Strange question about caloric deficits

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Replies

  • PikaKnight
    PikaKnight Posts: 34,971 Member
    meh. the lack of imagination and consideration bores me. I think it would be easier to appreciate the opinions and input of others if they weren't so condescending. le sigh.

    I've read the pages and haven't found anyone condescending. Discussing, disagreeing, debating...but not condescending.
  • jonnythan
    jonnythan Posts: 10,161 Member
    meh. the lack of imagination and consideration bores me. I think it would be easier to appreciate the opinions and input of others if they weren't so condescending. le sigh.

    What's your actual question? What do you actually want to know?

    And, most importantly, on what basis are you flat-out rejecting the things that we are telling you?
  • Fullsterkur_woman
    Fullsterkur_woman Posts: 2,712 Member
    meh. the lack of imagination and consideration bores me. I think it would be easier to appreciate the opinions and input of others if they weren't so condescending. le sigh.
    Oh, sweetpea. I had not yet begun to condescend.
  • susannamarie
    susannamarie Posts: 2,148 Member
    It's not that I don't like it, it's just that i'm not entirely sure that's true. I've been looking and I can't find anything that says your body can only oxidize so much fat per day. Also, for your body to start pulling anything from your organ tissues, you would have to be doing this for a ridiculous amount of time. They have similar diets/regimes for morbidly obese people, called "crash diets" and they generally put them on a crash diet for medical reasons. I'm more or less probing into the science behind it.

    Here's an article which also cites the research study: http://baye.com/calculating-the-daily-calorie-deficit-for-maximum-fat-loss/

    With respect to 'a ridiculous amount of time' -- that depends on your current fat levels.

    With respect to the crash dieting, these people are usually medically supervised so that they can raise calories if they start getting quite sick, they are usually fat enough to support a massive caloric deficit, and they are also usually fat enough that the risks of remaining fat outweigh (lol) the risks of a crash diet.
  • GertrudeHorse
    GertrudeHorse Posts: 646 Member
    curious how one would burn 4700 calories in one day??????

    This doesn't seem to have been answered. Personally I would need to run about two marathons to burn that many calories. In any event it would involve about 8 hours of high-intensity cardio.

    So, yes, what the OP asks is theoretically possible. But it is also theoretically impossible because no human could actually do 8 hours of sustained and intense cardio every day while only eating 1200 calories. Well they might be able to do it for a day or two. Maybe three...? But within a short time your heart will simply stop working and you will die. Good luck with that.
  • GertrudeHorse
    GertrudeHorse Posts: 646 Member
    It would be an interesting experiment, I think, but not one I'm interesting in running on myself.

    It would be a deadly experiment. Deadly is the word you were looking for, not interesting.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    I've more than likely over simplified this, and I'm sure it's probably not ideal, safe, healthy, etc. But humour me.

    IN THEORY, could you lose 1 lb per day by burning 4700 calories, and still eating the 1200 calories? Everything I've read says it's unhealthy to eat below 1200 calories for women, so what if you're still eating the 1200 calories, but burning way more? Not that there's enough time in the day to burn that many calories, (le sigh) but I can dream, can't I?

    I lost 8 pounds over 14 days doing a long distance backpacking trip in which my intake was 2500 calories and my TDEE or total calorie burn for each day was around 5000. At the end of it I had more endurance and energy than I've ever had in my life to date.

    Yeah its possible, but if I tried to sustain that I'm pretty sure my muscle (especially upper body) would start to atrophy as the pounds flew off.

    So in answer to hypothetical its totally possible, I've done it. But no its not really a healthy way to go about it nor is it sustainable. For weight loss you want to build healthy maintainable habits so when you lose the weight it will stay off, not do some crazy scheme where when you hit your goal you stop and have learned nothing of good habits for all your effort.

    I put that 8 pounds right back on by the way.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    I don't believe the body necessarily loses one pound for every so many calories (3500 or whatever a particular article sites) burned. Weight loss isn't linear.

    Fat loss is linear with calories expended. This fact is simply masked when you measure yourself with your scale do to things like water retention.

    3500 calories is 1 pound of fat. That is just the amount of energy contained within 1 pound of fat by definition.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    It would be an interesting experiment, I think, but not one I'm interesting in running on myself.

    It would be a deadly experiment. Deadly is the word you were looking for, not interesting.

    Honestly although I know you are coming from a good place and want to keep people away from what would amount to an eating disorder I do think you are exaggerating. I've known people who have gone on 4 month backpacking trips where every single day then netted negative calories (IE there TDEE vastly, VASTLY exceeded their intake like intake 3000 calories TDEE 6000 calories). It didn't kill them.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    curious how one would burn 4700 calories in one day??????

    30 mile backpack with a 40 pound pack over rough terrain and 5000 foot elevation gain and loss would about do it.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    True, I oversimplified. Your body will pull all that energy but it will be no better than blanket starvation and you will lose muscle mass etc etc.

    See, not sure if that's necessarily true either. You'd still be getting non-caloric nutrients, and you'd even still be getting protein, fat, and carbohydrates - the part of the meal that supplies energy. Muscle mass would most likely decrease, that's true, but I don't think it would be quite the same as blanket starvation. Because with blanket starvation you're not getting any nutrients or outside energy at all, and the flip side of starvation would be consuming nothing but straight glucose. Possible, but not a good idea, because you would be malnourished. You wouldn't be getting any vitamins or minerals, but you would have the necessary energy to survive. It'd be more similar to trying to subsist off body fat and vitamin/mineral supplements. Maybe some amino acid supplements (are those a thing? they seem like they'd be a thing).

    Again, this is all theoretical. I'm so not trying to do this, XD I'm not completely insane, :p

    I actually agree with you.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member

    I'm not sure what you're trying to argue here. If you did manage to actually run a 3500 calorie deficit in a day, your body will break down any tissue it can find to harvest calories. You would end up in the hospital before very long.

    Very long is longer than 14 days in my personal experience and longer than 4 months in the experience of people I've met. When you long-distance backpack you net in the negative calories and there really is nothing you can do about it because you are burning far more than you can reasonably carry with you.
  • GertrudeHorse
    GertrudeHorse Posts: 646 Member
    It would be an interesting experiment, I think, but not one I'm interesting in running on myself.

    It would be a deadly experiment. Deadly is the word you were looking for, not interesting.

    Honestly although I know you are coming from a good place and want to keep people away from what would amount to an eating disorder I do think you are exaggerating. I've known people who have gone on 4 month backpacking trips where every single day then netted negative calories (IE there TDEE vastly, VASTLY exceeded their intake like intake 3000 calories TDEE 6000 calories). It didn't kill them.

    An intake of 3000 and TDEE of 6000 is a totally different ball park compared to 1200 intake with 4700 TDEE. The higher level of incoming calories would prevent a lot of the damage caused with teeny intake. At least I imagine it would.... All of this is speculation. Your experience comes closest but didn't meet the stipulations exactly. Could you have done what you did on less than half the intake you had? And with losing another 6 pounds on top of the 8 you lost? Maybe you could have but I guess it would kill a large percentage of other people who tried.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    It would be an interesting experiment, I think, but not one I'm interesting in running on myself.

    It would be a deadly experiment. Deadly is the word you were looking for, not interesting.

    Honestly although I know you are coming from a good place and want to keep people away from what would amount to an eating disorder I do think you are exaggerating. I've known people who have gone on 4 month backpacking trips where every single day then netted negative calories (IE there TDEE vastly, VASTLY exceeded their intake like intake 3000 calories TDEE 6000 calories). It didn't kill them.

    An intake of 3000 and TDEE of 6000 is a totally different ball park compared to 1200 intake with 4700 TDEE. The higher level of incoming calories would prevent a lot of the damage caused with teeny intake. At least I imagine it would.... All of this is speculation. Your experience comes closest but didn't meet the stipulations exactly. Could you have done what you did on less than half the intake you had? And with losing another 6 pounds on top of the 8 you lost? Maybe you could have but I guess it would kill a large percentage of other people who tried.

    I don't know if I could have sustained my level of activity with less calories to be honest. The way I settled on eating 2500 calories a day is it was basically the most I could reasonably carry. I selected the most calorie-dense foods I could, freeze dried dinners for some variety, nuts, granola, etc and alloted myself 1.5 pounds of food per day (when you are going for many days you can imagine how limiting the amount you can carry gets. Even if I ate nothing but sticks of butter at 1.5 pounds per day weight limit I still could not have met my TDEE (although it would have been close). Obviously can't eat only butter so I tried to give myself some protein in the form of nuts and some jerky and other than fat and carbs. I didn't seem to lose a significant amount of lean mass during the trip but it was only 14 days. I'm sure the PCT through-hikers who hike 3000 miles over the period of months lose lean mass though, I mean I think we all agree its not a good plan to get healthy.
  • GertrudeHorse
    GertrudeHorse Posts: 646 Member
    It would be an interesting experiment, I think, but not one I'm interesting in running on myself.

    It would be a deadly experiment. Deadly is the word you were looking for, not interesting.

    Honestly although I know you are coming from a good place and want to keep people away from what would amount to an eating disorder I do think you are exaggerating. I've known people who have gone on 4 month backpacking trips where every single day then netted negative calories (IE there TDEE vastly, VASTLY exceeded their intake like intake 3000 calories TDEE 6000 calories). It didn't kill them.

    An intake of 3000 and TDEE of 6000 is a totally different ball park compared to 1200 intake with 4700 TDEE. The higher level of incoming calories would prevent a lot of the damage caused with teeny intake. At least I imagine it would.... All of this is speculation. Your experience comes closest but didn't meet the stipulations exactly. Could you have done what you did on less than half the intake you had? And with losing another 6 pounds on top of the 8 you lost? Maybe you could have but I guess it would kill a large percentage of other people who tried.

    I don't know if I could have sustained my level of activity with less calories to be honest. The way I settled on eating 2500 calories a day is it was basically the most I could reasonably carry. I selected the most calorie-dense foods I could, freeze dried dinners for some variety, nuts, granola, etc and alloted myself 1.5 pounds of food per day (when you are going for many days you can imagine how limiting the amount you can carry gets. Even if I ate nothing but sticks of butter at 1.5 pounds per day weight limit I still could not have met my TDEE (although it would have been close). Obviously can't eat only butter so I tried to give myself some protein in the form of nuts and some jerky and other than fat and carbs. I didn't seem to lose a significant amount of lean mass during the trip but it was only 14 days. I'm sure the PCT through-hikers who hike 3000 miles over the period of months lose lean mass though, I mean I think we all agree its not a good plan to get healthy.

    Ha, we certainly do. And I am quite impressed by your tramping endurance. Maybe you are more machine than human after all...
  • 2013sk
    2013sk Posts: 1,318 Member
    Burning 4700 calories... Are we on the same planet?????????????
  • gina_nz_
    gina_nz_ Posts: 74 Member
    I don't believe the body necessarily loses one pound for every so many calories (3500 or whatever a particular article sites) burned. Weight loss isn't linear.

    Fat loss is linear with calories expended. This fact is simply masked when you measure yourself with your scale do to things like water retention.

    3500 calories is 1 pound of fat. That is just the amount of energy contained within 1 pound of fat by definition.

    If only we could accurately calculate every single calorie burned. Unfortunately not.

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