OK, you guys & gals tell me why this is bad
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"Net" is not a recognized term in the medical community. When they set the suggested minimum calories, it does not have any conditions about adding more; that is an MFP thing. I understand why, but you are not getting less than the doctor recommended minimum calories. I don't believe you will start catabolizing and eating your heart without first getting seriously fatigued and hungry. The body might switch over to another food store if the fat has largely disappeared, but I think it will complain first. The "sustainable" argument also rubs me the wrong way. No deficit driven diet is sustainable. At some point you need to adjust to maintain. You just have a bigger adjustment to deal with.
I do agree that having a big adjustment to make will decrease the odds of successful transition, but I think the constant loss makes it more likely that you will complete the losing phase. So overall odds of success? Who knows, but if what you are doing now is working then changing things will do what to the odds? I think you stay the course for the best chance.
EDIT - in the spirit of full disclosure, I lost most of my 50 between early Feb and now eating about 1200, and running a lot without eating calories back. I am now eating more to try to come in for a smoother transition to maintenance.
Thanks for your response, that makes sense and was more in line with what I was thinking, it just does not seem to be a popular belief around here.0 -
It sounds as if you're doing great. Sure it would be better if you ate more healthy food, but few people eat perfectly, and it's a habit you can change.0
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This is how I see it- eventually you will start losing muscle (if you haven't already). Now you might say "I don't care about being muscular!!!" But remember, your heart is a muscle too and you will lose from there too. That's why so many anorexics drop dead from heart issues.
He's 234 pounds, not 80. He's a loooooooooooooooong way from having to worry about that, and probably never will.0 -
31.4 calories per pound to be exact.you sound very similar to Biggest Loser contestants - eat enough food for adequate nutrition and have a high level of exercise to create a big deficit. Works for them with professional supervision and participation.
Don't worry about those suckled and weaned on MFP group think, reputable organisations have no concept of "net calories" or "eat your BMR" and indeed "1200 calories" isn't a thing in many places.
The main concern to watch is that you reduce the calorie deficit as you get closer to goal weight as the ability of your fat stores to provide the missing calories will at some point become a constraint. 30 calories per day per lb of fat from memory.
When you still have a lot of fat it doesn't matter if you under eat. It only matters when a person is fairly lean.0 -
Okay Nashville---66 pounds in 5 and half months is great! I think you may be confusing folks who would attack someone within a healthy range for BMI measurements and someone who is 234 pounds and how tall. What your doing is working so continue--I seriously doubt you're losing a lot of lean muscle mass but you may have lost a little. Height would help in terms of your measurements. Im 5 feet 11 and my BMI is 178 pounds. My current weight is 201. I have lost 15 pounds since February and have lost zero none nada zilch lean muscle mass. Keep on keeping on, and, at some point, depending on your height, you may get closer to 110% BMI and then you'll need to make some changes, and be prepared for a long slow grind. The payoff will be worth it.
I am 6'0 tall and have a large frame anyways. I believe to be "normal" weight, Im suggested to be 186. That aint gonna happen!! LOL
I am technically obese now at 234, which was hard for me to believe, cause I do not think I look "obese". I need to get to 219 to just be "overweight". I'll see what it looks and feels like when I get there. I know several years back when I graduated the Police Academy at 215 I was in the best shape Ihad ever been in and felt wonderful. I think I would melt away at 186....lol
If you were 215 and had a good bit of lean mass, then you probably have good muscle memory when it comes to strength training and retaining lean mass, BUT it won't be the case with that high a deficit. Your body isn't going to keep going like this for much longer. Fatigue and poor performance will happen sooner rather than later, particularly now that you are down to a reasonable weight. Yes, you'll keep losing, but you'll lose muscle and bone density.0 -
You'll need to transition to eating more as you get closer to your goal and I'd really focus now on getting the most nutrition bang for your buck out of what you eat. Your body will take what it wants first so as long as you provide the nutrients you're good to go. You've no doubt lost lean body mass along with fat so I'd start doing some muscle building exercises rather than so much cardio.
As for calculating exercise calories burned based on a pedometer and an exercise bike, I'd bet you aren't burning nearly what you think you are. Machines are notorious liars and usually grossly over estimate calorie burn and if you've been walking that much I bet you've got your heart rate down to where it's being really efficient with your calorie burn. A good investment would be a heart rate monitor and find out what you really are burning.
Weighing and measuring food is the only way to be accurate. Most of us are horrible and estimating portion sizes. I know what I used to think was a serving of pasta actually turned out to be 3!0 -
I was a little worried about seeing my doctor a little while back as I kind of expected a little push back to lose slower. She was ecstatic! The suggested minimums are driven by somewhat average metabolism, the amount of common foods it takes to get reasonable nutrients and a desire to keep from stressing the system too much. Those numbers are out there for general consumption and need to be a little conservative because people will use them without seeing a doctor. We are seeing our doctors and not getting chewed out and asked to change.went to the doctor and had everything checked out last month
I do think the suggestions made here about how to structure a good diet are a very good option. But I think some people get a bit overzealous about it and twist the facts to make it sound like anything else is reckless, dangerous and doomed to failure.0 -
I am not a doctor ( I just play one on tv, j/k) but with my research on nutrition and weight loss I would say keep up the good work of eating enough food but burning off the fat with exercise.
My non professional recommendation is to eat a little more, make sure your eating is varied from better food sources to get all your nutritional needs met and keep exercising!
Less junk food the better, eating junk food displaces better for us foods.
Feed your body, burn off the fat!
Best Wishes on your journey to health!0 -
I am trying to make sense of this. So I weigh 175 with 24% BF for 42 # of BF, 42 * 31.4 = 1318.8. I like round numbers, so I will call that 1300. My sedentary TDEE is around 2000 so if I understand correctly, BF would have no trouble with TDEE as long as I ate 700. This morning I ran 8.5 miles and burned about 1000 calories. So where would it get the calories if I eat less than 1700 today?
31.4 calories per pound to be exact.The main concern to watch is that you reduce the calorie deficit as you get closer to goal weight as the ability of your fat stores to provide the missing calories will at some point become a constraint. 30 calories per day per lb of fat from memory.
When you still have a lot of fat it doesn't matter if you under eat. It only matters when a person is fairly lean.0 -
Didn't read all the replies so sorry if I'm repeating.
First off, congratulations on your loss so far! That must have taken so much hard work. You're awesome.
Anyway, I'm definitely one of those "eat more!" people, but I believe there are exceptions. In your case, starting at 300 pounds, you are quite different than a lot of people on here who just want to lose 15-30 pounds and get in shape. You see, the larger you are, the more fat you have stored (obviously). This means that if you eat a very low calorie diet, your body can get by on your fat stores for quite a while. This is how Biggest Loser contestants do it, and why doctors put obese people on 1200 calories a day (without eating back exercise calories). As you get smaller, however, your body doesn't have as much fat to burn, so if you keep a big deficit it will start eating up your lean mass and your metabolism will eventually slow down. That's pretty much the opposite of what anyone wants, which is why many of us around here advocate for eating more calories and losing weight more slowly. It's more maintainable because your metabolism is going to stay healthy.
Basically, what you're doing isn't AWFUL, but you're going to need to reevaluate eventually. I know this seems counter-intuitive, but you're actually going to want to INCREASE your calories as you lose more weight. I started here with a 500/day deficit to lose my first 15 pounds. Now I'm trying to lose 10 more at only a 250/day deficit. The less fat your body has to burn, the smaller of a deficit you should have. This will keep you healthy and happy!
For more information I found this post really helpful: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1017045-a-very-interesting-and-informational-read-on-deficits
Good luck!!0 -
Did you know that your brain needs about 1/5 of your calories to function? There is a reason that if you don't eat enough you start to feel dull minded and have a hard time concentrating. Feed your brain, people!0
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Hmmm0
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Here's my uneducated opinion.
It's working for you, so go for it. However, having said that, how sustainable is this going to be for you in the big picture? Only you can answer that. My other thought is that there will likely, for reasons others will post, come a time when your weight loss will plateau. My only suggestion at that time would be re-think your eating plan and take a look at new options. Believe it or not, sometimes it takes eating more to jump start your weight loss again. I have no idea how this works biologically, I just know it works because I did it.
I would never tell someone they're losing weight "wrong". My only caution is to do it in a way that you can picture living for the rest of your life (with slight adjustments once you've reached your goal weight). Otherwise you're going to be back on here in two years at 300 pounds lamenting that you allowed yourself to go right back to the beginning again. And yes, I've seen it happen on here. I am just such a person. I lost the weight I wanted to on weight watchers almost ten years ago. I learned nothing about nutrition and the lifestyle just wasn't sustainable for me. And I gained it all back plus some more. This time I vowed it would be different. I spent a lot of time reading on MFP and other sources about nutrition, and about lifestyle changes. I was not/am not on a diet. I made a lifestyle change. I've maintained my weight loss now for three months, which I realize doesn't sound like much but it's huge for me.
Congrats on your weight loss thus far. You should be proud of yourself.
You learned nothing about nutrition at WW??? We talk about that every week at my meetings. Guess you had a bad leader??0 -
What it means is 1300 is your maximum calorie deficit without losing lean tissue. This is also assuming you're eating enough protein and lifting. Even then, it's not guaranteed you won't lose muscle, it's just that if you exceed at 1300 calorie deficit you will lose muscle.
I am trying to make sense of this. So I weigh 175 with 24% BF for 42 # of BF, 42 * 31.4 = 1318.8. I like round numbers, so I will call that 1300. My sedentary TDEE is around 2000 so if I understand correctly, BF would have no trouble with TDEE as long as I ate 700. This morning I ran 8.5 miles and burned about 1000 calories. So where would it get the calories if I eat less than 1700 today?
31.4 calories per pound to be exact.The main concern to watch is that you reduce the calorie deficit as you get closer to goal weight as the ability of your fat stores to provide the missing calories will at some point become a constraint. 30 calories per day per lb of fat from memory.
When you still have a lot of fat it doesn't matter if you under eat. It only matters when a person is fairly lean.0 -
All very interesting information. I never ear less than 1300 calories a day, if I am hungry I eat but I don't pull out the potato chip bag, I have something healthy....0
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I believe the difference is because you are bigger (no offence intended) your body can tolerate a bigger deficit CURRENTLY ...when you get close to goal if only eating 1300 calories it doesnt really allow you anywhere to move. I can only speak for myself...I started at 380 pounds...and I am now 198 pounds....I have eaten 1800 calories for most of my journey. I recently tried 1200-1400 calories for a period of time...the scales barely moved....I went back to 1800 calories this week and have lost in excess of 2 pounds and I still have a couple days left to the week.0
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Just for reference I am 6'1" and ~184 lbs, and I'm not by any measure "melting away" considering I can squat over 1.5 times my body weight. I need to eat about 2800 a day to maintain. I was 155 lbs at 22 years old and I was 'thin' then but still in good physical shape at that time too.0
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I could have some of this wrong, but here's what I understand. Low calorie consumption over a long period of time will cause your body to consume the vast majority of your fat stores and then start catabolizing your lean tissue. Eventually, I believe, it gets to your organs, too. What seems to be a common knee-jerk response around here, keeping in mind i haven't been 'around here' very long at all, is that anyone who consumes less than 1200 calories every day will go into starvation mode. I don't think it works that way. The only 'starvation mode' studies I've seen were long term (2 years, I believe) and had very few people, because, turns out, starving people long term isn't really ethical.
But that doesn't mean I think you're eating enough. Are you familiar at all with the CRON diet? It's a way of eating where you eat very low calories but get optimal nutrition ('optimal nutrition' here means all of your vitamins and minerals; it's very healthy food, because there's no caloric room for anything that isn't nutritious, basically). And it has nothing to do with weight loss, it's about living longer than us everyday humans. It's all very much based in science. The idea being you limit you calorie intake to drop your weight to a certain level because, guess what? That drastically slows your metabolism down. Evidently this works great in rats and mice. A few years ago, there was lots of excitement about a study being done in rhesus monkeys, because they would be more likely to mimic humans. Unfortunately for the people eating 800-1200 calories every day for years on end, the near-starving monkey didn't live any longer than the normal monkey (although I thought his skin looked much less wrinkly, if that matters). Turns out the lab mice and rats used in the earlier, positive studies aren't like normal mice and rats. We've effed with them a bunch. So, those studies were basically comparing calorie restricted genetic freaks to overweight genetic freaks. And the calorie restricted genetic freaks did better. In the monkey study, the 'normal' monkey was fed an adequate diet, while in the rat studies the rats were given unlimited access to food and genetically predisposed to eat more than they needed. Because they're the sort of rats that get used in obesity studies, and they need to eat lots to get obese.
So all that to say, you may actually be doing yourself more harm than good. Not because your body is eating all of your muscles plus a few vital organs, but because you may be lowering your metabolism. And a lower metabolism is bad, especially for weight loss, and it won't help you live 150 years, either.
so if its short term its fine to eat low calories to lose weight?0 -
I see people getting ripped on here for eating too little and lots of people say when you do that you will actually gain weight.
Well, I have a question for you. Im not being a smartass either, I seriously want to know.
MFP tells me to eat 1550 calories per day, down from 1900 when I started. I started Jan14 2013 and weighed 300 pounds. I currently weigh 234, so as you can see I have lost 64 pounds.
I would say on average I eat about 1300 calories per day. There may be some days when I eat 2200 and others where I eat 800. I eat when I am hungry but I always avoid my past destruction foods (chips, pizza, fried chicken, french fries). I do not eat "healthy" but I stopped eating the really bad foods. I do take a daily multivitamin along with calcium and Vitamin D.
I walk at a minimum of 5 miles each day and sometimes depending on my time, I walk as many as 10. In the past month I have added an exercise bike routine and have been going about 14 miles each day on that. So all together I burn on average each day via exercise around 1000 calories. Some days less and some days more.
So basically I am near a net zero after exercise at the end of each day. Some days I am negative quite a bit, some days I am not, but on average Im near zero. I have been doing this now for 5+ months, lost 66 pounds, I feel great, my clothes fit, I do not get tired nearly as easily and everything seems to be going great. However, from all the posts I read on here I am doing it totally wrong and unhealthy.
So I want to know in your opinion, how dangerous (if at all) is it the way I am doing it? I do not want to quit doing it the way I am doing it because my results have been fantastic. So I am just curious to those smarter than me, what do you suggest I do?
Thanks!!
dude, theres nothing wrong with what you are doing, you are exercising and tracking your intake and seeing results.
it sounds like overall you have a healthy weekly deficit and thats all that matters.
there are a lot of people who have just arrived on MFP that form a mob that are uneducated about health and fitness and just regurgitate what they hear for each other. they're the "eat more" crew and the "starvation mode"rs and the "never eat less than 1200" posse, the "a calorie is not a calorie" clowns and the "lets cut out food groups cause that helps" dumbasses.
its kind of like chinese whispers in a circle, but the first guy didn't know what he was talking about, so the cycle of misinformed opinion is endless. they also form a bulk of people who never seem to actually try to help people.
so yeh, don't listen to them, you're doing great and you can for the most part eat what you want when you want with your calories.
high 5 brother. 66lb is something to be proud of.
*brofist.0 -
The clinking noise you hear now is me mixing some whey vanilla into a glass of milk... :bigsmile:
What it means is 1300 is your maximum calorie deficit without losing lean tissue. This is also assuming you're eating enough protein and lifting. Even then, it's not guaranteed you won't lose muscle, it's just that if you exceed at 1300 calorie deficit you will lose muscle.
I am trying to make sense of this. So I weigh 175 with 24% BF for 42 # of BF, 42 * 31.4 = 1318.8. I like round numbers, so I will call that 1300. My sedentary TDEE is around 2000 so if I understand correctly, BF would have no trouble with TDEE as long as I ate 700. This morning I ran 8.5 miles and burned about 1000 calories. So where would it get the calories if I eat less than 1700 today?
31.4 calories per pound to be exact.The main concern to watch is that you reduce the calorie deficit as you get closer to goal weight as the ability of your fat stores to provide the missing calories will at some point become a constraint. 30 calories per day per lb of fat from memory.
When you still have a lot of fat it doesn't matter if you under eat. It only matters when a person is fairly lean.
EDIT - It's funny; I don't believe in the starvation myth and won't eat more to lose more (because I don't believe that will work) but I will eat more to keep from losing LBM. This has science I understand behind it. One of the pitfalls of running semi-long distance like I do is that every 2 or 3 days I burn 1000 calories all at once and I need to be able to fuel that with food and fat. When I had plenty of fat, I could still average out the food.0
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