher than 1400.
Its taken me a long time to realize that not everyone is meant to be a size 2. I am finally accepting my body. I am not accepting however that my abs are extremely strong (I've been told by a couple of trainers that I have a very strong core) and they do not show on my body. All of my other muscles look fairly toned. I see definition that I used to not see, and I'm loving it. But my abs are being shy and aren't really wanting to be viewed.
I know that fat loss can't be targeted, so I'm still doing my cardio (I run for about 5 miles 2-3 times a week and I do a bootcamp class which makes us do sprints and whatnot) along with weights.
I guess I just want to know what else I can try. I'm going to up my caloric intake and continue to work my butt off.
any ideas?
I think you're confusing BMR with maintenance calories. BMR is the bare minimum your body needs to survive (think in bed for 24 hours) It is necessarily lower than your maintenance calories. If you don't have much to lose, you really shouldn't be eating less than your BMR, and not much less than your maintenance calories.:flowerforyou:0 -
Thank you for posting this!
:happy: :happy:
I have about 10lbs to lose, not exactly sure since I have a morbid fear of the scale, but that's what I kind of would like to see. I want every ounce of that to be fat - preferably on my tummy and inner thighs, but hey, I'll take what I can. Right now I am in a very healthy range, I think I'm at a 22-23 BMI. I'm not sure of my body fat, but I'd assume its around 24-25. I had it checked 3 years ago and I'm a little bigger than I was and it was like 22, so I figure that's about where it is.
The site tells me that I have a BMR of 1400, which shocked me because that seems really low to me. But I was thinking that if I ate 1200, its only a 200 calorie deficit.
I'm starting to realize that all this time when I thought I've been taking in enough calories to burn fat, it may not be enough and I might be gaining it? I've noticed that I've lost an inch or so, but I'm kind of hitting a plateau here.
I think I'm going to try changing my settings for a month or so and see what I can do.
Is this a good assessment, or am I completely off?
Hard to say without knowing numbers, but I never have a problem with someone eating a little more as a trial, my only fear usually comes from eating too little as a trial. Gaining a pound or two isn't the end of the world, but losing kidney function or partial liver function could be!
At this point for you it could be as simple as your carb/fat/protein ratios and how much weight training you are doing. When you are at these points in your exercise/diet life, you may, in fact, benefit from a session or two with a good certified trainer. It can be tough when you are here, the tweaks become much smaller, and the timelines grow much longer at this point, everything must be thought of in a much more long term scale then just straight weight loss.
I am 5'8 and I guess 145ish. I feel like my BMR should be a little higher than 1400.
Its taken me a long time to realize that not everyone is meant to be a size 2. I am finally accepting my body. I am not accepting however that my abs are extremely strong (I've been told by a couple of trainers that I have a very strong core) and they do not show on my body. All of my other muscles look fairly toned. I see definition that I used to not see, and I'm loving it. But my abs are being shy and aren't really wanting to be viewed.
I know that fat loss can't be targeted, so I'm still doing my cardio (I run for about 5 miles 2-3 times a week and I do a bootcamp class which makes us do sprints and whatnot) along with weights.
I guess I just want to know what else I can try. I'm going to up my caloric intake and continue to work my butt off.
any ideas?
I think you're confusing BMR with maintenance calories. BMR is the bare minimum your body needs to survive (think in bed for 24 hours) It is necessarily lower than your maintenance calories. If you don't have much to lose, you really shouldn't be eating less than your BMR, and not much less than your maintenance calories.:flowerforyou:
Yep, viv is right, your BMR at 1400 sounds right, but your maintenance calories are probably somewhere around 1950. So eating around 1700 or so should get you to where you need to be, maybe even a little higher. This, of course, doesn't include any exercise calories you should also be eating.0 -
I must say banks......you did it again....another great post.:flowerforyou:0
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oooooh I see!!!
Thank you, yeah I was confusing maintenance and BMR...silly me.
Anyway, Thank you very much.
so, I've been in starvation mode for 3 months....great. haha!
At least now I know!0 -
I must say banks......you did it again....another great post.:flowerforyou:
:blushing:
Thanks0 -
Ok Banks please help. I weigh 161.5 and am 5'9. my goal weight is 145 but would be happy with 150. I work out 45-60 min 4-5days a week. What should my daily calorie intake be. was doing 1200 but of course its really not working and maiking me crazy. BTW my body fat % is 260
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Ok Banks please help. I weigh 161.5 and am 5'9. my goal weight is 145 but would be happy with 150. I work out 45-60 min 4-5days a week. What should my daily calorie intake be. was doing 1200 but of course its really not working and maiking me crazy. BTW my body fat % is 26
well, again just going by the numbers, if you are somewhat active throughout the day, your Maintenance should be around 2000 calories a day. So yeah, I can totally see why 1200 isn't working for you. That's an 800 calorie deficit, that's really for someone with a BMI of around 30 or so.
Since your BMI is just under 24, your deficit should be VERY small. It will take you a while to get to 150, (and I definitely think 145 is lower then you need to go), but if you do a 3 days of weights and 3 days of cardio routine (alternate days) with a day off, you will be looking svelt and toned in no time. I imagine within 4 to 6 months of that kind of routine with a 200 calorie deficit (say 1800 calories a day plus exercise calories) you will have lost some of the weight, but more importantly you will have gained plenty of muscle density and lost probably 3 to 6% body fat (which will be a much more noticable thing as far as how you look goes)0 -
Ok, I have been struggling lately with this same issue!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks so much with the post!!!! I am 44yrs old, 5'5" and last time I weighed myself (before the scale challenge) it was 133.5 My weight goal is 130 but I now, after reading this post, really don't care if I reach that. I am pretty happy with the way I look now, I see it and people see it. So, Banks, how many calories should I be eating?????????????? I need to find a place where they could measure my body fat. I know of one but they use the TANITA scale and I really don't think that is very accurate, right?? I do want to have a healthy body fat % and of course I want to maintain my weight now, maybe tone more...I exercise 5 to 7 days a week, usually 6 days a week, take Sundays off. I do resistance training and cardio... Oh, Banks, on days that I don't workout, how many calories should I eat??? Will it be the same as the days when I workout?? Oh, and I have a HRM but not a polar one...0
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So just so I don't have to keep doing this (not that I mind, it's just that I'm pretty much doing the same calculation for everyone, all I'm changing is the numbers). I'll detail the steps this time so you guys can do it on your own. It's not anything magical, just some numbers, and a little intuitive thinking based on past experience and research.
So I'll use alf as our guinney pig
numbers:
age : 44
Sex : F
height: 5'5"
weight : 133.5
activity level : somewhat active (??? dunno but guessing)
so I just go to the mayo clinic calorie calculator
(http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/calorie-calculator/NU00598 ) and put in the numbers
and for Alf I get : 1750 caloires for maintenance
Then I go to http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/
and find your bmi which is: 22.2
With those numbers I see that you really don't need to lose weight. If you do want to lose weight, it's gonna be slow and should be done with very small calorie deficit (remember, anything below 25 bmi is already healthy and you can't get blood from a stone)
If you are looking to tone your body, you need to make weight training a part of your routine, cardio a few times a week, but weight training needs to be a big part, that's the only way to efficiently make your muscle more tone and dense(stronger). Stronger muscle reduces fat just by virtue of it being in your body, you can keep a small calorie deficit (maybe 100 to 250 calories) to help speed along the removal of any small fat stores you have, but I wouldn't go any higher then that. Remeber, this is the long, slow, little noticeable results part. By that I mean, building muscle takes time, and it isn't something your likely to notice by looking in the mirror, you really need to take a before and after picture to see a difference, just because we become familiar with our shape and don't see the gradual changes.
So that's about it. These are all pretty much variations on the same theme. It's pretty straight forward (I hope), if you're at a BMI of 25 or below, your focus should be switching from weight loss to muscle tone, muscle building and reducing fat stores.0 -
thank you Banks0
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I'm sorry. . .I didn't see you there. Must have bumped you.:flowerforyou:0
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I'm bumping because everyone needs to read this.0
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I am dyslexic so cannot make head nor tail of everything in this thread its confused me totaly
anyhow my
BMI is :27.8
BMR is: 1,479
Deficit 650 calories
From Normal Daily Activity 1,850 calories/day
i just want to know if this is ok?0 -
OH, and one more thing about the "magic number". I have a beautiful friend who is 20 pounds lighter than me. About six months ago, we went shopping together, and tried on the exact same dress in a store. She needed two sizes bigger than me. So, she weighs less, but I am smaller.
If you're muscular at ALL, scale numbers really, truly don't matter.:flowerforyou:
Tell me about it ... I haven't weighed less than 126 pounds since I was 15 . At the time, I was a size zero (an OLD size zero) and had a 21-inch waist. The other day, I was chatting with a friend about who told me she was down to 126, whereas I'm hovering between 132 and 134. But we wear the same size, and if anything, I'm slimmer and more toned. She doesn't really exercise. I do.
On the topic of calorie deficits ...
One thing that I really don't like abou tthis site is that it assumes that you SHOULD eat all your workout calories in the SAME day that you work out. There's something to be said for "smoothing" your calories over the week rather than varying them by 500+ depending on whether you did intense cardio. Routine is important for reforming habits!
Final thoughts:
Look at your "daily target" calorie level. If you imagine your skinny future self happily eating more than that without worrying about your weight, you're dreaming. UNLESS you also see yourself spending more time exercising. AS LONG AS YOU ARE ABLE TO WALK (or as long as you care about weight).
The key to being thin AND happy: Learn to love burning calories more than you love eating them.
Rather than satisfying food cravings, satisfy exercise cravings. A lot of the anxiety that charges oral fixations and cravings can be channeled through a brisk walk, a couple flights of stairs, or something more strenuous if you're up to it.0 -
I am dyslexic so cannot make head nor tail of everything in this thread its confused me totaly
anyhow my
BMI is :27.8
BMR is: 1,479
Deficit 650 calories
From Normal Daily Activity 1,850 calories/day
i just want to know if this is ok?
If your asking if a 650 calorie deficit is ok for your bmi, It's probably borderline IMHO. I would probably knock it down to 500, but you can give it a shot for a month or so and see how it goes. Remember from my other posts I said that starvation isn't a line you cross, it's more of a gray area that you drift towards. If you stay there and you don't see a heck of a lot of progress, I would probably go up to 500 and try that for a month or so.0 -
ok thanks :flowerforyou:0
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What's IMHO? I'm changing to a 250 deficit instead of the 500. Maybe this will help me. Should I try it here for maybe a week? month? or switch it daily? I don't want to gain a ton of weight by eating close to 1600 instead of the 1300 I was having consistently. I kind of already feel like a hephervison!:ohwell:0
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What's IMHO? I'm changing to a 250 deficit instead of the 500. Maybe this will help me. Should I try it here for maybe a week? month? or switch it daily? I don't want to gain a ton of weight by eating close to 1600 instead of the 1300 I was having consistently. I kind of already feel like a hephervison!:ohwell:
IMHO is In My Humble Opinion.
try it for at least a month, if your BMI is in the normal range, anything shorter then that is too small a sample to really tell. And truely, if you GAIN weight at your maintenance weight, it means you aren't meeting nutritional requirements, either that or your thyroid is messed up (or some other rare condition that I have no clue about). And if any of those are the case, it's good you did this because you would much rather know any of that stuff now, then years down the road when it's a serious problem for you.0 -
OMG!:laugh: I know a new one! Thanks for filling me in!
Ok, a month. I can do that. I never thought that something would be wrong if I ate what I "should," and gained. Typically, that's what's happened though. My mom has just always told me that I have a weight problem and I've spent most of my life trying to fix that. Thank you, thank you, thank you for your help. I really appreciate you taking the time to break it down!:flowerforyou:0 -
:bigsmile:
With any luck we will have an army of 23 to 24 BMI super toned
spectacular looking, healthy, happy, and mucho hotness
people here in about a year or so! none of those ultra skinny, kate moss lookin
heroine shiek waifs that gross me out when I turn on the tv.
all thanks to this great site that Mike cooked up!0 -
:bigsmile:
With any luck we will have an army of 23 to 24 BMI super toned
spectacular looking, healthy, happy, and mucho hotness
people here in about a year or so! none of those ultra skinny, kate moss lookin
heroine shiek waifs that gross me out when I turn on the tv.
all thanks to this great site that Mike cooked up!
Thanks for explaining all of this for us!
BTW, thanks for saying that super bony girls are scary. Sometimes they really are! My dad has a bunch of actresses that are supposed to be super gorgeous that he says "yuck!" He says they have no butt or boobs, and to him they look like boys! :happy: It's nice to know that more men than just my dad think this.0 -
I am not sure where this whole "unhealthy end of the BMI" has come from. The BMI's varying scale is to take body frame and muscle mass into account. (and just in case I have to say this, yes obviously if you're an athlete or body builder, then its not that appropriate.)
Telling people (especially when you cant actually see them) that having a BMI of 21 is getting to the unhealthy range is like me telling someone that a BMI of 24 is close to the high unhealthy range so they should lose more weight - its just not true.
And instead of assuming that (especially women) are getting caught up in a number due to societal pressures is insulting: do you not think we are smart enough to figure that out? Maybe some of the people that are heading for the "lower end" of the BMI are small framed people??
I had doctors input before losing weight (i started at 61kg) and after gathering a history from me as well as taking my frame into account, she was happy with my ultimate goal of 50kg. She didnt think it was the unhealthy side of the BMI, she thought it was fine for me. (I am 157cm by the way).0 -
I am not sure where this whole "unhealthy end of the BMI" has come from. The BMI's varying scale is to take body frame and muscle mass into account. (and just in case I have to say this, yes obviously if you're an athlete or body builder, then its not that appropriate.)
Telling people (especially when you cant actually see them) that having a BMI of 21 is getting to the unhealthy range is like me telling someone that a BMI of 24 is close to the high unhealthy range so they should lose more weight - its just not true.
And instead of assuming that (especially women) are getting caught up in a number due to societal pressures is insulting: do you not think we are smart enough to figure that out? Maybe some of the people that are heading for the "lower end" of the BMI are small framed people??
I had doctors input before losing weight (i started at 61kg) and after gathering a history from me as well as taking my frame into account, she was happy with my ultimate goal of 50kg. She didnt think it was the unhealthy side of the BMI, she thought it was fine for me. (I am 157cm by the way).
Um, I don't think I ever said a BMI of 21 was unhealthy. I believe I said a BMI of 22 was getting to the lower half of the Healthy BMI range, which it is since the US Dept. of Health and most health organizations that I have read agree that a BMI of 18.5 is the cut off point for a healthy BMI. I think maybe you misread my comments littlespoon. As to your comment on it being insulting, I hardly think that was the case, or that any of my comments came off as insulting (there was absolutely no intent). People asked about their situation, and I gave my best effort based on the numbers they gave me. I specifically stated in pretty much every case, that I was JUST GOING BY THE NUMBERS and gave what I thought would be most helpful to them. I even went so far as to show the process by which I came to those numbers.
BMI is a flawed calculation, everyone is in agreement that is has limited scope and use, but with that in mind it is a relatively decent predictor of (very) general body weight as a function of overall health.
I just don't see where the anger comes from, littlespoon, you may know full well that numbers aren't as important as general health, but I see many people on here every day talking about how they need to lose weight, when in reality, some of them really don't have any need to lose weight, they just need to tone their bodies, eat healthy, and add lean tissue. If you find an error in what I'm saying, that's fine, I've no problem with that. I'm not any kind of expert on this stuff. And am willing to change my thinking if there is reason too.
FYI here is the article I have been refering to lately about BMI if people want more info.
http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/how-accurate-body-mass-index-bmi0 -
Thanks Banks for a great post! :flowerforyou:
Maybe everyone needs to learn "IMHO.":drinker:0 -
Thanks Banks for a great post! :flowerforyou:
Maybe everyone needs to learn "IMHO.":drinker:
:happy:0 -
I am at work and cannot read this now, please can we keep this bumped so i can read it at home tonight? Thanks all :flowerforyou:0
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bump for cinandchris0
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:flowerforyou:0
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bump
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