Eating way below BMR but losing weight and gaining muscle.

Your body will burn your TDEE in calories every day and there is no stopping it. If your TDEE is 2500 and you eat 1100 calories it will just make that difference up by burning your bodyfat to provide 2500 cal total.

The problem comes from the fact that your bodyfat does not provide any real nutrients, just caloric yield. Therefore you don't get any vitamins or amino acids or other things from your bodyfat that you do from good whole foods.

To support your muscle, especially growing muscle, is going to take a certain amount of protein and on top of that protein you of course also need all your micronutrients to maintain heatlh. That could be very difficult to do on 1100 calories a day. If you don't get the right nutrients or enough amino acids to support your body your body will resort to burning muscle in addition to fat.

That said if you can manage it you can manage it, but you would have to be brutally strict with your diet and make sure you are getting all the nutrients you need. Really it would probably be easier just to eat more and lose fat a little slower, easier to maintain that way and less chance of injury or health issues.

Ugh .... just eat more. It's not that hard. Have a bowl of cereal to at least get to 1200 every day. You are going to make yourself very unhealthy by not getting the nutrients your body needs.

& no, sorry, you are not building muscle....you just can see them cuz you have lost weight.

Your vital organs are using 100% of what you are eating now.

[/quote]

True

Gaining muscle would be impossible (for you) at 1200 calories.

False. He is consuming 1200 calories but his body is utilizing much more than that via his fat stores to match his TDEE. As long as you are providing sufficient nutrition and protein to your body you can build muscle, your body will just utilize your fat to make up for the caloric deficit. It just happens to be very difficult to get sufficient protein and nutrition in just 1200 calories and is much more likely you won't start burning your own muscle if you eat more. General rule, safer to eat more and just lose fat slower. If you want to gain muscle you should probably be eating 1.5 times your bodyweight in grams of protein and if you weigh 200 pounds that would be 300 grams which would already be 1200 calories and you cannot be healthy eating 100% of your calories from pure protein.


It is of course possible that you actually are losing muscle now but your weightlifting is training the muscle you have to be more responsive giving you strength gains. Really better to just eat more and make this a longer term goal.

TL:DR although technically possible to eat below your BMR and still gain muscle the gain will be much more difficult and make your nutrition insanely strict to attain that. Much much easier and better to just eat more if your intent is to lose fat AND gain muscle.

Gaining muscle would be impossible (for you) at 1200 calories.

False. He is consuming 1200 calories but his body is utilizing much more than that via his fat stores to match his TDEE. As long as you are providing sufficient nutrition and protein to your body you can build muscle, your body will just utilize your fat to make up for the caloric deficit. It just happens to be very difficult to get sufficient protein and nutrition in just 1200 calories and is much more likely you won't start burning your own muscle if you eat more. General rule, safer to eat more and just lose fat slower. If you want to gain muscle you should probably be eating 1.5 times your bodyweight in grams of protein and if you weigh 200 pounds that would be 300 grams which would already be 1200 calories and you cannot be healthy eating 100% of your calories from pure protein.


It is of course possible that you actually are losing muscle now but your weightlifting is training the muscle you have to be more responsive giving you strength gains. Really better to just eat more and make this a longer term goal.

TL:DR although technically possible to eat below your BMR and still gain muscle the gain will be much more difficult and make your nutrition insanely strict to attain that. Much much easier and better to just eat more if your intent is to lose fat AND gain muscle.

:huh:

OP isn't gaining muscle on a VLCD.

Your body will burn your TDEE in calories every day and there is no stopping it. If your TDEE is 2500 and you eat 1100 calories it will just make that difference up by burning your bodyfat to provide 2500 cal total.

No, that's not correct.

The body can only get so much fuel from fat stores, because it is a rate-limited process. If the caloric deficit is too large, once fat store metabolization has been tapped out, BMR and ability to maintain TDEE will start dropping.

Your vital organs are using 100% of what you are eating now.

True

Gaining muscle would be impossible (for you) at 1200 calories.

False. He is consuming 1200 calories but his body is utilizing much more than that via his fat stores to match his TDEE. As long as you are providing sufficient nutrition and protein to your body you can build muscle, your body will just utilize your fat to make up for the caloric deficit.

[/quote]

not true. After a few days of burning fat, if the deficit is big the body will switch to burning skeletal muscle in preference to fat, because in order to survive a food shortage, it wants your fat stores to last as long as possible. Muscle is a liability, because it costs a lot of calories to maintain so it's jettisoned. Even when you do everything exactly right, you can still expect a little muscle loss on a cut. the idea of doing everything right is to keep it to an absolute bare minimum. But if you're deliberately eating at a really big deficit then you may as well just kiss your muscle tissue goodbye. Your body did not evolve to just keep on burning fat until the fat stores run out, it evolved to make the fat stores last as long as possible by burning skeletal muscle. That's why famine victims look like skin and bones, not like ripped bodybuilders.

why? because Homo erectus quite often didn't get enough to eat, and we're descended from the ones that didn't die in the food shortages. The human body is designed to survive food shortages.... yep 1200 cals/day won't kill you, but it's going to make you look like the Homo erectus that didn't get enough to eat for a very long time (aka skin and bones), not like the Homo erectus that was badass and caught loads of animals and got loads to eat and grew big muscles to be able to keep on catching animals (i.e. like a strength athlete).

Also 1200 cals/day is too little for the vast majority of women (older, petite, sedentary women are an exception) - there is no way the same number of calories that's right for a little old lady who gets no exercise is an adequate amount for a young man.

Wow, I didn't expect to get this many replies.

Ok, so eat more, but how much more? Should I eat a little under BMR (i.e. 1600 if BMR is 1700) or should I eat a minimum of 1700. I only ask because neandermagnon mentions that if the deficit is big I will start burn muscle so it would be ok with a smaller deficit? Also I'm a little confused about if I should calculate deficit using my BMR or TDEE.

With me doing 10 minute HIIT 3 times a day and all the standing I do what sort of activity level should I be selecting in calculators?

I apologise that I'm being noobish, I'm very new to all this.

Here you go OP:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1080242-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants

Good luck.

I was going to say mean things until the OP seemed to respond to reason
Darn it.
*Storms out*

no.


and eat more.

Wow, I didn't expect to get this many replies.

Ok, so eat more, but how much more? Should I eat a little under BMR (i.e. 1600 if BMR is 1700) or should I eat a minimum of 1700. I only ask because neandermagnon mentions that if the deficit is big I will start burn muscle so it would be ok with a smaller deficit? Also I'm a little confused about if I should calculate deficit using my BMR or TDEE.

With me doing 10 minute HIIT 3 times a day and all the standing I do what sort of activity level should I be selecting in calculators?

I apologise that I'm being noobish, I'm very new to all this.

You would calculate your deficit based on your TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) NOT on your BMR. Your BMR is just how much calories your body needs to sustain basic bodily function, your TDEE is that plus your activity be it just standing up or doing HIIT.

I think the general agreed rule is to eat not much less than 20% of your TDEE for sustained fat loss without muscle loss. So if your TDEE was 2500 calories that would mean consuming 2000 calories a day. If you want to maintain or even grow muscle eating 1-1.5 times your bodyweight in grams of protein per day is good to do as well (that ends up being a lot of protein).

If your muscles feel "bigger" after doing what you say you have been doing most likely its just because they are retaining water after a workout which is pretty common for weightlifting routines.

Basically in general if you eat way way below your TDEE you may lose weight faster but that weight will include your muscle which means that your weight loss will plateau faster. As you lose muscle your metabolism slows down and your BMR drops and then it takes more and more calorie deficit to maintain the fat loss. Better to burn it slow and keep that metabolism pumping.

Hopefully I have redeemed myself from my earlier post. I do think it is possible to maintain muscle and be under your BMR but its special circumstances and very strict nutrition. Much better to just go with the established rule of 20% under your TDEE.