Eat ALL your calories??????

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  • angisnee
    angisnee Posts: 236 Member
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    I just had this discussion with my dietician today.
    If you are burning more calories than you take in, you will lost weight. People in concentration camps were eating less than 600 calories a day and working if they could. They starved to death and were very thin. Okay, a little morbid but you get the point.
    Your body will go into starvation mode and try to hang on to weight if you are on very low cals, but if you are burning more than coming in, weight loss in inevitable.
    I am eating only 900 cals a day which would be considered starvation for most people but I am very obese 400+ when i started and am relatively sedentary. Medically that is low but still backed by a team of medical professionals.
    Hope that helps.

    Why would you subject yourself to a concentration-camp level of calories when you can lose weight just fine with a modest deficit? If you're working with doctors, by all means, go with what they say, but don't do this just because someone else's doctor advocated it for their specific situation.
  • alkion
    alkion Posts: 56
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    Edited by moderator

    NOBODY said that she should eat OVER her goal, or that she should eat any of that JUNK. They were advising eating AT her goal plus exercise calories (which should raise the goal anyway).

    Edited to add:
    When I was stuck at the same weight for almost 4 months, I went UP to maintenance level, and then I started losing again, at maintenance. Found out the hard way that my body wanted more calories each day in order to lose. It SUCKS that I could have been eating 400+ more calories everyday than I was that whole time and continue losing weight instead of being stuck.

    What macros did you increase, and what about your exercise? Sarcasm doesn't help no one, i agree. Neither does highly inaccurate information.
  • ladyhawk00
    ladyhawk00 Posts: 2,457 Member
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    MFP is designed for you to meet your cal goals (including cals added for exercise). These threads may help explain:

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/186814-some-mfp-basics

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/61706-guide-to-calorie-deficits

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/10589-for-those-confused-or-questioning-eating-your-exercise-calo
  • alkion
    alkion Posts: 56
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    I just had this discussion with my dietician today.
    If you are burning more calories than you take in, you will lost weight. People in concentration camps were eating less than 600 calories a day and working if they could. They starved to death and were very thin. Okay, a little morbid but you get the point.
    Your body will go into starvation mode and try to hang on to weight if you are on very low cals, but if you are burning more than coming in, weight loss in inevitable.
    I am eating only 900 cals a day which would be considered starvation for most people but I am very obese 400+ when i started and am relatively sedentary. Medically that is low but still backed by a team of medical professionals.
    Hope that helps.

    I do aree with this, but just the way it was said was kind of funky. I don't believe in the starvation mode propagand. The thing that is etchy is this sentence.

    "Your body will go into starvation mode and try to hang on to weight if you are on very low cals, but if you are burning more than coming in, weight loss in inevitable. "

    you're saying "if you eat low amount of calories, you'd go in to starvation mode. but if you are eating below the amount of calories you consume, you'd lose weight." This is just a way of saying "if you burn more than you consume you lose weight."

    Yes your metabolism does slow down a bit if you don't eat too much, but it's very minimal. It takes about 72hrs for it to slow down on a caloric deficit. Any caloric deficit will slow down your metabolism a bit. Exercise is what keeps your metabolism higher that's why it's so important with an exercise program. Overall the post was good information.
  • Kissxx
    Kissxx Posts: 99
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    when you are closer to your goal. yes it is advised to eat them but if you have fat stores to get energy from, you might not have to. i am very close to my goal so when i go below 1200 net, i plateau and i have to eat maintenance cals to break it so I really think that it is important to eat your calories. just from my personal experience.
  • Pebble321
    Pebble321 Posts: 6,554 Member
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    So many success stories, so thought I'd check with ya'all. Is it true that you won't lose weight unless you eat all your required daily calories.
    Thanks :)

    Its not true to say that "you won't lose weight unless you eat all your calories". If you eat very low calories you will lose weight. If you keep on doing it, eventually your weight loss is going to slow down (maybe stop for a while) because your body tries to conserve the available energy and works as efficiently as possible with the low amount of energy available. If you do it for long enough and at a low enough calorie level you will become very unwell. And if you keep it up for a really long time, you will die.

    I think it is important to look at the big picture here. Eating low calories should give you short term weight loss. If the only thing that is important to you is to lose weight in the short term, then go for it and to hell with the consequences.

    But, if you want to stay healthy, lose weight and then maintain your new lower weight, it is a very different story. You need to ensure that your body is getting the right amount of good nutrition so you stay healthy and have lots of energy to enjoy a hapy and active life.
    And the "right amount" is going to be different for everyone. That's what makes this tricky, if it was easy we would all be at a healthy weight!

    This is just my opinion, feel free to ignore it if it doesn't agree with your opinion!
  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,402 MFP Moderator
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    As many others said, the simple answer is yes. The long term answer, is not only do you need to eat your base calories, but you will need to increase your calories (by decreasing the deficit). Also, keep a low calorie diet isn't necessarily good for your body. It is rather difficult for your body to get all the required nutrients to sustain a good metabolism, organ function and energy if you don't eat enough. Also, why would you subject yourself to eating less than you need to? Why eat 1200 calories when you can get the same results when you eat 1700 calories? Also, another issue with really low calorie diets is, when you lose weight, isn't not fat that is coming off first, it's muscle. Also, at some point, your body won't go into starvation mode, but it will hold onto the calories it consumes. I know this because I am speaking from experience. I was eating 1800 -2000 calories a day and did 90 days of P90X (extreme in home fitness program) and didnt' lose a lb, an inch or a percent of body fat. When I bumped up my calories to 2600, I did a round of chalean extreme (similar to p90x but not as crazy) and lost 6 lbs, 6" (2" from waist, 2" from my hips, & 2" from my abs & 3% body fat).. Also, I would liek to point out that I am 12% body fat.


    here are a few moto's I live by, food is fuel. If you dont fuel the fire, you won't burn the fat. And muscle burns fat. The best way to make your body more effecient and lose weight faster, is to increase your muscle mass. You can't do this when you aren't eating enough.


    Below is more of an explaination.


    There are several institutues that have research the needs of a body to maintain proper body function and all have come back with 1200 calories for women and 1500 for men (this includes teh Nation Institute for Health and American College of Sports Medicine). Decreasing your calories to below these standards (which are very low to start with) can affect your long term weight loss. Decreasing below your Basal Metabolic Rate can slow your metabolism, decrease thyroid function, decrease muscle mass, and have adverse affects on several organs, digestion, etc...

    When you reduce the calories too low, your body may not go into starvation mode but your body doesn't function properly. Also, over time, if you don't eat enough, your body will store fat due to the metabolism slowing down. Your metabolism is contolled by the amount of muscle you body has. The more muscle, the faster your metabolism is (unless you have a thyroid issue or other medical condition). The AmericanCollege of Sports Medicine suggest 1.2 - 1.4 g of protein per kg of weight.


    So for a 150 lb person, that comes to 88-95g of protein


    150/2.2 = 68.1
    68.1*1.2 (1.4) = 88/95g


    Obtaining that much protein would be difficult with 900 calories, considering 400 of those calories would have to be from proteins alone. keep in mind the below.

    1 gram of carbohydrate = 4 calories
    1 gram of protein = 4 calories
    1 gram of fat = 9 calories

    Here is a link with some good information.

    http://www.shapefit.com/basal-metabolic-rate.html

    Also, keep in mind, when you don't eat enough calories, your body utilizes proteins from your muscles to fuel your body and holds onto the fat. If you want to run an experiement on your, go get some body calipers or get someone to test you to calculate your total body fat. Work out for 30-60 days and go back to see if anything has changed. Even if your weight changes or doesn't, if you haven't been able to decrease your overall body fat, then you aren't gaining lean body mass (LBM). In fact, there are many cases that I have seen women lose 10 lbs but there overall body fat was unchanged. This means, that your body lost weight by losing LBM. The lower the LBM, the slow your metabolism, the lower it will take to lose weight, the quicker you will plateau and so forth. I can't tell you how many people I have worked with that have hit a plateau and each time, we increased their calories and the weight loss started again. You may just have not hit that point yet but I would highly suggest you reconsider your method.

    Beside, if you can eat more food and lose just as much weight, why wouldn't you?


    Hope this is helpful, I just want to make sure you aren't hurting your body. Below are some links with some good information in them. Enjoy


    http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/reference_calorie.asp

    http://www.fat2fitradio.com/tools/bmr/

    http://www.cordianet.com/calculator.htm
  • Rae6503
    Rae6503 Posts: 6,294 Member
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    People don't understand that there is a difference between "starvation mode" and actual "starving".
  • kducky22
    kducky22 Posts: 276 Member
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    11ea6584-b1ac-4131-a0ac-9aba330e8b08.jpg

    Seriously though, yes.

    *****like***** lol the picture is priceless...
  • irenep22
    irenep22 Posts: 59
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    i will eat all my calories :)

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