Guide to calorie deficits

Thanks for bumping this. Hadn't seen it and it's very helpful. I've got a question for you about activity level. I consider myself lightly active and that is how my activity level is set. I'm a stay home mom so spend a lot of time running (driving!) errands, picking up the house, and doing all that mom stuff. But I work out really hard 6 days a week. So should I change my level? I'm losing right now and feel just fine with the number of calories I have to eat each day and generally don't eat back all my exercise calories. (Reason being, I don't back out my existence calories from my HRM calories, I taste when I cook and like having a little cushion in case I don't figure food calories correctly). Thanks!

it's really up to you. if you consider the exercise as part of your daily life, then you could (I stress could as opposed to should) set your activity level higher, but the problem with that is that it's less accurate than putting in your exercise calories manually. I.E. if you used your daily exercise as a way to boost your daily activity level, you can't still take those calories (or all of them at least) as extra, and since activity level is pretty generic, you're either going to be overestimating a bit or underestimating a bit. So I'd say leave it where it is, and just record the exercise calories.

Hey Banks-
I'm 14 lbs from my goal and none of my clothes fit. I will comfortably fit into 34 inch pants when I reach my goal. Right now they pull just a little so I'm waiting to buy them until I get a little smaller. I'm wearing ill fitting 38s right now and don't want to waste money on a bunch of 36s or tailoring. I am consistently losing 2 lbs a week. If I continue at this pace, in order to shorten the time I wear baggies, what am I doing to myself and how recoverable is it. I am otherwise a healthy male with a somewhat active lifestyle. I am a construction manager, walking the job most of the day.

14 lbs to go, you probably should be trying for less IMHO. But if you read this thread you probably already know that. You do what you gotta do, but 2 lbs a week with a small amount left means you're probably losing muscle mass in some form. If you don't do it to long it's not that big of a deal, you can always regain muscle. But you're not losing what you want, that's the point, you want to lose fat, not muscle. By doing it so fast, you're removing the good as well as the bad.

Thanks for rebumping this. Apparently my calorie deficit is probably too high (mfp set it to 500 a day when my BMI is 26.5). This is going to be interesting, most days I have enough trouble eating enough as it is. When I joined I really didn't think I'd be struggling to eat enough. *rolls eyes*

without knowing a lot more about you, I can't say whether 500 is correct for you or not. I will say that with a 26.5 BMI, if you conform to the standards (BMI is a seriously flawed calculation, and I HATE HATE HATE even using it, but it's the only real number you can easily attain that is even relevant), then you're right, it's probably a little high, not obscenely high though, maybe a couple hundred to high.

Thank you! It's interesting how you have a different deficit for each BMI group. I have a BMI less than 25, so I'm realizing even more that I need to put more focus in exercising than restricting food.

yes, with different FFM(Fat Free Mass, muscle, bone, other tissue) levels, the body releases chemicals at different rates, and has specific tolerances for nutritional deficiencies, which means you must focus on different types of nutrition. This is especially true for non-obese individuals. Creating a calorie deficit from your RMR(Resting Metabolic Rate) is not (in my opinion) a good idea if you are at or below healthy body fat levels (about 22% for women and about 15% for men). Rather I believe that people at those levels should be eating at a maintenance level and using exercise as a way to lose adipose tissue (fat), and even then, if you are exercising for extended periods, some of those calories should be eaten back to keep the total deficit small. Your body just can't handle large deficits IMHO if you are at a healthy body fat level.

Is this the fastest way to lose weight? No, but it does two very important things in my opinion. Firstly it teaches you how to eat healthy for life, I.E. not sacrificing your caloric amounts for the sake of losing weight. Second it allows your body to utilize fat oxidation as it's means of additional energy which means you aren't canabalizing muscle mass for energy, which means burning fat, which is the primary goal of the non-obese individual (I would hope).