The 3,500 calories-per-pound myth...

favabean1982 · October 2020

So, since this has been established to be a myth, how do you really know if you’re in trouble as far as weight gain is concerned? Say, for example, I burn 2,500 calories over the course of 24-hours but I consume 3,000 calories during that same time period. Now, the myth says that, if I continue to do this over the course of the next seven days/week, which is 500 extra calories per day for a total of 3,500 calories, I’ll gain a true pound of body fat.

However, since 3,500 calories-per-pound of body fat has now been established to be a myth, how do I know if I’m in trouble as far as any excess calories and, subsequently, extra pounds is/are concerned? I know everyone’s different, I know you need to be in a caloric deficit to lose weight and I highly doubt if I’m over my calorie burn by a calorie or two I’ll be in trouble in terms of weight gain, but how do I know the limit? I had been operating with the mentality that, if you wanted to gain a true pound of body fat over, say, a 24-hour time period, you needed to consume the calories you burned in addition to the previously established 3,500 calories, which is a pretty hefty amount of calories. However, if that’s incorrect, what is correct?

I apologize for the length!

lemurcat2 · October 2020

3500/lb worked for me (or seemed to) when I was losing, but I think the answer to your question is just to weigh yourself regularly.

Lietchi · October 2020

I'm having a feeling of déjà-vu...
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/comment/45382317

cmriverside · October 2020

How about just stepping on the scale and adjust when necessary.

I've been logging food and using a food scale for roughly 13 years. I make 90% of my own meals (closer to 100% since covid.) Do I do it perfectly? No.

I can eat 300-700 calories over what calculators tell me I *should* be able to eat every day for a couple weeks and not change in weight.

I usually eat double my calorie "recommendation" at least one day per week.

I have maintained within 5 pounds for 12 years-ish.

If I gain outside my five pound range I cut back food. If I drop below, I eat more. It's not a perfect science but it's also not rocket science.

Theoldguy1 · October 2020

favabean1982 wrote: »

So, since this has been established to be a myth, how do you really know if you’re in trouble as far as weight gain is concerned? Say, for example, I burn 2,500 calories over the course of 24-hours but I consume 3,000 calories during that same time period. Now, the myth says that, if I continue to do this over the course of the next seven days/week, which is 500 extra calories per day for a total of 3,500 calories, I’ll gain a true pound of body fat.

However, since 3,500 calories-per-pound of body fat has now been established to be a myth, how do I know if I’m in trouble as far as any excess calories and, subsequently, extra pounds is/are concerned? I know everyone’s different, I know you need to be in a caloric deficit to lose weight and I highly doubt if I’m over my calorie burn by a calorie or two I’ll be in trouble in terms of weight gain, but how do I know the limit? I had been operating with the mentality that, if you wanted to gain a true pound of body fat over, say, a 24-hour time period, you needed to consume the calories you burned in addition to the previously established 3,500 calories, which is a pretty hefty amount of calories. However, if that’s incorrect, what is correct?

I apologize for the length!

Source please?

The CDC thinks the 3,500 is reasonable
https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/prevention/pdf/Handout_Session7.pdf

As does the USDA:
https://www.nutrition.gov/faqs

the Mayo Clinic
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/weight-loss/in-depth/calories/art-20048065

and Harvard Health:
https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/simple-math-equals-easy-weight-loss

The 3,500 may not be perfect but some pretty good sources seem to feel it's pretty close.

janejellyroll · October 2020

Wait, when was it established that it was a myth?

IronIsMyTherapy · October 2020

Oof, not even gonna join in here. Just gonna grab some popcorn.

nooshi713 · October 2020

It is not a myth. The OP is wacky pseudo science. 3500 calories/lb has been supported by years of data.

sardelsa · October 2020

If you keep eating over maintenance for a period of time, you will gain.

For example I'm gaining about 0.5lb per week. I am estimated to be eating 250csls over my maintenance. It might not be 100% exact but good enough.

For me I use a trend weight app so it sorts it through and after about a week I can get a good idea if I'm gaining or not

Here is some past data.

You can see around Feb to Mid Match I am kind of maintaining but still gaining very slowly, if I wanted to maintain I would keep that up since it looks pretty steady (about a 2-3lb range). Now I was trying to gain so I upped the calories and you can see the trend up increasing more steeply. But it's still super slow and gradual. It's not from one day of overeating.

If you don't want to gain don't eat in a surplus over a long period of time ...you have to nip it before it gets there. That's how I do it anyhow.

favabean1982 · October 2020

Thank you everyone-I didn’t mean to cause any problems or debate(s), I’m just riddled with curiosity about all sorts of weight/calorie/fitness-related things. I do weight myself regularly and yes, I did post this question before but felt the need to do so again with some further thoughts. I actually think I was made aware of this topic just via a random Google search-I’ll include that search below so you can see a snapshot of the results:

https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&hl=en-us&sxsrf=ALeKk020jIEH8BhcC-wdBkcesrVxE6t77g:1602615140065&ei=ZPeFX9a_A5C5tQaggY7YBw&q=3500+calories+per+day+myth&oq=3500+calories+per+day+myth&gs_lcp=ChNtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1zZXJwEAMyBAgAEEcyBAgAEEcyBAgAEEcyBAgAEEcyBAgAEEcyBAgAEEcyBAgAEEcyBAgAEEdQAFgAYLDpGGgAcAF4AIABAIgBAJIBAJgBAMgBCMABAQ&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-serp

Again, my apologies if I caused any problems, that was never my intention!

Dogmom1978 · October 2020

So it isn’t a “myth” as your google search indicates. Those are click bate titles written by people trying to get more attention to their articles.

It is an estimate. Just like my calories burned doing cardio are estimates, so is me eating 3500 less a week to lose a lb an estimate.

If you track your calories correctly and see that you lose more or less than a lb by cutting 3500 calories, you can get an idea of what calorie deficit, for YOU would equal a lb. Again, not exact because of the exercise estimations, if you estimate any of your calories, estimations regarding activity level etc, I could go on and on.

Eating fewer calories than you need will result in weight loss. Your personal mileage may vary on how your deficit impacts your weight loss journey and there are bound to be ups and downs along the way.

AnnPT77 · October 2020

A ramdom Google search is pretty much guaranteed to return nonsense answers near the top, when it's in the realm of health, diet or fitness. There's money to be made by convincing people that the simple truth is not really true, and that the site (with something to sell) knows the secret tricks/hacks/strategies.

I've also found 3500 calories = 1 pound to be close enough to be useful, during a year of weight loss and 5 years since of maintaining a healthy weight (after about 3 previous *decades* of obesity) . . . once I figured out my actual calorie needs, since the so-called "calculators" only provide an estimate.

I'm kind of the flip side from Sardelsa. For about a year now, I've been eating 150-250 calories daily below what I believe to be my maintenance calorie level, most days (some exceptions, days at/over maintenance, a few major), to lose a few vanity pounds in maintenance. As I'd expect, I've been losing something in the range of 0.25 or so pounds a week, on average (it's less than 0.5lb/wk because of the exceptions, in part). For me, 3500 cumulative calories = a pound is a decent working estimate. It's looked like this the past few months:

NovusDies · October 2020

I have tracked my weight loss via spreadsheet for over 2 years. There is no way to know the exact number of how many calories per pound. Food intake is based on averages. Calories burned in a day can be approximated but not measured at home. The process lacks the controls to determine the number... HOWEVER...

3500 calories per pound has worked to compare my weight loss to my calorie deficit pretty exactly for the entire 2 years. This number has worked when I skipped breakfast, when I have eaten lower carbs, when I have eaten OMAD, when I have eaten moderate carbs, when I have not exercised, when I have exercised, and now I am eating fairly high carb and exercising a great deal... IT STILL WORKS. If they rewrote HG to the Galaxy they might have to consider replacing 42 with 3500.

Dogmom1978 · October 2020

NovusDies wrote: »

I have tracked my weight loss via spreadsheet for over 2 years. There is no way to know the exact number of how many calories per pound. Food intake is based on averages. Calories burned in a day can be approximated but not measured at home. The process lacks the controls to determine the number... HOWEVER...

3500 calories per pound has worked to compare my weight loss to my calorie deficit pretty exactly for the entire 2 years. This number has worked when I skipped breakfast, when I have eaten lower carbs, when I have eaten OMAD, when I have eaten moderate carbs, when I have not exercised, when I have exercised, and now I am eating fairly high carb and exercising a great deal... IT STILL WORKS. If they rewrote HG to the Galaxy they might have to consider replacing 42 with 3500.

@NovusDies as someone who was an English major in college, I appreciate the reference there!

Redordeadhead · October 2020

AnnPT77 wrote: »

A ramdom Google search is pretty much guaranteed to return nonsense answers near the top, when it's in the realm of health, diet or fitness. There's money to be made by convincing people that the simple truth is not really true, and that the site (with something to sell) knows the secret tricks/hacks/strategies.

Yes, and even more so when your search is so leading. If you search for the words "3500 calories 1lb myth", of course you're going to pull up sites featuring the same words. I just searched "earth is flat" and some of the first results are "5 facts that prove the earth is flat" and "why the earth is actually 100% flat".

dragon_girl26 · October 2020

The 3500 calorie estimate always worked well for me. In the beginning of the weight loss stage, though, it seemed like figuring out my maintenance calories to subtract from was always the moving target.

NorthCascades · October 2020

favabean1982 wrote: »

So, since this has been established to be a myth, how do you really know if you’re in trouble as far as weight gain is concerned? Say, for example, I burn 2,500 calories over the course of 24-hours but I consume 3,000 calories during that same time period. Now, the myth says that, if I continue to do this over the course of the next seven days/week, which is 500 extra calories per day for a total of 3,500 calories, I’ll gain a true pound of body fat.

However, since 3,500 calories-per-pound of body fat has now been established to be a myth, how do I know if I’m in trouble as far as any excess calories and, subsequently, extra pounds is/are concerned? I know everyone’s different, I know you need to be in a caloric deficit to lose weight and I highly doubt if I’m over my calorie burn by a calorie or two I’ll be in trouble in terms of weight gain, but how do I know the limit? I had been operating with the mentality that, if you wanted to gain a true pound of body fat over, say, a 24-hour time period, you needed to consume the calories you burned in addition to the previously established 3,500 calories, which is a pretty hefty amount of calories. However, if that’s incorrect, what is correct?

I apologize for the length!

You're not going to gain a pound of fat in 24 hours no matter how many calories are in that pound. Your body just simply can't digest, process, and store that much food energy that quickly.

Whether a pound of fat is 3,500 calories or 50,000 or 50, you'll gain weight if you eat more than you burn and you'll lose weight if you burn more than you eat.

Whenever I gain or lose weight at a different speed than a 3,500 C pound would predict, it's because my food logging is sloppy.

NorthCascades · October 2020

Also, everyone is different, but in a lot of important ways we're all the same. I dated a lady once from Iceland; she believed in pixies, and I don't, but we both have two eyes and two ears. She liked jazz and I like bluegrass, we both need to consume food and water to survive.

"Metabolism" is all of the chemical reactions happening in your body to keep you alive. One of us needs more calories than the other because of weight and exercise habits, but we both need oxygen. Both of us only have one stomach unlike cows.

NorthCascades · October 2020

Redordeadhead wrote: »

AnnPT77 wrote: »

A ramdom Google search is pretty much guaranteed to return nonsense answers near the top, when it's in the realm of health, diet or fitness. There's money to be made by convincing people that the simple truth is not really true, and that the site (with something to sell) knows the secret tricks/hacks/strategies.

Yes, and even more so when your search is so leading. If you search for the words "3500 calories 1lb myth", of course you're going to pull up sites featuring the same words. I just searched "earth is flat" and some of the first results are "5 facts that prove the earth is flat" and "why the earth is actually 100% flat".

Bill poop! The earth isn't flat, and it isn't exactly hollow either, but it does have a black hole in the center.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/amp34166354/black-hole-center-of-earth-fake-study/

Dogmom1978 · October 2020

Redordeadhead wrote: »

AnnPT77 wrote: »

A ramdom Google search is pretty much guaranteed to return nonsense answers near the top, when it's in the realm of health, diet or fitness. There's money to be made by convincing people that the simple truth is not really true, and that the site (with something to sell) knows the secret tricks/hacks/strategies.

Yes, and even more so when your search is so leading. If you search for the words "3500 calories 1lb myth", of course you're going to pull up sites featuring the same words. I just searched "earth is flat" and some of the first results are "5 facts that prove the earth is flat" and "why the earth is actually 100% flat".

Hold on! You mean the earth ISNT flat?!?!

gisem17 · October 2020

I cant believe I'm encouraging the blatant hijacking of this threat. But...
Of course the Earth is flat. Just look at a map. The confusion comes from higher dimentional geometry. 2 dimensional planes are curved in 3 dimensional space (just like 3D space is curved in 4D spacetime). So someone looking at our 2D world from a point outside will see a sphere, but that's only because they're seeing it from a higher dimensional perspective.

The 3,500 calories-per-pound myth...

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