A Nutritionist Once Told me...
LMBelladonna
Posts: 71 Member
A few years ago, I was referred by my General Practitioner to a nutritionist within our clinic (so, certified.) She was one of the most helpful nutritionists that I had been to and even helped me find more features that I had not used on MFP before!
As I was looking to reduce weight, she told me that the amount of calories that you eat per day essentially determines what your goal weight would be. Meaning, if you eat 1500 calories per day it equates to 150 lbs, 1600 cal/day = 160 lbs. and so on.
While this makes sense, I am curious if anyone else has been told this before?
As I was looking to reduce weight, she told me that the amount of calories that you eat per day essentially determines what your goal weight would be. Meaning, if you eat 1500 calories per day it equates to 150 lbs, 1600 cal/day = 160 lbs. and so on.
While this makes sense, I am curious if anyone else has been told this before?
3
Replies
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No, and it's not accurate. Your calories for maintenance (which is what she's basically talking about) will be different based on activity and height and muscle mass (to some extent). Also, even assuming one is sedentary (which is not ideal), those numbers seem low except for shorter people.
I am about 130, and my maintenance is not 1300, and I lost down to 125 while eating around 1600 cals per day.23 -
No, and it's not accurate. Your calories for maintenance (which is what she's basically talking about) will be different based on activity and height and muscle mass (to some extent). Also, even assuming one is sedentary (which is not ideal), those numbers seem low except for shorter people.
I am about 130, and my maintenance is not 1300, and I lost down to 125 while eating around 1600 cals per day.
Yes ma'am. I'm 208 and maintain on 3000+ because of exercise and food choice. While using modifications like 10,1,2,14×bw can be a rough ball park, only self experimentation tells the whole truth.6 -
Maintenance plus higher activity levels I can understand needing more. However if you are working on reducing weight...0
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LMBelladonna wrote: »Maintenance plus higher activity levels I can understand needing more. However if you are working on reducing weight...
I would suggest tracking and weighing everything, I mean everything you eat for a few weeks. Don't restrict. Eat how you always would. Seehow the medians of your weight is, then subtract your deficit.7 -
psychod787 wrote: »No, and it's not accurate. Your calories for maintenance (which is what she's basically talking about) will be different based on activity and height and muscle mass (to some extent). Also, even assuming one is sedentary (which is not ideal), those numbers seem low except for shorter people.
I am about 130, and my maintenance is not 1300, and I lost down to 125 while eating around 1600 cals per day.
Yes ma'am. I'm 208 and maintain on 3000+ because of exercise and food choice. While using modifications like 10,1,2,14×bw can be a rough ball park, only self experimentation tells the whole truth.
Yeah, I'm basically the same weight and like you maintain at around 3,000 calories.3 -
I've not heard this one before. There are very active 6'5" men who can maintain their dream weight with 4000 cal aday and sedentary 5'6" women who can lose with 2000 cal aday. There's so many variations and variables. Our mileage will always vary but this really doesn't make any sense to me. It's similar to sizing. A size 16 weighs 160 lbs. A size 14 weighs 140 lbs and a size 10 weighs 110 lbs and a size 8 weighs 80 lbs and a size 2 weighs 20 lbs.8
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Theoldguy1 wrote: »psychod787 wrote: »No, and it's not accurate. Your calories for maintenance (which is what she's basically talking about) will be different based on activity and height and muscle mass (to some extent). Also, even assuming one is sedentary (which is not ideal), those numbers seem low except for shorter people.
I am about 130, and my maintenance is not 1300, and I lost down to 125 while eating around 1600 cals per day.
Yes ma'am. I'm 208 and maintain on 3000+ because of exercise and food choice. While using modifications like 10,1,2,14×bw can be a rough ball park, only self experimentation tells the whole truth.
Yeah, I'm basically the same weight and like you maintain at around 3,000 calories.
I'm 6'3" average 15k steps and lift 4 days a week. When I was 180 my maintenance was 3400. That's when I was weighing and measuring everything I ate. I have let myself drift up to 210ish 18% bf. Have maintained that on roughly 3700 cal for the past 2 months. OP. If I listened to your nutritionist, I would be ina deficit. We are all n=1.6 -
psychod787 wrote: »Theoldguy1 wrote: »psychod787 wrote: »No, and it's not accurate. Your calories for maintenance (which is what she's basically talking about) will be different based on activity and height and muscle mass (to some extent). Also, even assuming one is sedentary (which is not ideal), those numbers seem low except for shorter people.
I am about 130, and my maintenance is not 1300, and I lost down to 125 while eating around 1600 cals per day.
Yes ma'am. I'm 208 and maintain on 3000+ because of exercise and food choice. While using modifications like 10,1,2,14×bw can be a rough ball park, only self experimentation tells the whole truth.
Yeah, I'm basically the same weight and like you maintain at around 3,000 calories.
I'm 6'3" average 15k steps and lift 4 days a week. When I was 180 my maintenance was 3400. That's when I was weighing and measuring everything I ate. I have let myself drift up to 210ish 18% bf. Have maintained that on roughly 3700 cal for the past 2 months. OP. If I listened to your nutritionist, I would be ina deficit. We are all n=1.
I actually probably eat just as much now as I did when I was obese. I was 255 at my largest and over 40% BF. I'm like 18 to 20% BF now at 195. I eat "cleaner", if you want to call it that -- I'm just more aware of what goes into my mouth and how many calories it is -- and I workout an hour a day, six days a week and my "off day" is very active as well.
I'd guess I eat 3000 calories a day now. That's roughly what I ate before. Take out the 600 to 700 calories in an hour (I've worked up to this level over years of cardio) and that's nearly 1 lb a week. It took me like 8 years to get obese, so it's likely I eat more now than before, assuming just 500 or 600 calories a day in exercise, which is a low estimate for me.
I've been in maintenance for 8 or 9 years. When I lost, my budget was 1750 and I was losing around a half a pound a week then, also very active then (but not nearly as fit as I am now).2 -
Not true for me. One size does not fit all when it comes to weight loss. Take someone at the beginning of their weight loss journey with a large amount to lose: they can choose 1 or 2 pounds per week, say 1500 or 2000. Depends on how fast or slow they want to go and how much they want to cut back their food. That person would thus have a goal weight of 150 or 200. Kind of a big leap there.LMBelladonna wrote: »A few years ago, I was referred by my General Practitioner to a nutritionist within our clinic (so, certified.) She was one of the most helpful nutritionists that I had been to and even helped me find more features that I had not used on MFP before!
As I was looking to reduce weight, she told me that the amount of calories that you eat per day essentially determines what your goal weight would be. Meaning, if you eat 1500 calories per day it equates to 150 lbs, 1600 cal/day = 160 lbs. and so on.
While this makes sense, I am curious if anyone else has been told this before?
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That is downright awful! I am 115 pounds but my TDEE is 2100 to 2400 calories per day on average. Even if I wanted to lose weight, eating 1150 calories or less would make me burn out. I don't think I could last more than a day. I get that sometimes people in the weight loss industry try to simplify weight loss like this, especially to ensure their clients eat at a deficit, but I feel like this is why so many people are unsuccessful with long term weight loss. Slow and steady wins the race!8
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I am 58, female, 5’7” averaging 132 for the past month or two.
I’m very active, and do weight training.
I lost weight steadily and reliably. I started at 1490 and it came off too fast, increased incrementally, finally reaching 2300, at the suggestions of dietician and trainer. I lost weight all those.
I still try to keep my daily still at 2300, as I’m slowly learning that at that level I can handle a heavy day once or twice a week and maintain. I figure my real maintenance averages out to about 2600. (In other words, will “bank” for tortilla chips and chocolate chip cookies!)
Again I’m probably unusually active (though not compared to some of the MFP friends who show up in my feed!) so YMMV.7 -
Not true at all, in my experience. I weigh about 110, but I need about 2,200 a day to maintain that. Your lifestyle and exercise are going to make a HUGE difference in how many calories you need each day.9
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My cousin who is a university trained nutritionist told me two women of the same height, age and activity level could eat the same thing and still be at different weights.7
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No it doesn't make sense in the slightest.
What awful advice you got - they should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves! That they might be nice and helpful doesn't excuse such ignorance.
With access to all the research driven tools freely available on the internet to get a personalised estimate for your particular situation that is inexcusable laziness on their part. By chance it might work out for some people but there's huge numbers of people it will be miles off. Why wouldn't you make allowances for activity, exercise, age, gender etc. when it's easy to do.
Sacrificing a chicken and measuring the arterial spray might by pure chance get some people a reasonable estimate and this method is hardly any better.
As I maintain on 3,500 - 4,000 cals in summer it's funny that I only weigh 168lbs instead of 350 - 400lbs.
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Total coincidence BUT I'm currently 139 and MFP gave me a calorie goal of 13903
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That's an over-simplification....and that algorithm for weight loss is not one I've seen before.
I'm 135 and maintain around 2000 calories per day. Age, activity level, body composition all play a role in the calories needed to maintain/lose/gain.
I have had success using MFP for weight loss/maintenance/gain. The best advice I can give you is to start with the algorithm that MFP uses and adjust as needed. Use MFP's suggested calorie goal, follow that guideline for a few weeks, evaluate your weight loss, determine if you need to eat more or less, adjust calorie goal for a few more weeks, re evaluate.4 -
I'm 122 lbs. and my maintenance calories without any activity are about 1600. Since I do walk, run, etc. every day, my actual calories are quite a bit higher.2
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God, I hope not. Because, even with having to gain, to get to 105 without extra activity* would mean eating 1050 calories and that's only 30 above my bmr. And also only 1050 calories. And that just ain't gonna happen.
*my sedentary is truly sedentary because I have a desk job and I'm lazy so if I don't take my purposeful walks, I'd be back to sitting on the couch watching tv and eating all night.3 -
It is obvious not accurate for everyone. I felt it was good advise for the OP. For average height women, if not counting exercise, the number is about right. Also I felt the important take away in the nutritionist advise is to think about maintenance calorie from the beginning. Do not set a goal for an idea weight because you like that number or you see it on a chart somewhere. Set your goal by determining the calorie budget you can live on relatively comfortable for long time, so it is sustainable. Say your goal weight is 140lbs, you lost weight to 150lbs successfully with 1500 calorie, but further reducing calorie make you miserable, or doing lots of exercise is not your thing, then just stop and maintain at 150lbs and find other way to improve your health and well being.1
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I remember hearing about this formula back in the 80s, but I thought we'd progressed beyond it by now. As others have pointed out, this would put many of us at a dangerously low level of consumption. My TDEE averages around 2400 lately (I've gotten a lot more active since I've been working from home) and that formula would have me consuming 1140. Now, I recognize that I am a lot more active than a lot of women, but it's also below my BMR. Nope.7
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