Calorie requirement does changes after losing wt?

asi12
asi12 Posts: 5 Member
in Goal: Maintaining Weight
I saw HBO documentry wt. loss (btw you can watch it on demand if you have HBO). It has very interesting segment which was focused on calorie requirement after wt. loss. According to them, once you loose wt. one needs to consume 10-20% less calorie than someone who is same ht, wt and age and never gained wt. It is for rest of your life!

Are there any articles on that?

Replies

  • peterodman
    peterodman Posts: 2 Member
    Caloric requirements to maintain a given weight does indeed reduce with lower weight, but where the need for additional caloric restriction post-weight reduction comes from is a mystery. Until they repeal the laws of physics; weight=calories in-calories out
  • Soopatt
    Soopatt Posts: 563 Member
    I read an article on this from one of the forums here - but I can't remember where it was posted - maybe someone else can help.

    There seem to be hormonal (I think) reasons that a person has to eat less after having successfully lost a lot of weight, compared to someone who has never been overweight. There was also a range this effect applied to - so no effect in someone who only lost 10% of body weight. I remember something about this effect normalizing over time though, but taking as long as 6 years.

    The article was suggesting that the best bet is to never get *very* fat, because a little fat is ok and easy to deal with but a lot is not. If you do get very fat and are a champ in losing it, there is a price to pay in that maintenance is tougher - for quite a while.
  • Whitezombiegirl
    Whitezombiegirl Posts: 1,042 Member
    peterodman wrote: »
    Caloric requirements to maintain a given weight does indeed reduce with lower weight, but where the need for additional caloric restriction post-weight reduction comes from is a mystery. Until they repeal the laws of physics; weight=calories in-calories out

    There is growing evidence that the process of calorie restriction has an adaptive themogentic effect which means exactly what the OP wrote. If you have never been overweight you can maintain on slightly higher cals than someone who had to diet to get to that weight. Its to do with body processes becoming slightly more efficient during calorie restriction and so use factionally less cals for BMR. There is also the possible effect of muscle wastage during calorie resitriction. The 'dieted' person may have a different body composition to the n
    'non-dieted' person and so having less muscle they have a slightly lower BMR.

    I have read that for some people in trials the effect has lasted 6 months and in the longest case it was 7 years to reverse. The average was about 2 years though. Its still a developing field of study.
  • Soopatt
    Soopatt Posts: 563 Member
    This post explains it quite well

    http://www.drsharma.ca/obesitywhy-is-it-so-hard-to-maintain-a-reduced-body-weight
  • nxd10
    nxd10 Posts: 4,570 Member
    The good news is that your body does seem to recover after a while (we're talking a year or more, not weeks). So eventually you go back to baseline. Kind of like smoking :). The hard part is that relatively few people make it that far in maintenance.

    I saw it myself. My food intake was stable after maintenance. Then suddenly after 18 months or so, my weight dropped steadily, even though I was eating and exercising the same. My metabolism had changed. I upped my calories. It stabilized there. I've been maintaining at this level since.
  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,342 Member
    nxd10 wrote: »
    The good news is that your body does seem to recover after a while (we're talking a year or more, not weeks). So eventually you go back to baseline. Kind of like smoking :). The hard part is that relatively few people make it that far in maintenance.

    I saw it myself. My food intake was stable after maintenance. Then suddenly after 18 months or so, my weight dropped steadily, even though I was eating and exercising the same. My metabolism had changed. I upped my calories. It stabilized there. I've been maintaining at this level since.

    I'm also finding this to be true, I'm at the stage of being at maintenance a few years and now my body is losing again without me trying, so it won't be long til I need to up my calories.
  • Kingtjr47
    Kingtjr47 Posts: 12 Member
    This explains what I have experienced. Lost 20%, I have to stay 10% or more below my budget to maintain. Never made sense to me. Now at a year and a half into maintenance and still the same.
  • k80flec
    k80flec Posts: 1,623 Member
    Somebody (@Soopatt) earlier mentioned this thread:

    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1077746/starvation-mode-adaptive-thermogenesis-and-weight-loss#latest

    Long, but interesting
  • dopeysmelly
    dopeysmelly Posts: 1,390 Member
    I understand the theory, which makes perfect sense, but really it's all hypothetical. The question is, is my calorie intake lower now than it would have been if I'd been this weight all my life, instead of losing weight to get there? Honestly, who cares? I have no concept of what my calorie intake would have been for my parallel universe self, and if it was higher than it is now, does it matter to me? Er, no. And besides, I'm far more active than I used to be, so there is no baseline.

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