Negative calories ok for extremely obese people?

while I have to say that is amazing but unsustainable weight loss. You rock!

Even if your body can burn all the energy you need out of raw fat all day long, you are still probably going to lose what muscle you have to the furnace, and become deficient in a wide variety of vital nutritional components. I'd recommend no lower than 800 net calories a day, if they are "perfect" whole foods (healthy fats, proteins, and fruit/vegetable carbs) rather than crap food.

Maybe not perfect food but def 95 percent of it should be the best choices you can make. I agree with the rest of this post 100 percent! You are going to lose the muscle before fat and because muscle burns fat the loss of it will actually hinder your weight loss. You are right about it not being a long term option. maybe for a quick 20 pounds it works but in the end a steady healthy weight loss is your best bet for overall success and an achieving long term goals!

Best of Luck!

Have you considered a PSMF? That should help with the muscle loss a bit better

I wouldn't suggest having a huge negative net every day, but having a negative net every now and then isn't going to hurt you. Last year I was pushing 300# and my trainer actually told me NOT to eat back my exercise calories and to consume AT LEAST 1,400 calories/day and up to 1,800 on days that I work out really hard. I'm a girl and I'm only 5'3'', so that's obviously going to work a little differently, and different things work for different people. As far as losing weight, you will lose some muscle - it's just the nature of the beast - so be sure to eat plenty of protein and do weight training, not just cardio. Cardio is great, but weight training helps you lose more inches and builds muscle, which ultimately is what really burns the fat. Best of luck to you! :drinker:

I am 29 years old and I started at about 350 lbs. I am now 317 and joined MFP Jan 5th @ 330 lbs. How do you feel about someone my size ending up with negative net calories for the day? I am eating at least 1200 calories but doing a lot of cardio. At first I could not do much but my endurance has built up and I can now do at least 45m on my stationary bike. At my weight I can burn over 1,000 calories in a day, easily and I know this diet and exercise plan can not last forever but I figure for a few more weeks it will be fine.

Same way for anybody with human DNA.
You are setting yourself up for failure.

MFP has already figured out your total calories you need to eat per day to lose 1lb etc. a week. That's WITHOUT exercise. You'll notice that when you actually add exercise in, the calorie limit goes up. Why? Because it's telling you to eat your exercise calories. Large deficits aren't really good to do because while you will lose weight, what kind of weight will it be? In many cases you'll lose lean muscle tissue which LOWERS your metabolic rate even more. Then you have to eat even less to compensate for less of a calorie burn to continue to lose the same amount of weight each week.
Be efficient. Exercise hard and eat back the calories. The hard exercise will RAISE your metabolic rate and burn more fat at rest.

You are fine for now, but should probably bump your total cals up to around 1500 and do a higher calorie day at least once a week. As long as you can sustain it anyway.

For a few weeks you will be just fine as long as you're eating 1200 cals (even if you burn them off by the end of the day). And I think it's great that you're starting with cardio--once you lose some of the excess weight you'll be able to incorporate some weight training in. You seem down to earth because you realize that you can't continue such a low net cal number, but at the beginning of your journey, you'll be just fine. Keep up the great work! (I don't want to step on anyone's toes, but try not to take warnings of "starvation mode" seriously. The idea is based on a study in which participants were kept on an 800 cal diet, with poor nutrients for 6+ months. You're not depriving yourself in that way!)

I started my diet at 397lbs and I had MANY MANY days negative. I think its perfectly acceptable. I however was under a doctors supervised program that met and took blood tests every so often along with blood pressure. We did this for about 16 weeks and I lost about 80 lbs.

For really big people, the game is a little different and most people treat you as if you are 200 lbs trying to lose 20 lbs or something. Its all percentages of weight loss, so while I definitely wouldnt eat less than 1200 calories or so for your size, a negative net day is not a bad thing because your body is hitting its fat stores to get what it needs.

If you ever feel like your really hungry or starving some days, you could probably eat back some of your excersise calories.

I started my diet at 397lbs and I had MANY MANY days negative. I think its perfectly acceptable. I however was under a doctors supervised program that met and took blood tests every so often along with blood pressure. We did this for about 16 weeks and I lost about 80 lbs.

For really big people, the game is a little different and most people treat you as if you are 200 lbs trying to lose 20 lbs or something. Its all percentages of weight loss, so while I definitely wouldnt eat less than 1200 calories or so for your size, a negative net day is not a bad thing because your body is hitting its fat stores to get what it needs.

If you ever feel like your really hungry or starving some days, you could probably eat back some of your excersise calories.

I did pretty much the same program, yesterday was my year anniversary, the key is when you go off the ultra low calorie is don't just jump back into maintenance eating calorie levels. It should be gradual, my first 6 months were ultra low, I lost about 125 lbs, then next month I upped my calories 100 to 200 a day, still lost about 2-3 lbs a week. For a month after that I raised it up another 100 or 200. I have been eating pretty regular and will still lose a lb or 2 a week. I'm still trying to lose though, I wanna lose another 16 lbs, but doing it gradually you are no longer feeling you're on a diet because under the supervision of a nutritionist, I have learned about the actual serving sizes and now make automatic healthy choices. It helps having a regular workout regiment. It's all about changing your lifestyle, I needed a very strict low calorie meal plan to help me realize I can do it on my own and maintain it when the time comes.

You are doing GREAT! I appaud your efforts!!!! Stick with it!

As long as you feel good, I'm not concerned so much about the number of calories as I am about muscle mass, loose skin, and sustainability. Folks on the biggest loser burn a lot and look and feel great (mostly), but they do a lot of strength training as well. Obviously since you are very overweight, your body can live (in part) off your fat.

In my opinion the MFP folks tend to be paranoid about eating too few calories. Weight Watchers (with tons and tons of doctors on staff and no desire to hurt folks or get sued) allows people close to goal to go as low as 1000 calories (and not eat back their exercise calories). But Weight Watchers starts folks out at a much higher calorie intake and then lowers it slowly over time. (This makes the process easier and keeps the loss steady over time.)

The issues that concern me with your extreme pattern start are:

- muscle mass --> be sure to adopt a strength training regimine along with the cardio that you are doing

- loose skin --> the faster you lose, the less time your skin has to renew itself (hence the greater the possibility of loose skin (also drink lots of water and use moisturizer); core exercises help a great deal as well

- sustainability --> it is nice, when you are extremely obese, to slowly reduce your calories over time, so that you can keep losing at a constant rate (if you start out eating really low calories, your weight loss slows over time)

I'm so excited about what you're doing. Keep up the great work!