Caloric Intake Results

psuLemon

Sorry this has taken so long, I kept extending due to life events and trying to increase the particapting class. For those who didn't follow my thread below is the link. I was looking to see if there was a correlation between body fat and the amount of calories consumed by board memebers. I would like to thank all those who participated in this experiencement.

Participants - 82 (16 Males, 66 Females)
Method of Measure - Body Fat calipers/skin fold test or US navy method (tried to minimize this one as it can be skewed )

Measures

BF % and calories (by gender; and overall)
LBM and calories (by gender)



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

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BF % and Calories by Gender ----


The average male in my study was 210 lbs @ 18.9% body fat and consumed 2400 calories.
The average woman in the study was 151 @ 26.4% body fat and consumed 1600 calories


No surprise here, men on average have lower body fat and consume more calories right. The biggest thing I can take away from this is men truely do need to take more fuel for their body which backs up what the National Institute for Health suggest.

--- Lean Body Mass and Calories (by gender; and overall) ----


Now in my study, the average woman had 110 lbs of lean body mass (All weight other than fat; includes, muscle organs, etc.. ) and consumed 1670 calories while the average man had 160 lbs of LBM and consumed 2417 calories. The cool thing about this is regardless of gender the average person consumed 15.2 calories per pound of lean body mass. Whats really cool, is you can use this number to calculate caloric needs in terms of weight loss (about 1 lb per week) for both men and women. Now I understand its more complicated than that, and there are other tools and more indepth mathematical equations (like Katch McArdle) but will provide similar results.

For example me

weight 195
BF % 11
LBM - 173.6

= 173.6 * 15.2 = 2637


Using Katch McArdle I would come up with 2709. To me that is fairly impressive.


Now back to body fat and calories. Lets break it down to the categories (reference chart http://www.bmi-calculator.net/body-fat-calculator/body-fat-chart.php)

Athlete
Fitness
Acceptable
Obese

With the small sample of men surveyed, I was astonished to find out that whether you were athletic or acceptable your average daily calories where about 2500 (+/- 100 calories). Only when obese was in the equation did calories significantly drop to 1700 on average.

With women it's a whole other story. On average, as you progressed down each category, there was a reduction in calories by about 200. Athletic women ate about 1900 calories, 1700 for Fitness and 1500 of Acceptable.


So why is this? Is it pyschological, is it lack of knowledge (listening to old wise tales and magizines, or are the goals the much different: men wanting more reduction in inches and less muscle loss while women care more for the scale? Unfortunately, I can't answer most of these questions as it would require a whole new study.


What I can state though (and maybe its' more so opinion) is there is a correlation between lower body fats and increased calories consumed or at least by law of averages. But the bigger question is, why are those with higher body fats not eating more calories? And if you want to lower your body fat and have definition how can you get there without feeding your body because with each lb of lean body mass you are losing, you are reducing caloric needs by ~ 15.2 calories.


So this comes back to the major question, should I eat exercise calories? Well I ask you, do you want to have lower body fat; this will allow for defintion and improved metabolism as well as many other benefits? If you answer yes, then absolutely should eat back your exercise calories but not before understanding your caloric needs. YOu can't blindly eat them all if you don't know what your body needs, you don't have a HRM and you don't understand what is feasible for your metabolism. This is why understanding stuff like lbm is sooooo important because its your key to understanding your metabolism. The higher your LBM, the higher your caloric needs. So if you under estimate your LBM and on top of that, under eat your calories (because you think it will make you lose faster) you will only increase the chances of losing muscle mass.


This is intended to start a conversation and not to point flaws in people. Please please please feel free to ask questions and discuss further.

Lemon

dawnemjh

Thanks!!!!!

So by my bodyfat calculations,

week 1 wgt 164.6, LBM 125, started eating more calories, avg 2100 gross (bodyfat % 25.7
week 2 wgt 166.6 LBM 126 avg intake 2074 (bf% 24)
week 3 wgt 168.8 LBM 128.3 avg intake 2194 (BF% 24)

I just hope my husbands been accurate with the calipers!! I am a little nervous about how accurate he is getting!! I hate seeing the scale go up, but apparently LBM going up is a good thing!!!

clarajean123

I understand that on the average, men have less body fat and more LBM than women. I was told this was due to the primary male hormone of testosterone, and that the primary female hormones have the opposite affect on body fat and lean body mass. This could simply be an act of nature......

psuLemon

I understand that on the average, men have less body fat and more LBM than women. I was told this was due to the primary male hormone of testosterone, and that the primary female hormones have the opposite affect on body fat and lean body mass. This could simply be an act of nature......

yep, that has been what I have been told. The thing that amazed me was the similar requirement of calories per pound of LBM.

TXHunny84

BUMP

Rae6503

I like this finding:

With women it's a whole other story. On average, as you progressed down each category, there was a reduction in calories by about 200. Athletic women ate about 1900 calories, 1700 for Fitness and 1500 of Acceptable.

LorinaLynn

I like this finding:

With women it's a whole other story. On average, as you progressed down each category, there was a reduction in calories by about 200. Athletic women ate about 1900 calories, 1700 for Fitness and 1500 of Acceptable.

Me too. Sometimes it seems like people think those of us who eat a lot are some kind of freaks of nature with insane metabolisms. We're not. We just fuel properly, and/or don't mind busting our butts if it means we can eat more.

psuLemon

I like this finding:

With women it's a whole other story. On average, as you progressed down each category, there was a reduction in calories by about 200. Athletic women ate about 1900 calories, 1700 for Fitness and 1500 of Acceptable.

It's actually the reason I am thinking it's a lot more psychological for women than it is men. Or maybe it's more of the "i need a crash diet" so I can lose quickly.

psuLemon

I like this finding:

With women it's a whole other story. On average, as you progressed down each category, there was a reduction in calories by about 200. Athletic women ate about 1900 calories, 1700 for Fitness and 1500 of Acceptable.

Me too. Sometimes it seems like people think those of us who eat a lot are some kind of freaks of nature with insane metabolisms. We're not. We just fuel properly, and/or don't mind busting our butts if it means we can eat more.

Unfortunately, most people don't understand what is required to increase a metabolism and tend to think genetics has more to do with. What most people don't realize, it's based on lean muscle mass and if you want to be able to eat like a champ, then you have to train like one.

Rae6503

bump

LorinaLynn

Gotta bump this back up, since too few people seem to believe that you can - and should - eat more to get great results.

_GlaDOS_

I like this finding:

With women it's a whole other story. On average, as you progressed down each category, there was a reduction in calories by about 200. Athletic women ate about 1900 calories, 1700 for Fitness and 1500 of Acceptable.

Me too. Sometimes it seems like people think those of us who eat a lot are some kind of freaks of nature with insane metabolisms. We're not. We just fuel properly, and/or don't mind busting our butts if it means we can eat more.

Cheers to that! :drinker:

Also, must put a plug in for the most awesome group on MFP:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/groups/home/17-women-eating-2-000-calories-per-day

taso42

Thank you for taking the time to do this and following up with the results. I hope this can nudge some people in the right direction and get them moving toward their goals instead of further and further away.

armaretta

<<<<<<<<< WILL RUN FOR CAKE

I like this finding:

With women it's a whole other story. On average, as you progressed down each category, there was a reduction in calories by about 200. Athletic women ate about 1900 calories, 1700 for Fitness and 1500 of Acceptable.

Me too. Sometimes it seems like people think those of us who eat a lot are some kind of freaks of nature with insane metabolisms. We're not. We just fuel properly, and/or don't mind busting our butts if it means we can eat more.

agthorn

Also, must put a plug in for the most awesome group on MFP:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/groups/home/17-women-eating-2-000-calories-per-day

Double-plus bump this! And psulemon, THANK YOU for crunching this data. I was one of the responders in the information-collecting thread, and I was just wondering what had happened to it all when I saw LorinaLynn had posted the link to the results in another forum thread.

AshDHart

Big numbers junkie so I love seeing this. It's backing up what I'm finding out with my own tracking. Eat too little and weight loss slows to a crawl or stops. Eat 1700-2100 and weight loss revs right back up!

psych101

This is the best thread I have read on MFP - probably ever

Thanks Lemon

And yes, ladies come visit us in the 2000+ group - don't be afraid!

foremant86

I'm upping my calories to 1700 because my weight loss has stalled.
After exercise calories i'll be eating closer to 2,000

Also after looking up more calculators and finding my TDEE is between 2500-2900, eating 2,000 sounds like a healthier deficit.

If i gain weight, and i'm sure I won't, i'll be coming back to haunt all of you lol

SarahBrown1979

BUMP!!

mamitosami

[/quote]
"Me too. Sometimes it seems like people think those of us who eat a lot are some kind of freaks of nature with insane metabolisms. We're not. We just fuel properly, and/or don't mind busting our butts if it means we can eat more.
[/quote]

Unfortunately, most people don't understand what is required to increase a metabolism and tend to think genetics has more to do with. What most people don't realize, it's based on lean muscle mass and if you want to be able to eat like a champ, then you have to train like one."
[/quote]

I LOVE THIS

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> If you want to eat like a champ you have to train like one!!!!

(Sorry, I apparently still don't know how to do the quotes!! Gah!)

LorinaLynn

And if you want to perform like a champ, you gotta eat like one, too! :happy:

mamitosami

And if you want to perform like a champ, you gotta eat like one, too! :happy:

YES!!! This!!!

psuLemon

This is why i always say food is fuel. Bodies need a lot of fuel to burn a lot. Sometimes math defies logic which is hard for people. Its also why i push people to increase lean muscle mass because muscle destroys fat.

rachmaree

bump

fimm

That is really interesting, thank you for that.

DizzyLinds

Where can i get accurate LBM reading? (i'm in the UK)

psuLemon

Where can i get accurate LBM reading? (i'm in the UK)

I would suggest going to a gym or doctors office and asking if they can do a skin fold test to capture body fat. I would recommend not getting a bioimpedance machine reading (it's a hand held device or scale). Once you get your body fat % then you can calculate LBM, formula below


LBM = Weight - (Weight * Body fat %) <

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This is in LBS not KG.

hottottie11

It saddens me that a post like this get 22 replies...but a post on HCG diets or "eating back exercise cals" gets like a bazillion

psuLemon

It saddens me that a post like this get 22 replies...but a post on HCG diets or "eating back exercise cals" gets like a bazillion

true dat... Maybe i should change the title to "HCG, is it good for me?" .


Unfortunately, when it comes to legitimate data or scientific data, people tend to stray as they don't understand or want to hear it. Oh well, I tried and that is how I look at it.

hottottie11

Apparently Marketing schemes > science based nutritional facts around these parts

psuLemon

Apparently Marketing schemes > science based nutritional facts are these parts

Well in the end, we will be the ones rocking six packs and looking hot (well you already are, I am almost there, need to lose about another 4% body fat.)