EAT EXERCISE CALORIES

Eserenabean

Congrats on breaking the plateau!!! I hit a plateau before and I read so many articles online about them & they all basically say the same thing, eat more, & drink more water. & It was a scary concept to grasp because like you said you think that when you are trying to loose weight you eat less. Unfortunately, like other people have posted, I overestimated & started to gain.

DrG3n3

Solution:

Stop using MFP's caloric recommendation and go with a formula that makes more sense. Since people tend to underestimate intake and overestimate calories burned, MFP's system can lead to a perfect storm of inaccuracy.

I suggest Alan Aragon's recommendation (from AARR, Feb 2011)

(important note: target bodyweight for this formula is in pounds):
Target BW x (8‐10 or 9‐11 + avg. total weekly training hours)

Notice that there are 2 separate ranges of multipliers. The lower range (8-10) is more suitable for women since they have a higher percentage of bodyfat than men, and thus a lower proportion of lean mass. Using the higher range (9-11) on women would have a tendency to overestimate needs. Each range has a certain margin to account for differences in intensity. Low, medium, and high-intensity work can be factored in by using the low, middle, or high end of each range, depending on where your training sessions average during the week. Both formal cardio and weight training sessions must be included when totaling up average weekly training hours. Vigorous recreational physical activity (ie, sports games & practices) should also be tallied in.

Disclaimer: If you've been following MFP's recommendations and it's been working for you, by all means stick to it. ANY formula will only estimate needs and may need to be adjusted up/down.

Weird. Mine comes out to 1704 and I've been eating 1300-1500 a day and I've been fine O_o

142*(9+3)= 1704

Either I should be eating a lot more or this thing doesn't work for everyone.

Like I said, it's only an estimate. NOTHING works for everyone.

But using the lower multiplier:

142*(8+3)=1562

puts it pretty close to what you're currently doing.

I find that it's a nifty little estimate, regardless. But the poster, PB67, did say that it doesn't work for everyone a few times already. So you're probably not doing anything 'wrong', just different.

psuLemon

Here comes a nay-sayer...


Please explain how this makes any sense.

Please cite a credible study(s) that shows a definite entry into 'starvation mode'.

If you're going to use the metabolism defense, please cite a study that has strong evidence to suggest metabolism is affected enough to adversely prevent you from losing weight.

I am having a hard time believing you should eat back calories you just burnt.

My question to you is, have you seen any research (from a reputal source) that supports teh best way to lose weight is eat very little calories and exercise a lot? This isn't intented to be mean or melicious but rather looking at it from another point of view.


In reality, this is truely an entire college level course but I will see what I can do to help inform those who would like to listen.



There are three main variables in weight loss that are crutical; lean body mass (LBM), basal metabolic rate (BMR) and total daily energy expended (TDEE) [see shapefit.com link for further detail]. 1. LBM is the mass of a body minus the lipids (body fat); essentially, the weight from organs, muscle, bones and tissue. 2. BMR is the minimum calorific requirement needed to sustain life in a resting individual. It can be looked at as being the amount of energy (measured in calories) expended by the body to remain in bed asleep all day. 3. TDEE TDEE is the total number of calories that your body expends in 24 hours, including all activities. TDEE is also known as your "maintenance level".

Note: BMR is also known as your metabolism (see mayo clinic link)


With that out o the way we can move on. There are several methods to understand weight loss but what I have seen to be the most effective on me and every person I have worked with so far is utlizing the Katch McArdle formula. This incorporates your metabolism (BMR) which is derived from your Lean Body Mass and your overall caloric expenditures to create an overall deficit for weight loss. See below formula (see link 3)

Lean Body Mass

LBM = Weight - (Weight * body fat %)

The formula is as follows:
BMR = 370 + (9.79759519 X Lean Mass in pounds)

TDEE is calculated by multiplying your BMR by your activity multiplier from the list below:

Sedentary = BMR X 1.2 (little or no exercise, desk job)
Lightly active = BMR X 1.375 (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk)
Mod. active = BMR X 1.55 (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk)
Very active = BMR X 1.725 (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days/wk)
Extr. active = BMR X 1.9 (hard daily exercise/sports & physical job or 2X day training, i.e marathon, contest etc.)


Example me

Weight: 195
Body Fat: 11%
TDEE (I do p90x): 1.725
Deficit: 250

LBM = 195 - (195*.11) = 173.6
BMR = 370 + (9.79759519 X 173.6) = 2070.4
TDEE = 2070.4 * 1.725 = 3209.1
Caloric needs = 2959.1

Ok, so what this means is my metabolism burns 2070.4 calories if I did nothing but sleep for 24 hour. Based on my lifestyle (sedentary job but workout 6 days a week) I am considered very active so between my metaboism and activity I burn 3209 calories (aka, the calories I woudl need to eat to maintain my metabolism). So if I want to lose weight, then i need the deficit which is my caloric needs.



So lets talk metabolism and body fat. So we know that your BMR is your metabolism. And we know your BMR is affected by lean body mass, which means, that the higher your LBM, the higher your metabolism, the higher your caloric needs. This means, that BMR is one of most important factors in weight loss (because lets face it, you can lose weight without exercise, but you can adversely affect your metabolism by doing so). What I mean by this, there is only one real way to maintain a metabolism during weight loss and that is increasing lean body mass. Essentially, for every one pound of fat burned is a pound of lbm increase.

Example me again'

Start
Weight - 210
Body fat - 18%

LBM = 210 - (210 *.18) = 172.2
BMR = 370 + (9.79759519 X 172.2) = 2057.1

Current

Weight - 195
Body Fat - 11%
LBM = 195 - (195 * .11) =173.6
BMR = 370 + (9.79759519 X 172.2) = 2070.4


So the question is, what does this mean with my weight loss? What do large deficit do to weight loss? Well to understand this, you have to understand how to build muscle. Essentially, to build muscle, you need a combination of eating enough protein (about 1 g per lbm in your body). So my example above, I would need 173.6 g of protein to gain/maintain muscle (see link 4). I will note I have seen as low as .5 - 1 g to do this. So if I need 173.6 g of protein and 1g of protein = 4 calories (that means that 694.2 calories are from protein alone). So lets take a woman who is 175 & 37% body fat (this info comes from teh 5th link, real people on this board). This person has 110 lbs of lean body mass which means her protein needs to grow/maintain lbm = 444 calories from protein. That is over 1/4 of the calories a person that eats 1200 would have. That doesn't account for carbs which is 4 calories per gram and 9 caloriers per gram of fat. And btw, these are all net calories. When you expend energy, you expend calories because calories are what create energy. So if you eat 40/40/20 (carbs/protein/fat), you would need to eat 480/480/243 to get your 1200 calories. So if we can the woman above, her BMR is 1450 calories. if she does nothing her TDEE is 1740 which means with a 1 lb per week lose than 1240 calories is ok. Once you start to increase your TDEE, you need to increase your caloric needs because your body needs more food to fuel. So lets say you don't. You go to the gym and workout for an hour (zumba ) and you burn 600 calories. That means your net calories is 640 for the day. There are two main sources your body pulls energy from. First it's from yoru fat cells (food stores) and second is from the ammino acids in protein. So if you are only netting 640 calories, where do you think it's getting energy from? Thats right both fat stores and muscle (aka, the ammino acid stores). Essentially, it's the equivalent of eating 60 g of protein, 60 g of carb and 14 g of fat. So how can you maintain muscle mass with that? Well you can't.


This is very apparent in people on HCG where you only eat 500 calories. Example 6 below, fivefatcats (her results).

March 2010 - weight 182, lean weight 131.4 - fat weight 50.6, body fat 27.8 %
Sept 2010 - weight 167, lean weight 124 - fat weight 43, body fat 25.5
Oct 2010 . . . . .weight 154 . lean weight 116 , fat weight 38 . body fat 24.6.

At first, you are like wow, she lost 28 lbs and 3.2% body fat. Then you take a very close look at it, in reality, she lost 28 lbs, 15.6 of which was from muscle. That means over 50% of the weight lost was from muscle. What happens when you lose muscle? That is right, you slow your metabolism, which means you have to eat less food to keep losing weight. Huge muscle loss was obtained by little calories. So this is why when you eat little calories and exercise, you lose a lot of muscle which hurts you in the long run because that is what kills your metabolism. So how to you change that, you eat your calories, you eat quality foods and you lift weights!!!




http://www.shapefit.com/basal-metabolic-rate.html

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/metabolism/WT00006

http://www.cordianet.com/calculator.htm

http://stronglifts.com/how-to-build-muscle-mass-guide/

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/282320-caloric-intake-body-fat

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/356410-hcg-diet?page=3


I could do more, but I won't because I am tired and it's bed time. So now that I dropped some knowledge on everyone's arses feel free to rebutal or ask questions. We are all here to learn and the only way to do so is by challenging each other. I will say, if you are gonna comment, you better back it up because it wouldn't be the first time I have laid the intraweb smack down on someone, lol, jk.

Lemon

paniologal

Can you tell my body that? It seems to have it's own formula for burning calories :P

Liquid741

lol..mine says 2730cal per day! that is insane..im eating 1750atm and working out around 6 to 9hrs per week. unless i did something wrong...? my target weight is 182.

FairyMiss

um no thank you

h3h8m3

What a great post Lemon. Thanks for taking the time to write it out. Next time someone posts about starvation mode, point them to that post. Great explanation.

jellybaby84

NO

(just replying to your shouting with my own )

psuLemon

What a great post Lemon. Thanks for taking the time to write it out. Next time someone posts about starvation mode, point them to that post. Great explanation.

thanks. I was just hoping to make sense since i wrote it late at night. Unfortunately, a lot of the myths out there will still prevail over this method/thinking. But the way i look at it, even if it helps one person i am happy.

HerpDerp745

I didn't see this until earlier today. Lemon, I don't think you understood what the OP was posting.

Allow me to first clarify my position on my original post. Let me also first say I am not advocating that you shouldn't eat when you're hungry. You should. I certainly know I don't have the will to do it, and I am generally pretty hungry hours after a workout of any kind.

The lack of weight loss for the OP within the two week period does not present enough evidence to suggest so much LBM was lost in this period to completely stay at 0 net weight.

My question to you is, have you seen any research (from a reputal source) that supports teh best way to lose weight is eat very little calories and exercise a lot? This isn't intended to be mean or melicious but rather looking at it from another point of view.

This key phrase is 'best way' to lose weight. If I were looking for the most efficeint way to lose 'weight', I would attempt to eat nothing and expend as many calories as possible. I would lose a lot fat AND muscle. This is not my goal. My goal would be to lose weight while maintaining as much muscle as possible. But if my goal were to lose weight regardless of fat or muscle, this would be the 'best way' to go. A more realistic approach would be to eat enough calories to slow the rate of muscle loss and at the same time utilize fat reserves at a decent rate.

It would certainly be interesting to see a comparison of control groups with different caloric intakes and the results for each group in a study. I'm sure such a study exists, but I don't think I would find one without investing more time then I would like to when I think I have enough to prove my point.
I did however find a study done on starvation in a 10 day period that can be found where muscle and fat were loss:
http://www.ajcn.org/content/21/1/87.full.pdf+html.
It is an older article, but the study has some pretty cool stuff including strong evidence to support a ketogenic diet style you also may find interesting. There wasn't excessive exercise according to the experiment.

This study is more relevant to the conversation:
http://www.ajcn.org/content/83/5/1068.abstract?sid=bf86608c-ca9a-403e-9c0a-17d57dec6268
A study for a 7 day period of sustained exercise while being deprived of food. Of course the food intake was not COMPLETELY controlled, but the variable difference between the cadets is minimal and I think this can be used as evidence supporting my arguement.


Now for OP's post, the arguement she is making is there was no net weight loss. So either she lost a massive amount of LBM (which is considered weight) to account for the drop in BMR rate, she measured weight or caloric balance wrong, or a non-body mass difference occured between measuring. Let's use your stated standards and evaluate the stats you had given as example.

Assume in this two week period, you are still doing your P90x workouts, but have extra motivation to lay the intraweb smack down to someone on a general diet and weightloss forum, and up your workout to the 1.9 extremely active multiplier. Let's also assume under this time period, you have vastly deprived of yourself of caloric intake by, say, an additional 1000 calories.

Weight: 195
Body Fat: 11%
TDEE (intraweb smackdown motivation): 1.9
Deficit: 1250

LBM = 195 - (195*.11) = 173.6
BMR = 370 + (9.79759519 X 173.6) = 2070.4
TDEE = 2070.4 * 1.9 = 3933.76
(unless I'm missing something, I think you calculated your original TDEE wrong, fyi)
Caloric needs = 2959.1

This gives you a negative energy balance of 2959 - 3933 = -975 more or less.

If your body was completely inefficent in using fat reserves and burnt ONLY muscle from this deficit per day, this would not account for the additional 20 or so calories used by lean body mass. Each pound of LBM lost would only account for 20 or so calories in your TDEE per day. This is not enough to account for a 0 net weight loss.

Of course, we are all aware the body is more efficent in utilization of fat stores, and burns both fat and muscle during caloric deficits.

At first, you are like wow, she lost 28 lbs and 3.2% body fat. Then you take a very close look at it, in reality, she lost 28 lbs, 15.6 of which was from muscle. That means over 50% of the weight lost was from muscle.

This is where I don't think you understood what OP was saying. Even though fivefatcats lost muscle, she lost 28 pounds all together. You state she lost 28 pounds, and then continue onto your point that muscle loss isn't good. OP lost no weight as she claims in her post. In order to have her TDEE lower by your own standards, significant muscle loss is required which didn't appear to happen because there was no weight loss. I think a reasonable explanation for this is due to water weight -- not that her body was trying to hold on to excess fat as she was advocating.

My original point was she shouldn't make a general conclusion on her lack of weight loss within the two week period because she just happened to eat more later on and she measured she lost weight. This subject is thrown around A LOT on these forums and I really think advice like this can be counter-productive to people really trying to lose weight.

psuLemon

Pgalasti, i actually wasnt responding to the op, in fact that is why i quoted you and didnt reference the op at all. I would adsume that by responding to your request that the op utilize some of the knowledge and relate it to their situation.

I guess i should have made that a bit more clear but unfortunately it wasnt. Also for your edification, if i were to increase my exercise or my tdee, i also increase my caloric intake to prevent muscle mass in which it has worked to date. Another think i do is remeasure myself every 90 days to monitor progress as well as re assess my caloric needs.

I hope you didnt take my post as offensive, as it was not intended to be that way.

Cheers


Lemon

HerpDerp745

No offense taken. I just like good'ol debate on the intraweb.

pinkita

I don't understand why people get so defensive about this subject. I think the bottom line is if eating back your exercise calories works for you, go for it and eat them! And if not, then don't eat them. I always eat mine because I was stuck for a while due to NOT doing so, and I know many people that were in the same situation until they finally started eating them back.

There's a lot of trial and error on the weight loss journey. We all just need to figure out what works best for us, and without the tiresome attitude people often give each other on this site.

Good luck to all on this journey!

LuciaLongIsland

I have eaten between 600 and 900 calories for 6 weeks..down went the weight, I gave up drinking, no fast food, no dinners out. I then followed directions, ate 1200 to 1400 calories and exercised I gained 4 pounds. It is NOT muscle, have only been going to the gym for 2 weeks. Is it my age, diet, SO discouraged and depressed.

psuLemon

I have eaten between 600 and 900 calories for 6 weeks..down went the weight, I gave up drinking, no fast food, no dinners out. I then followed directions, ate 1200 to 1400 calories and exercised I gained 4 pounds. It is NOT muscle, have only been going to the gym for 2 weeks. Is it my age, diet, SO discouraged and depressed.

Don't be discouraged. There are two reason why you gained weight. First, you deprived your body of proper nutrition for a while. So when your body got the nutrition it needed, it held onto the food. Don't worry though as it will correct itself. This stuff takes about a month. Second, if you just started going to the gym, where you previously haven't, your muscles are holding onto water (this is part of repairing themselves) and in fact, if you are burning a lot of calories, there is still a good chance you aren't eating enough.