How long can you sustain "zero" net calories?

agp2003

I've been eating around 1200 calories a day and making sure I burn all of the calories I in take 5 days a week to give me a zero or negative net calorie count. I have to date lost 82 pounds. I have done this over the course of three and a half months. I've experienced muscle gains when I lift and increase my protein intake. I haven't had any negative side effects. In fact I have more energy than I did as a teenager and I'm approaching thirty.

Warchortle

Most people don't get fat eating 40,000 calories a day.. I don't know why people think it's okay to eat like 5 calories when they want lose weight,

SrJoben

I would like to point out that the MFP definition of 'Net Calories' is very specific jargon for talking about the difference between workouts and normal daily activity. Here it means balancing atypical exertion with additional food to maintain a set deficit. It doesn't actually apply if we use words normally.

If you are eating at maintenance level you are at net zero calories. Because you burn as much as you take in. You eat, you sleep, you work, you play, you exercise, you breath, digest, your heart pumps blood. And at the end of the day you have no extra calories to make you fat.

If you had a business and your net profit was zero, that means your costs for the year equaled your income. You made no extra money to put in your bank.

Think of it this way. If you are eating Maintenance -500, and but then at the end of the day you logged for every conceivable thing: your BMR, sitting, standing, moving, sleeping. Then theoretically you would find that MFP would show your calories for the day as -500. Because that's how weight loss works. You don't lose weight unless you're in an energy deficit. Going into debt means taking in less than you lose; It means netting less than 0.

So how long can you sustain net zero calories? All of your adult life.

psuLemon

I've been eating around 1200 calories a day and making sure I burn all of the calories I in take 5 days a week to give me a zero or negative net calorie count. I have to date lost 82 pounds. I have done this over the course of three and a half months. I've experienced muscle gains when I lift and increase my protein intake. I haven't had any negative side effects. In fact I have more energy than I did as a teenager and I'm approaching thirty.

I can guarantee you 100% that you did not gain any new muscle on 1200 calories especially as a man. I can also guarantee you that you lost a lot of muscle but probably gained strength. Most people confuse making their muscles more efficient with actually gaining new lean body mass. And heck, I am a 5'11, 31 yr old, 190 lbs man that eats 2400-2600 calories a day with a progressive weight training program and I haven't gained any new lean body mass. But I have lost fat and maintained my lean body mass according to my body fat calculations.

Ninkyou

God, I don't even want to think about what zero net calories would do to a person! Do they have a slow painful death wish?! Yikes, just the thought gives me the heebie jeebies.