Eating Below Your BMR..

suziecue66

So the people in that study that OP posted this thread about, ate 800 calories for 12 weeks, we're overweight, those that did resistance training lost 32 pounds of fat and retained lean mass - the cardio folks lost 37 pounds but about 10 of that was lean mass.

Helloitsdan

So the people in that study that OP posted this thread about, ate 800 calories for 12 weeks, we're overweight, those that did resistance training lost 32 pounds of fat and retained lean mass - the cardio folks lost 37 pounds but about 10 of that was lean mass.

Correct.

I believe certain types of cardio have less LBM issues like HIIT but I believe these folks were steady state.

Mrsbrandnewmeslimandtrim

:drinker:

hazelovesfood

[And i know you are an advocate of the 1200 calorie diet and many of us dont.

This is all that made sense to me of your post and you all are so wrong. I am not an advocate of a 1200 calorie diet. I am an advocate of people choosing their own intake level based on accurate info. The info given here is nearly always that 1200 is dangerous. That's b.s. That's all I'm saying. Eat what you want. But be aware that 1200 is perfectly healthy in the eyes of those with authority and education in the field. Eat 2500, 3500, 4000, I don't care. But don't tell people 1200 is dangerous without something to back it up besides years of forum myth.

Whay you need to get is a hrm and ive got one, even sitting on my backside doing nothing i burn about 70 - 80 cals per day. Now some days im not that active, while .others I might walk for 4 ours say at a slow pace, but im still exercising doing that, if your moving around your burning cals, and there is no doubt about that. For me I think its more about what we eat eating healthy most of the time is the way to go, but we all like treats.The way you needto think of it, is like this, if you tde 1500 and your burn that just being alive then, you have burned the whole lot you ate in that day, so your eating enought to survive, keeping bodily functions alive. I think most government statistics are crap as they have no idea how much anyone person burns per day, they came up with a average and the problem there is no one is average. I wouldnt say Im average weight so you couldnt put me in that group of statisics.

I never said it was dangerous, you are assuming that. 1200 calories is fine for a person that isnt active. Also, many of us dont look at just weight loss but rather encourage fat loss and muscle retention instead of just weight loss. That is why i dont care for WW as they make money by people losing weight, and much of that can be muscle. Does it worm, yes, in fact my friends dad lost 65 lbs doing it.

Also, 1200 calories is for women, 1500 is for men.

psuLemon

Maybe we should try to get back on track and discuss eating below your bmr and discussing facts. Does anyone have any facts or studies that say eating below is detrimental to health or fitness?

LoraF83

bump to read later

nxd10

I actually tried imputing my BMR (actually my activity level, which is used as a multiplier to adjust the baseline BMR model) in the NIH kidney center weight loss model using my weight loss over the last four months. It was interesting and helped me fine tune this model.

Rory_123

Does anyone have any facts or studies that say eating below is detrimental to health or fitness?

THIS

suziecue66

Maybe we should try to get back on track and discuss eating below your bmr and discussing facts. Does anyone have any facts or studies that say eating below is detrimental to health or fitness?

No I don't. Perhaps eating below your bmr for a short length of time and doing resistance training is okay (as per the study posted) but should be at least in overweight category so that you have lots of excess fat for energy. Avoid too much steady state cardio as you lose lean mass and it decreases your BMR. HIIT may be okay in regards to lean mass as per Heolloitdan. Use supplementation to make up for any nutritional short-falls.
Then if not at goal weight after say 12 weeks - do you continue or change something up? If at goal need a major plan for successful maintenance.

CoderGal

Maybe we should try to get back on track and discuss eating below your bmr and discussing facts. Does anyone have any facts or studies that say eating below is detrimental to health or fitness?

Where are the facts and studies that say eating above it is worse? None? No wonder, why would anyone conduct those studies? There's all kinds of studies that show less food shows more health issues. Use you brain bits. Less vitamins and nutrients and energy....If you're exercising and not giving your body fuel to repair your muscles what do you think is going to happen? If you're a sedentary little blob that's hardly eating a thing, you'd consider that good to health and fitness? Why do this when you can get more nutrition and fuel?

My friend did the VLCD supervised by a medical doctor and it was all kinds of unhealthy according to the doctor and him. He suffered allot. We had a chat about it. For him it was the lesser of 2 evils but he admits once he got to 'goal' it was hard to stay there since when he started eating again he gained so he had to work at working those extra pounds off. My other friend refused to go on a restrictive diet and started running triathlons. They were both about the same start weight (obese). Guess which one kept the weight off and doesn't suffer from health problems anymore and had the least side affects and a more pleasant attitude?
My sister lost her hair on a VLCD.
My sister has tried VLCD like 7 times and always gain that and then some back and whenever she tries it she suffers from every kind of health problem known to man lol.
losing hair and teeth is a common complaint on the herbal magic diet and their intake is usually about 900+ cals a day. http://www.cbc.ca/marketplace/2010/magic_in_a_bottle/main.html
I started losing my hair when I was eating low cal.
My nails started cracking off.
Anorexics tend to eat below BMR and tend to get ill due to eating so little...some of them before the point they get to skinny.
There are so so so many posts like this one around every type of weight loss forum for a reason: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/572503-why-you-should-eat-more-a-lion-s-tale
Every single person I know who did the low cal thing has had to do it x times where x>1

I started eating more and poof, win all around. I could care less who conducts studies about it.

mmapags

Maybe we should try to get back on track and discuss eating below your bmr and discussing facts. Does anyone have any facts or studies that say eating below is detrimental to health or fitness?

Where are the facts and studies that say eating above it is worse? None? No wonder, why would anyone conduct those studies? There's all kinds of studies that show less food shows more health issues. Use you brain bits. Less vitamins and nutrients and energy....If you're exercising and not giving your body fuel to repair your muscles what do you think is going to happen? If you're a sedentary little blob that's hardly eating a thing, you'd consider that good to health and fitness? Why do this when you can get more nutrition and fuel?

My friend did the VLCD supervised by a medical doctor and it was all kinds of unhealthy according to the doctor and him. He suffered allot. We had a chat about it. For him it was the lesser of 2 evils but he admits once he got to 'goal' it was hard to stay there since when he started eating again he gained so he had to work at working those extra pounds off. My other friend refused to go on a restrictive diet and started running triathlons. They were both about the same start weight (obese). Guess which one kept the weight off and doesn't suffer from health problems anymore and had the least side affects and a more pleasant attitude?
My sister lost her hair on a VLCD.
My sister has tried VLCD like 7 times and always gain that and then some back and whenever she tries it she suffers from every kind of health problem known to man lol.
losing hair and teeth is a common complaint on the herbal magic diet and their intake is usually about 900+ cals a day. http://www.cbc.ca/marketplace/2010/magic_in_a_bottle/main.html
I started losing my hair when I was eating low cal.
My nails started cracking off.
Anorexics tend to eat below BMR and tend to get ill due to eating so little...some of them before the point they get to skinny.
There are so so so many posts like this one around every type of weight loss forum for a reason: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/572503-why-you-should-eat-more-a-lion-s-tale
Every single person I know who did the low cal thing has had to do it x times where x>1

I started eating more and poof, win all around. I could care less who conducts studies about it.

Clap, clap, clap, clap (the sound of applause)! Great post Coder!!

sanaa4560

Hi guys i was reading your posts and thought of sharing my own experience ... well guys m not s nutrition specialist or fitness instructor m an ordinary girl.. well i was so disappointed coz of my healrh i was not really over weight but it was like 10 lbs only.I started a v low calorie diet i can say 500 cal a day and also used to exercise twice a day.. i losted those 10 lbs by starving maslf n workingout..but when i started to eat 1000 cal a day i gained my weight back nd also cz of starving maslf i m suffering from muscles weakness and fatigue and low blood pressure.now again i want to loose 10 lbs but my metabolism is in starvation mode.no matter wT i do m also doing turbofire nd watching my calories on high cal days i eat about 1057 cal and on low cal days i eat abbout 961 cal but didnt dropped a single pound yet ...from past 15 days help plz

vintagesquirrel

My BMR is: 1,778 calories/day but I eat right around 1200 per day. Its been working pretty well for me.

CoderGal

Hi guys i was reading your posts and thought of sharing my own experience ... well guys m not s nutrition specialist or fitness instructor m an ordinary girl.. well i was so disappointed coz of my healrh i was not really over weight but it was like 10 lbs only.I started a v low calorie diet i can say 500 cal a day and also used to exercise twice a day.. i losted those 10 lbs by starving maslf n workingout..but when i started to eat 1000 cal a day i gained my weight back nd also cz of starving maslf i m suffering from muscles weakness and fatigue and low blood pressure.now again i want to loose 10 lbs but my metabolism is in starvation mode.no matter wT i do m also doing turbofire nd watching my calories on high cal days i eat about 1057 cal and on low cal days i eat abbout 961 cal but didnt dropped a single pound yet ...from past 15 days help plz

Eat at TDEE for a few weeks
Temporarily gain water weight and don't get stressed out about it, it should go away in a few weeks, this is how it works.
do a 10% cut or so

If you want a step by step guide:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/654536-in-place-of-a-road-map-2-0-revised-7-2-12

wild_wild_life

There are no studies showing that eating below BMR is detrimental because no one in the wider nutrition world would consider this as a hypothesis to be studied. People eat below BMR all the time when they are dieting and in so many weight loss studies out there and there is no evidence that BMR is a magic number that delineates the lower limit of safe consumption.

"Eating below BMR" is not equivalent to a VLCD.

I think the advice of not eating below BMR is an overly simplistic way to recommend a conservative calorie deficit. I'm all for a conservative deficit but would prefer to see that recommendation stated differently becaue newcomers get confused by the importance of BMR. In reality, TDEE is what a deficit should be based on, not BMR, and the appropriate deficit from TDEE is going to vary by individual.

juliezum

I have enjoyed reading all of the posts on this subject with my coffee this morning. I am obese and not at all informed on the acronym's used. So as I read I googled TDEE, BRM, VLCD....etc. Through this whole conversation, I must say I've learned a bunch, and honestly I'm also a bit confused. But I appreciate so very much this information. I clearly have so much to learn. Thanks to all.

CoderGal

I have enjoyed reading all of the posts on this subject with my coffee this morning. I am obese and not at all informed on the acronym's used. So as I read I googled TDEE, BRM, VLCD....etc. Through this whole conversation, I must say I've learned a bunch, and honestly I'm also a bit confused. But I appreciate so very much this information. I clearly have so much to learn. Thanks to all.

TDEE:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harris-Benedict_equation <-not necessarily based on the harris benedict equation
BMR:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basal_metabolic_rate

rachelilb

bump

Smuterella

Hmmm, I'm starting to think I might have a much lower BMR than the sites give me. how would I go about actually getting this tested?

You could google "RMR testing" for your city. But even though that gives you a better estimate of your RMR/BMR you still don't know your TDEE, which is what matters to weight loss.

The easy way to find out your TDEE (though no one ever seems to consider it so perhaps it's not so easy) is to simply track everything you eat and your weight for months. If you lose weight at around a pound a week on average (look at many weeks at a time, not one) and eat say 1500/day, you burn around 2000/day.

Oh, I've done that. I've eaten at 1500 for 6 weeks, 1800 for 6 weeks, 2000 for 6 weeks, and now 1650 for about the same time. I gain at 2000 but maintain at all others. Sigh.

Lisa i get where you are coming from.. and as you know i am ahuge fan of yours. And at this point, i would almost believe its a culture thing. And by culture i mean alcohol. You.and several other of my uk female friends all have the same issue. All healthy weights, all eat 95% good but all drink several nights a week. Maybe its how they do their beers, maybe its how they prepare foods or whatever it may be. I suspect though, if you cut this out for two months you might get a different result. But i understand its largely a part of the the culture and none of my uk pals will try this expirement.

Hmmm, I'll give it serious thought. I see lots of folk on here though who lose weight and manage to drink often - though to be fair they often have a lot more to lose in the first place. :-) Maybe I'll try this once I get my birthday out of the way. haha!

Helloitsdan

Hi guys i was reading your posts and thought of sharing my own experience ... well guys m not s nutrition specialist or fitness instructor m an ordinary girl.. well i was so disappointed coz of my healrh i was not really over weight but it was like 10 lbs only.I started a v low calorie diet i can say 500 cal a day and also used to exercise twice a day.. i losted those 10 lbs by starving maslf n workingout..but when i started to eat 1000 cal a day i gained my weight back nd also cz of starving maslf i m suffering from muscles weakness and fatigue and low blood pressure.now again i want to loose 10 lbs but my metabolism is in starvation mode.no matter wT i do m also doing turbofire nd watching my calories on high cal days i eat about 1057 cal and on low cal days i eat abbout 961 cal but didnt dropped a single pound yet ...from past 15 days help plz

You look like Zoey?

Youll gain some water weight eating at TDEE BTW.
Its going to happen.
Dont worry because it always comes off.

Mind giving us some stats?

Age
Height
Weight
Body fat% if you know it?
Workouts?