So for those maintaining below 2000/day, is this a lifetime commitment?

lemurcat12 wrote: »

cloudi2 wrote: »

Actually it wouldn't be healthy to maintain intake at 2000 calories unless you are under 4' 5" and an adult.

Source? Also, given that the calculated TDEE for someone of my stats (at 5'3) is under 2000 even with 6 days of exercise or 5 days of intense exercise, you are basically claiming that the only way I could be healthy is to be gaining weight (which is not healthy). Indeed, even if I assume my body weight is 145--which is slightly overweight unless I manage to build my muscle mass to more than it was last time I was there and not a weight at which I feel as healthy as I do now--my TDEE is still going to be below 2000 with 6 days of week of exercise.

This OP seems to believe (based on the two threads I've seen her start) that it is in fact healthier to be overweight than to be thin.

It seems from this thread that she is postulating it would be healthier to gain weight to get up to where you can maintain on over 2000 calories than it would be to maintain on less and have lower BMI.

RunRutheeRun wrote: »

@lemurcat12‌ which site did you get that calculation off? If you exercise 6 days that sounds wrong. My TDEE is 2600 for same amount of exercise and I'm 5ft 2.

IIFYM, either M-SJ or K-McC. Scooby is more (nowhere near 2600, though, more like 2200), not sure if that's because they calculate exercise differently or use H-B, which I don't think is reliable.

It depends on how much you exercise on those days. When I was doing the max exercise I have, including 2.5 hour long runs and lots of other running and biking I think my TDEE was about 2200. Now, with less cardio and more weights but 6 days of hard workouts still I think it's about 2000 or less--I'm losing less than .5 lb/week on 1750. I know I gained weight initially eating less than 2000 (pretty rapidly too), which is consistent with what my sedentary TDEE would be.

Clearly there is going to be some real life variation between people, but my numbers have generally lined up pretty well with the K-McC and M-SJ calculators.

I have a friend who is 5'1" and a programmer, so about as sedentary of a job as exists, and she can maintain a consistent weight on something like 1200-1400 calories. It's part of what bugs me (and drives her slowly insane) when people say "oh, you absolutely have to have more than the magical number 1200) Lots of people of smaller stature don't need 1500 calories to maintain, much less 2000.

cloudi2 wrote: »

I'm curious to know if those who maintain at lower than 2000 a day are happy with that and are you planning to continue it for life. If not what is your plan and do you think that low calorie maintenance will have an impact on you health?

I find the phrasing of this really confusing. Besides exercising and gaining/losing weight, and excluding any uncontrolled medical conditions like hypothyroidism or something, how could you actually change the number of calories your body needs to maintain? You can't really 'decide' to have a maintenance number below 2000, and not everybody can realistically exercise enough to get up to that fairly arbitrary figure i.e. if you're a very small woman and sedentary with a lot of other things which occupy your time. For me, I'd maintain on about 1700-1800 if I didn't do much, and I'm pretty confident I could eat a very nutritious diet within that limit, and regularly accommodate treats and such. I see that as very sustainable. I don't think that deliberately gaining a stone or two which might give me a maintenance level closer to 2000 would really have much impact on my health either way, if I'm honest.

I love maths and science.

Most women need between 1600 and 1800 calories a day for maintenance. Eating more will just cause your body to store it as fat. It's excess food.

2000 calories is just a rounded down average of the requirements for women AND men. The average is actually 2350 but they were afraid that women would see this and overindulge. Also they don't have room for multiple listings on food labels so they picked this one number. Most women don't need this much food.

No I don't mean nutrient deficient, although that is probably likely. Actually it wouldn't be healthy to maintain intake at 2000 calories unless you are under 4' 5" and an adult.
Eating enough calories for your needs, including repairs of muscles, nerves, bones -- those hidden things that need attending to, plus needed effective mental energy and especially generating those all important hormones, not just for reproduction, but digestive hormones, leptin, dopamine to calm, opiates to lighten, requires over 2,000. All those things are made possible if we have plenty of caloric intake, not just attention to nutrient intake. Plenty of calories sre necessary, not to merely sustain life, (which we are designed to do on even severe caloric restriction for short periods of time for survival ) but also all the extras as I mentioned!

Its our choice, individually what we decide to do with our health and bodies. I'm not demonizing people who value thinness. Its just a question I have about how many of us are willing to take the chance of living at a calorie deficit for longer periods of time as if in survival mode. Some of us might plan to do so for the rest of our lives and ignore the possiblities of losing bone mass, muscle and even digestive functionality to sustain that lower bmi.

So for myself, at one time I was willing to do that, but now I'm not. :-)
How about you?

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sounds like someone is looking for an excuse. uh, you realize that your body uses as many calories as it needs and stores the rest as fat. if you're overweight, it's because you're eating more than you need to energize all the functions you've mentioned, even if you're eating say, at 1800. we tend to highly overestimate what our bodies need to function. And strange, when folks eat fewer calories in order to lose weight, the result is often more energy, better concentration, less sleepy feeling after eating. And when you eat a calorie deficit to lose extra weight, your body is not calorie deprived. It does not suffer a deficit. It's getting as many calories as it needs in addition to what you're eating by burning off the fat you've stored. that's how weight loss works. we're not primitive humans that needed fat storage to make up for times when there was food scarcity. To get to the point where your body doesn't have enough calories to burn for proper functioning of all of its processes, you're going to have to literally be starving. My maintenance calories are below 2000 and I eat 3 nutritious meals every day. that's not starving. It's a nice idea that extra calories could somehow supercharge your body processes, but it's a myth. It takes as many calories to run a body as it does to run a body. It won't utilize extras to boost anything. It turns them into fat.

lemurcat12 wrote: »

RunRutheeRun wrote: »

@lemurcat12‌ which site did you get that calculation off? If you exercise 6 days that sounds wrong. My TDEE is 2600 for same amount of exercise and I'm 5ft 2.

IIFYM, either M-SJ or K-McC. Scooby is more (nowhere near 2600, though, more like 2200), not sure if that's because they calculate exercise differently or use H-B, which I don't think is reliable.

It depends on how much you exercise on those days. When I was doing the max exercise I have, including 2.5 hour long runs and lots of other running and biking I think my TDEE was about 2200. Now, with less cardio and more weights but 6 days of hard workouts still I think it's about 2000 or less--I'm losing less than .5 lb/week on 1750. I know I gained weight initially eating less than 2000 (pretty rapidly too), which is consistent with what my sedentary TDEE would be.

Clearly there is going to be some real life variation between people, but my numbers have generally lined up pretty well with the K-McC and M-SJ calculators.

@lemurcat12‌ you were more active than me, I run 6 days a week for an hour, plus 3 miles walking on top of that plus strength train x 3/wk ...I currently am reverse dieting and maintaining on 2200. I figure in a few months if I wanted I could maintain on 2400-2500. I'm 45 and range between 133-136 lb which on my medium frame is slim.
I realise everyone's metabolism is different. What works for some doesn't work for others. Just find what works for you and stick with it