Calorie restriction and metabolic slowing ?

Covered well and in detail, in an evidence-based way, in this thread:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1077746/starhuge vation-mode-adaptive-thermogenesis-and-weight-loss/p1

Read the first few posts in that thread - the initial few by the person who started the thread. It's good.

Repeating my comment from the other thread:

Improbable IMO. Lose very slowly with so little to lose, do some strength-challenging activities, push for extra daily life activity if you're worried. You have a lot of control over the relevant factors, in practice, IMO. Some people maintain above estimates, some maintain below - shift your odds to the extent practical, otherwise don't worry about it. Just my opinion, and maybe easy for me to say as someone maintaining several hundred calories above MFP's (and Garmin's) estimates despite losing 50+ pounds in less than a year back in 2015-16. Your n=1 is unique, and you won't know what it is until you get there.

Adding: The worst conceivable outcome is statistically unlikely. Catastrophizing feels unpleasant, and doesn't burn extra calories.

Your maintenance calories go down with weight loss so much depends on how big or small your deficit is. Your metabolism doesn’t really go down however you need fewer calories to maintain less weight. Carry around a 20 lb dumbbell all day to illustrate how much more energy it takes to haul around 20 lbs all day.

As a general rule of thumb your maintenance drops about 100 cals a day for every 10 lbs lost provided your activity stays about the same.

Emmile1 wrote: »

Thank you! lol I was worried. (Btw I had my rmr checked my a machine and it ended up being 1150… I burn 250-300 calories on top of that through activity)

Maybe you've got this in mind, but just in case: I hope the 250-300 calories aren't just the exercise calories? If they are, you're leaving out a piece.

BMR/RMR is just what we'd burn absolutely still, like lying quietly. Exercise burns calories, sure . . . but for most of us, daily life stuff burns more than the exercise.

With a BMR/RMR of 1150, if sedentary (average life of chores, desk job away from home, that sort of thing), it would be reasonable to assume around 250-300 calories daily for daily life stuff, then you'd add your exercise calories on top of that. (I'm considering an activity multiplier in the range of 1.2-1.25 here, for the data geeks in the audience.)

As an aside, a personalized RMR will give you a more accurate way of estimating. Still, how RMR was estimated matters - the best methods hook you up to a machine that measures body heat in a chamber or measures breath gases with some type of mask. The ones where you stand on a scale/platform or hold something that uses electrical current . . . those are less accurate, but maybe still better than an online calculator.

Even with the best RMR estimate, individuals' daily life varies a lot, in subtle ways. Even fidgety people have been shown in research to burn as many as a couple of hundred calories more daily than similar placid people.

I'm not trying to encourage you to fidget, but would encourage you, if you're following some kind of calorie tracking, to keep good records and use your calorie intake plus weight change to get a much more personalized calorie needs estimate than you can get from any calculator/estimator.

You'll need 4-6 weeks of calorie logging and weight change data. (Use weight change at the same relative point in at least 2 different menstrual cycles, if you have cycles.) Each pound of weight loss can be roughly estimated at 3500 calories.

For example, if you lost 2.5 pounds in 4 weeks at 1250 average daily calorie intake, your more accurate average daily maintenance needs estimate would be estimated as:

(2.5 pounds x 3500 calories) divided by 28 days (in 4 weeks) = 312.5 calories worth of weight loss per average day (let's round to 313).
Calorie needs for maintenance at that point = 1250 calories eaten + 313 calories worth of weight loss = 1563 estimated calories.

I hope that makes sense. It's still just an estimate, but more personalized and experiential than other estimating methods.

Most people are pretty close to calculator estimates, but some can be a little off (high or low), and a rare few surprisingly far off - that's just the nature of statistical estimates. Using your own data to estimate will give you some idea of how close the calculator estimates are for you. (Even a fitness tracker is giving you a calculator estimate based on population averages, it's just a more complicated estimate.)

tomcustombuilder wrote: »

Retroguy2000 wrote: »

tomcustombuilder wrote: »

As a general rule of thumb your maintenance drops about 100 cals a day for every 10 lbs lost provided your activity stays about the same.

55 cals per 10 pounds for me, according to a TDEE calculator.

Calculators can be off. Once you've been tracking your calories and weight for 6 months plus you'll have a more accurate idea. Much depends on your activity level.

Much depends on personal stats as well, 100kcal per 10lbs lost is not a universal number. It certainly isn't the right number for me, not according to calculations or real life results.

Lietchi wrote: »

tomcustombuilder wrote: »

Retroguy2000 wrote: »

tomcustombuilder wrote: »

As a general rule of thumb your maintenance drops about 100 cals a day for every 10 lbs lost provided your activity stays about the same.

55 cals per 10 pounds for me, according to a TDEE calculator.

Calculators can be off. Once you've been tracking your calories and weight for 6 months plus you'll have a more accurate idea. Much depends on your activity level.

Much depends on personal stats as well, 100kcal per 10lbs lost is not a universal number. It certainly isn't the right number for me, not according to calculations or real life results.

To reiterate:

Once you've been tracking your calories and weight for 6 months plus you'll have a more accurate idea. Much depends on your activity level.

tomcustombuilder wrote: »

Lietchi wrote: »

tomcustombuilder wrote: »

Retroguy2000 wrote: »

tomcustombuilder wrote: »

As a general rule of thumb your maintenance drops about 100 cals a day for every 10 lbs lost provided your activity stays about the same.

55 cals per 10 pounds for me, according to a TDEE calculator.

Calculators can be off. Once you've been tracking your calories and weight for 6 months plus you'll have a more accurate idea. Much depends on your activity level.

Much depends on personal stats as well, 100kcal per 10lbs lost is not a universal number. It certainly isn't the right number for me, not according to calculations or real life results.

To reiterate:

Once you've been tracking your calories and weight for 6 months plus you'll have a more accurate idea. Much depends on your activity level.

I've been tracking my calories and weight for nearly 10 years, so I think I have an accurate idea. I actually increased my daily NEAT expenditure by about 180 calories while losing 30 pounds.

No, I'm not some magical exception to physics. As I lost weight and started introducing exercise (the numbers cited in the previous sentence are before accounting for exercise), I naturally and often unconsciously moved more throughout my daily life, outside of exercise. If I had music playing while cleaning up the kitchen, I'd be swaying to the music and throwing an occasional dance step in. If I saw a spot on the floor, I'd grab a rag, bend my knees, and put a little elbow grease into it, instead of shrugging and leaving it until the next time I mopped standing up. If there were an item left out that belonged on a different floor, I would take it there, instead of putting it in a bin with other items on the stairs to consolidate the trips.

None of this amounted to the kind of changes that would be recognized by standard descriptions of activity level.

I agree. 100 kcal less per 10 lbs lost is not a universal number.

[/quote]



None of this amounted to the kind of changes that would be recognized by standard descriptions of activity level.

I agree. 100 kcal less per 10 lbs lost is not a universal number.[/quote]



Your NEAT Is your biggest factor in Activity Level, much more than structured exercise so yes it matters and matters A LOT. I’m not sure how you got that the 100 cals was a universal number.

And yes maintenance can go up in your case.