calorie deficit? confused

yardsticks

i'm trying to lose 30 pounds in the next four months. this website just determined i would have to net 1310 calories a day to lose 2 pounds a week. i've read a ton on these forums and it's just all so confusing; if my BMR is around 1800, how can i eat that little without going into this supposed "starvation mode"? and if i exercise off calories, why aren't i supposed to eat them back, like i've read on this website so many times before? i have no idea what exactly to do because it's like i'm either eating too much or i'm eating too little. can someone clarify?

RGv2

Ht and current Wt? Amount of exercise per week?

Honestly, I'm guessing a 2lb per week goal is WAYYY to aggressive for you. Usually, individuals looking to lose 70+ can go with 2lbs per week. You should probably be setting your goal at .5-1lb per week.

dmenchac

Starvation mode is a myth. You will not hit anywhere close to it on 1310 calories. Also, when you log your exercise into mfp, your net will increase, meaning you eat back your calories. Just NET 1310. However I would try to go less aggressive so you can eat more. Try 1lb a week

bajoyba

If you have 30 pounds to lose, you should only aim to lose about a pound a week.

And MFP assigns a calorie goal based on the information you give it. If your goal is to lose weight, it assigns you the calorie amount you should eat to lose the amount of weight you specify. Your calorie goal is not your body's maintenance calories; it already includes a deficit. So if you eat your calorie goal every day, you will lose weight, even without exercise.

If you add exercise to your normal routine, you should eat those burned calories back. Otherwise your calorie deficit becomes even larger, which can be counterproductive.

_HeartsOnFire_

If you have 30 pounds to lose, you should only aim to lose about a pound a week.

And MFP assigns a calorie goal based on the information you give it. If your goal is to lose weight, it assigns you the calorie amount you should eat to lose the amount of weight you specify. Your calorie goal is not your body's maintenance calories; it already includes a deficit. So if you eat your calorie goal every day, you will lose weight, even without exercise.

If you add exercise to your normal routine, you should eat those burned calories back. Otherwise your calorie deficit becomes even larger, which can be counterproductive.

This!!!

Yes, we all want to lose 2 lbs per week, but the less weight to lose, the smaller it comes off.

yardsticks

i'm actually trying to lose 50-60 total (i could even lose 70), but i'm trying to lose around 25-30 this summer, at least. so trying for two pounds a week is okay, right?

so i could eat, say, 1700, burn 400 during exercise, and i'd be good? i don't get that part, though...if i start out netting this few calories, how low will i have to go later on?

knra_grl

i'm trying to lose 30 pounds in the next four months. this website just determined i would have to net 1310 calories a day to lose 2 pounds a week. i've read a ton on these forums and it's just all so confusing; if my BMR is around 1800, how can i eat that little without going into this supposed "starvation mode"? and if i exercise off calories, why aren't i supposed to eat them back, like i've read on this website so many times before? i have no idea what exactly to do because it's like i'm either eating too much or i'm eating too little. can someone clarify?

If you use MFP settings to lose 2 lbs per week, your calorie goal will be set at a deficit to lose weight. As previously stated you may be a bit aggressive with your 2 lbs per week. Try 1.5 or 1 lb per week and your daily calorie goal should increase. Do what you can sustain, otherwise you may find it difficult and give up. Slow and steady wins the race, and the scale isn't everything. Increasing your activity will reap it's rewards (eat back between 1/3 to 3/4 of your exercise calories). Remember it's all based on estimates so you have to find what works for you.

bajoyba

i'm actually trying to lose 50-60 total (i could even lose 70), but i'm trying to lose around 25-30 this summer, at least. so trying for two pounds a week is okay, right?

so i could eat, say, 1700, burn 400 during exercise, and i'd be good? i don't get that part, though...if i start out netting this few calories, how low will i have to go later on?

So maybe set your weekly weight loss goal to 1.5 pounds and then eat that number. If you add extra exercise to your normal daily routine, eat at least some of those calories back. It works.

psuLemon

i'm actually trying to lose 50-60 total (i could even lose 70), but i'm trying to lose around 25-30 this summer, at least. so trying for two pounds a week is okay, right?

so i could eat, say, 1700, burn 400 during exercise, and i'd be good? i don't get that part, though...if i start out netting this few calories, how low will i have to go later on?

So how much do you weigh and how tall are you? I ask because many people think they can lose a lot of weight, but if you look at the math, they would be underweight at the point.

Also, the reality of the situation is, you want fat loss, not weight loss. Fat loss will make you look good in a bath suit,, where weight loss makes you look good in clothes. Minimizing muscle loss, through a more moderate deficit, high protein (1g per lb of lean body mass) and resistance training will provide much greater results.

Aaron_K123

If your body's BMR is 1800 your body will use 1800 regardless of how much you eat.

If you eat 1310 calories your body will obtain those extra 590 calories plus whatever else you burned for your activity during the day from your fat stores or your muscle. You will not starve or go into "starvation mode".

What will happen, however, if you try to lose weight too aggressively with too much of a deficit is you will have low energy during the day, your body will try to adapt to your lower caloric intake by urging you to sleep more (making you tired) and it will dial down your metabolism so you feel sluggish. Your body may also attempt to catabolize your own muscle if your protein intake is low and you aren't doing resistance training. Feeling low energy your willpower will suffer and you will likely succumb to either giving up or binging.

Will you cause yourself immediate and irrevocable harm? No. But you are making this much more difficult than it needs to be in order to rush through it and hit some rather arbitrary goalpost. If you try to lose that quickly you will inevitably lose muscle in addition to fat and will shrink your body but will not look more "fit". If you are trying to look fit you don't want to be that aggressive with the weight loss.

TeaBea

i'm actually trying to lose 50-60 total (i could even lose 70), but i'm trying to lose around 25-30 this summer, at least. so trying for two pounds a week is okay, right?

so i could eat, say, 1700, burn 400 during exercise, and i'd be good? i don't get that part, though...if i start out netting this few calories, how low will i have to go later on?

You don't go lower & lower......you just lose more slowly. Losing weight too quickly will result in fat+muscle loss. So healthy weight loss should be about trying to lower your body fat percentage.....not the number on the scale.

MFP gives you BMR + activity level......then subtracts 500 (1 pound a week) .....or 1,000 ( 2 pounds a week) ........it only considers exercise AFTER you log it. You eat the calories back to get to your ORIGINAL starting point.

TDEE gives you BMR + activity level + exercise......then you subtract a %......subtract a large % when you have a ways to go.....subtract a smaller % when you are close to goal. You don't eat exercise calories back, because they are already accounted for.

Pick MFP or TDEE .....one of the methods. See how it goes. If you feel tired & run down, then you aren't eating enough.

yardsticks

i'm about 5'9 and 225 pounds. since when is 25 pounds in four months "rushing it"? the reason i started this thread was because the 1300 calories seemed really low to me. i'd be exercising more to eat more.

heybales

i'm actually trying to lose 50-60 total (i could even lose 70), but i'm trying to lose around 25-30 this summer, at least. so trying for two pounds a week is okay, right?

so i could eat, say, 1700, burn 400 during exercise, and i'd be good? i don't get that part, though...if i start out netting this few calories, how low will i have to go later on?

You are exactly correct, where would it go later?
Up, because you would take a smaller deficit later.

So you really have maybe 80 to lose to a healthy weight, you could get by with 2 lb weekly goal, only for about 6-8 weeks.

Eat back your exercise calories to maintain that on the verge of not reasonable weight loss amount.

To offset that initial aggressive goal, after you that 6-8 weeks, and perhaps 60 to go, take a diet break week, set goal to maintain. Enjoy your exercise being easier or being able to go harder because of being able to eat at maintenance.

The next week after the diet break, then you can go for 1.5 lbs loss goal - so you'll be eating more then.

At 20-25 lbs, go for 1 lb loss goal.
At 10-15, go for 1/2 lb loss goal.

What is going to be protecting you here at the start is the fact the MFP Mifflin BMR used is inflated for that overweight, and so maintenance isn't really as high as they think.
You likely won't lose 2 lbs weekly on average - but take what you get as it's still better.

psuLemon

i'm about 5'9 and 225 pounds. since when is 25 pounds in four months "rushing it"? the reason i started this thread was because the 1300 calories seemed really low to me. i'd be exercising more to eat more.

1300 is pre exercise. When you exercise, you are supposed to eat more calories.


And we all thought you only had 30 to lose total. As a frame of reference, the average women I know working out as much as you eat between 1700-2100 total.

yardsticks

i understand that i'm supposed to eat more when i exercise. that's what i don't get; i thought i'd need to eat way more than that. so the calculator on this website doesn't make sense?

psuLemon

That calculator on the website bases information off your inputs. Honestly, if you are consistent with exercise, I would change your activity level to include exercise and NOT eat back exercise calories. This minimizes the ability to over estimate exercise calories. For example, I workout 5-6 hours a week and have a desk job; I would make my activity level as active. And based on your true weight loss, I would change your account to 1.5 lbs per week.


Also, keep in mind online calculators are estimates, so you will have to play with the numbers a bit. The best thing you can do is have a good food scale, log daily and stay consistent. If you average 2 lbs a week, add 1000 calories to what you are eating to get your maintenance calories. For example, I eat 2500 daily, average 1 lb per week, so I know I maintain at 3000 calories. This is useful in the long term. But keep in mind when you have large amounts of weight to lose, your maintenance calories will decline.

lolybear

At your height and weight, your body burns roughly 2300 calories just generally living - eating, breathing, digesting, pumping blood, etc.

If you burn more calories than you eat, you will lose weight. Calories in < calories out.

To lose 1 lb per week, you need an overall deficit of about 3500 calories in that week. To lose 2 lb per week, you need an overall deficit of 7000 calories in that week.

So you set MFP to lose 2 lb per week. 7000 calorie deficit / 7 days = 1000 calorie deficit per day.

2300 "living" calories - 1000 deficit = 1300 calories per day net goal.

So MFP giving you 1310 as a goal to eat is exactly right.

Now, let's say you go do some exercise on a given day, and burn 500 calories in the process.

2300 "living" calories burnt + 500 calories exercise burnt = 2800 total calories burnt.

That's 2800 calories out. 1000 calorie deficit means that on the day you exercise you can eat an extra 500 calories and still net out to a 1000 calorie deficit for the day.
2300 living + 500 exercise - 1000 deficit = 1800 calorie goal for that day.

In the beginning of your weight loss, eating 1300 and losing 2lb/week probably is fine. As you lose weight, though, your "living" calorie number will start to drop - you weigh less, your body doesn't need to work as hard at "living" as it used to. So let's say in a few months you lose some weight, and your "living" calories drop to about 2000. To maintain losing 2lb/week you still have to have your 1000 calorie deficit, but that means your food goal is only 1000 calories a day, which is too low - generally you don't want to drop under 1200 or so per day. So that's why people are saying at some point you'll need to scale back. Scaling back to 1.5lb/week means your deficit is only 750 per day, so on 2000 living calories - 750 deficit = 1250 food goal. Much more doable.

Hopefully that makes more sense. Yay math.

heybales

i understand that i'm supposed to eat more when i exercise. that's what i don't get; i thought i'd need to eat way more than that. so the calculator on this website doesn't make sense?

Only in the sense it doesn't just give a reasonable goal, rather than letting a user select an unreasonable one.

But then there would be huge complaints on that too, some may not want to lose so aggressive. So option is open for anyone to choose poorly.

It also makes sense in that you get the weight loss doing the exercise or not.

Many other sites take a deficit off what you plan on doing, ie the TDEE deficit method. If your workout varies a lot, or you are not successful in doing it as planned - you could lose no weight.

So different motivational factors, I said I would therefore I better exercise to lose the weight, or I want to eat more so I better exercise.

That's where the idea gets started that exercise is mainly for weight loss - on those other programs it may seem that way.

musky4life2013

Lauren, thank you for the great explanation. That was very well put together and made a lot of sense.

yardsticks

At your height and weight, your body burns roughly 2300 calories just generally living - eating, breathing, digesting, pumping blood, etc.

If you burn more calories than you eat, you will lose weight. Calories in < calories out.

To lose 1 lb per week, you need an overall deficit of about 3500 calories in that week. To lose 2 lb per week, you need an overall deficit of 7000 calories in that week.

So you set MFP to lose 2 lb per week. 7000 calorie deficit / 7 days = 1000 calorie deficit per day.

2300 "living" calories - 1000 deficit = 1300 calories per day net goal.

So MFP giving you 1310 as a goal to eat is exactly right.

Now, let's say you go do some exercise on a given day, and burn 500 calories in the process.

2300 "living" calories burnt + 500 calories exercise burnt = 2800 total calories burnt.

That's 2800 calories out. 1000 calorie deficit means that on the day you exercise you can eat an extra 500 calories and still net out to a 1000 calorie deficit for the day.
2300 living + 500 exercise - 1000 deficit = 1800 calorie goal for that day.

In the beginning of your weight loss, eating 1300 and losing 2lb/week probably is fine. As you lose weight, though, your "living" calorie number will start to drop - you weigh less, your body doesn't need to work as hard at "living" as it used to. So let's say in a few months you lose some weight, and your "living" calories drop to about 2000. To maintain losing 2lb/week you still have to have your 1000 calorie deficit, but that means your food goal is only 1000 calories a day, which is too low - generally you don't want to drop under 1200 or so per day. So that's why people are saying at some point you'll need to scale back. Scaling back to 1.5lb/week means your deficit is only 750 per day, so on 2000 living calories - 750 deficit = 1250 food goal. Much more doable.

Hopefully that makes more sense. Yay math.

this really does make sense. thank you!