"Nutritious" 1200 calories?

AlongCame_Molly

I think 1200 is far too little for your height. You will lose weight, but also quite a bit of muscle, which isn't going to do you any favors, as muscle burns fat. Try doing more strength training than cardio, lifting weights will help you drop fat better than just cardio.

If you are looking for easy ways to boost your calorie intake, use more nut butters, oils, avocados, full-fat milk and cheeses.

sexymuffintop

The problem is my life style goes this way:
Work from 8:30-4:30 (office) and during that time I have my breakfast and lunch: roughly 500cals combined.
Then dinner between 4:30 and 6:30: roughly 600cals
Cardio for an hour: Burns between 400-800 cals.
Then before sleeping I have smalls snacks (usually fruits): 100-200 cals.
Ending up with 700-800 calories per day!
What can I possibly do to maintain the 1500-1700 cals intake?

Eat more.....

It's not hard, really. Just eat more food at each meal time. Oh and do less cardio. Cardio sucks.

Sarauk2sf

The problem is my life style goes this way:
Work from 8:30-4:30 (office) and during that time I have my breakfast and lunch: roughly 500cals combined.
Then dinner between 4:30 and 6:30: roughly 600cals
Cardio for an hour: Burns between 400-800 cals.
Then before sleeping I have smalls snacks (usually fruits): 100-200 cals.
Ending up with 700-800 calories per day!
What can I possibly do to maintain the 1500-1700 cals intake?

Snack more and eat higher calorie meals. I eat 2,400 calories. My lunch is usually 1,000 calories alone.

Reduce cardio unless training for a specific event.

aalhasan

On a related note, I've heard that you can lose fat weight by just eating the required calorie intake and not exercising but that's not recommended (shape-wise). Why?

mustgetmuscles1

The problem is my life style goes this way:
Work from 8:30-4:30 (office) and during that time I have my breakfast and lunch: roughly 500cals combined.
Then dinner between 4:30 and 6:30: roughly 600cals
Cardio for an hour: Burns between 400-800 cals.
Then before sleeping I have smalls snacks (usually fruits): 100-200 cals.
Ending up with 700-800 calories per day!
What can I possibly do to maintain the 1500-1700 cals intake?

If you really cant eat more than that you need to see a professional about your relationship with food. You need to stop working out.

mustgetmuscles1

On a related note, I've heard that you can lose fat weight by just eating the required calorie intake and not exercising but that's not recommended (shape-wise). Why?

Because it leads to weight loss and not fat loss. Big difference.

jofjltncb6

So lets take this into consideration. Based on the harris benedict formula and his stats, his estimated basal metabolic rate is 2183 (number of calories he would burn if he slept 24 hours). Than you factor in lifestyle and activity. Below is a list of possible TDEE's

Sedentary - 2183 * 1.2 = 2619
Light active - 2183 * 1.375 = 3001
Moderately Active - 2183 * 1.55 = 3383


So as long as the OP doesn't have any metabolic issues or past history of several calorie restrict, it's highly unlikely to gain any new lean body mass during his journey. Eating too little will just increase the chances of catabolizing his lean body mass causing him the need to lose even more weight. My wife is 5'2, 30 years old, 150 and eats 1500 calories a day. Don't you think a man, 2x her size about needs more calories?

I just checked the metabolism calculators (WebMD, etc.), and most of them are giving me a daily calorie expenditure of ~3000 calories for his age, height, weight and proposed activity level (moderate). As long as the protein intake is adequate and he keeps his carbs low, his body will burn mostly fat for fuel. If he takes in 1500 calories a day six days a week and 3000 one day a week, and since a pound of fat is ~3500 calories, he will lose roughly 2.5 lbs a week.

Please see this link for the effects of carb-cutting on muscle mass: http://charm.cs.uiuc.edu/users/jyelon/lowcarb.med/topic2.html

In...

...to watch the attempted reeducation of psulemon...

:laugh:


(...and also to try to understand why people are so eager and willing to find the *least* amount of calories possible while still making appropriate progress towards their goal instead of the *most* amount of calories. Why start at the bottom with the potential for problems and nowhere to tweak when you can start at more, avoid many problems, possibly have more energy, and have "wiggle room" to tweak as needed. Why why why???)

You only joined a couple of days ago....so why not try with the 1200 cals a day and eat back your exercise calories?

Because (almost) no man should net 1200 calories, that's why. Will he lose weight? Asbolutely...but that isn't (or at least shouldn't be) the goal. Far better (IMHO) would be for him to start at the high end of the range and work his way down to an amount that gives him satisfactory progress towards his goal.

aNewYear123

My goal is 180-190 pounds in 15 weeks.

I am sorry, I am still stuck on this when most people advise not to lose more than 2.5 lbs a week, and generally aim for 1.

psuLemon

So lets take this into consideration. Based on the harris benedict formula and his stats, his estimated basal metabolic rate is 2183 (number of calories he would burn if he slept 24 hours). Than you factor in lifestyle and activity. Below is a list of possible TDEE's

Sedentary - 2183 * 1.2 = 2619
Light active - 2183 * 1.375 = 3001
Moderately Active - 2183 * 1.55 = 3383


So as long as the OP doesn't have any metabolic issues or past history of several calorie restrict, it's highly unlikely to gain any new lean body mass during his journey. Eating too little will just increase the chances of catabolizing his lean body mass causing him the need to lose even more weight. My wife is 5'2, 30 years old, 150 and eats 1500 calories a day. Don't you think a man, 2x her size about needs more calories?

I just checked the metabolism calculators (WebMD, etc.), and most of them are giving me a daily calorie expenditure of ~3000 calories for his age, height, weight and proposed activity level (moderate). As long as the protein intake is adequate and he keeps his carbs low, his body will burn mostly fat for fuel. If he takes in 1500 calories a day six days a week and 3000 one day a week, and since a pound of fat is ~3500 calories, he will lose roughly 2.5 lbs a week.

Please see this link for the effects of carb-cutting on muscle mass: http://charm.cs.uiuc.edu/users/jyelon/lowcarb.med/topic2.html

So essentially, after looking at online calculators and realizing his TDEE is around 3000+ calories (which aligns to mine) then how would it be possible to add new lean body mass even at 2400 calories (which is 20% less than TDEE)? A person's body can't become anabolic in order to create new mass if there isn't enough calories.


OP, I would suggest adding several snacks to your diet. Stuff like high calorie protein bars and high calorie protein shakes can be very beneficial. Look at a protein shake like muscle milk (two scoops is 300 calories) and then look for a high calorie protein bar.. I love cliff protein bars (270 calories). Then you can add stuff like nuts, cooking meats in extra virgin olive oil and if all else fails, go to town on a peanut butter jar (my favorite bulking trick).

I would also recommend starting at 2400 caloires (an not worry about exercise calories). It's much easier to aim for a single calorie goal, in my opinion, then chase exercise calories. After 30-60 days, you can estimate your true TDEE. For example, I eat 2500 calories daily (40% carbs, 40% protein and 20% fats) and I lose 1 lb per week (consistently over the past 6 weeks). Knowing it takes a daily calorie deficit of 500 calories to achieve 1 lb per week, then means my TDEE is 3000 calories. With this information I know several things; the amount of calories it takes to lose weight, but more importantly, the calories it takes to gain new fat/muscle (depending on my routine and goal). And most importantly, this is the most simple way of losing weight because it's not overly aggressive.