Could you eat at a calorie deficit for the rest of your life

cmayfield3
cmayfield3 Posts: 176 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Reading this article from NYT Magazine from a couple of years ago... in a nutshell, it is about a controlled experiment in which subjects of normal weight to slightly overweight reduce their calorie intake to 75% of TDEE for two years. During those two years, various vital signs are measured. The purpose of the experiment is to see whether calorie restriction reduces disease and increases longevity.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/magazine/11Calories-t.html?pagewanted=all

(I know this just scratches the surface of the literature out there on calorie restriction.)

Subjects lose about 15% of their body weight in the first year, and then the loss starts to taper off. But supposedly the longevity benefits come from eating reduced calories over a lifetime--not just two years. And all the subjects the interviewer talked to said they planned to continue eating reduced calories after the study is over.

Could you eat this way for the rest of your life? Would you? The interesting thing to me is that most of the subjects didn't so much struggle with hunger as just with the tedium of having to measure and log everything they ate. I can see how that would really affect your lifestyle. On the other hand, it's what we're doing here, and after a while it becomes second nature.
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Replies

  • cmayfield3
    cmayfield3 Posts: 176 Member
    Bump
  • cmayfield3
    cmayfield3 Posts: 176 Member
    Well, I thought it was an interesting topic anyway!
  • holthaus30
    holthaus30 Posts: 58 Member
    Once I have gotten to my desired weight and look then I wont be so crazy about what I eat. I also plan to do a bulk phase so I can eat more calories. So no I could not eat at a deficit for the rest of my life, that would suck
  • LorinaLynn
    LorinaLynn Posts: 13,247 Member
    What would be the benefit of eating at a deficit when I'm at my goal weight? Wouldn't I just continue to lose until I got to the weight where that deficit was no longer a deficit?

    Seems to me that if you're eating "at a deficit" to maintain your weight, then you're either trying to be a weight that's too low and you're fighting to stay there, or you've slowed your metabolism to the point where your maintenance appears to be a caloric deficit. Neither of those sound like fun to me.
  • Meaganandcheese
    Meaganandcheese Posts: 525 Member
    Wouldn't you eventually have to go into maintanance?
  • ElizabethRoad
    ElizabethRoad Posts: 5,138 Member
    Eating at a deficit, by definition, means you would keep losing weight. For the rest of your life. No thanks.
  • SueInAz
    SueInAz Posts: 6,592 Member
    It seems to me that there would come a point where that deficit is no longer technically a deficit. You can't keep losing weight forever. Your body will eventually get used to being underfed and you'd hit a balance point where you maintain a specific weight. The problem is, if you decided to eat more calories later, you'd start putting on weight pretty quickly.
  • ElizabethRoad
    ElizabethRoad Posts: 5,138 Member
    It seems to me that there would come a point where that deficit is no longer technically a deficit. You can't keep losing weight forever. Your body will eventually get used to being underfed and you'd hit a balance point where you maintain a specific weight. The problem is, if you decided to eat more calories later, you'd start putting on weight pretty quickly.
    You'd have to keep lowering it as you lose weight, but you can always eat less than you burn. Of course at some point you'd just die.
  • IveLanded
    IveLanded Posts: 797 Member
    I'm sick and tired of reading here and hearing in real life "oh but I can't do that forever" or "oh that's not sustainable" or like has been said in this thread that by eating in deficit I'm "underfed" or depriving myself.

    Hell yes I can continue to eat like this. I LOVE it. Hell yes I can work out daily for the rest of my life (as long as my body will let me!).

    If you can't that's on you.......don't apply that to the rest of us.
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,905 Member
    Our ancestors did it and survived or we wouldn't be here. The body is smart, so if it was taken up, one would somehow adapt.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal & Group FitnessTrainer
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    Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
  • spngebobmyhero
    spngebobmyhero Posts: 823 Member
    Restricting calories sometimes can be good for you, like with fasting, but wouldn't you waste away to nothing if you ate a deficit for your entire life?

    Also, if a certain number of calories is a deficit at 400 pounds, its not longer a deficit at 200 pounds. That is why MFP reduces calories as you lose weight. I wonder how they accounted for this in the study?
  • 0EmmeNicole0
    0EmmeNicole0 Posts: 180 Member
    Quite honestly i plan to eat at a deficit till i lose weight, then i plan to eat maintenance calories for the rest of my life. Hopefully after about two years or so I will know what 4 oz of meat looks like without having to measure it. After doing it for so long it's probably a lot easier to be able to properly eyeball measure so that it's not so tedious. I also plan to exercise on a regular basis for the rest of my life. But i also plan to eat cookies, and ice cream and movie theater buttery popcorn! In moderation you can still have whatever you want. There's nothing wrong with two cookies here or a scoop of ice cream there. So yes i have it in mind that i will be restricting my calories for the rest of my life, I'm just not going to obsess over it or talk about it with everyone. I'm not trying to be annoying about it.
  • cmayfield3
    cmayfield3 Posts: 176 Member
    You don't keep losing weight until you waste away to nothing... read the article or the OP... the goal is disease prevention and longevity, not weight loss. After a year or so of restricted calories, your weight stabilizes.
  • insatiable_need
    insatiable_need Posts: 127 Member
    Am I understanding correctly that the 25% reduction in calories was from what they needed to maintain their current weights at the time the study started? So that set number of calories is their deficit and that set number of calories would be what they would eat the rest of their lives, which would be attainable. Now if they kept reducing their intake by 25% every time it was no longer a deficit, then they would starve to death. Given that most people (those who do not suffer from some form of mental illness) will not do such a thing, then yes I could eat a 25% deficit until I reach that stabilized weight. But at that point, it would not be a deficit. It would be maintenance.
  • katysmelly
    katysmelly Posts: 380 Member
    Reading this article from NYT Magazine from a couple of years ago... in a nutshell, it is about a controlled experiment in which subjects of normal weight to slightly overweight reduce their calorie intake to 75% of TDEE for two years. During those two years, various vital signs are measured. The purpose of the experiment is to see whether calorie restriction reduces disease and increases longevity.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/magazine/11Calories-t.html?pagewanted=all

    (I know this just scratches the surface of the literature out there on calorie restriction.)

    Subjects lose about 15% of their body weight in the first year, and then the loss starts to taper off. But supposedly the longevity benefits come from eating reduced calories over a lifetime--not just two years. And all the subjects the interviewer talked to said they planned to continue eating reduced calories after the study is over.

    Could you eat this way for the rest of your life? Would you? The interesting thing to me is that most of the subjects didn't so much struggle with hunger as just with the tedium of having to measure and log everything they ate. I can see how that would really affect your lifestyle. On the other hand, it's what we're doing here, and after a while it becomes second nature.

    It's interesting that you posted this! I was just thinking about this earlier today. I think I read a similar article, and then I saw a brief mention of it somewhere this morning.

    I don't think I could do it, no. I couldn't handle the tedium of it all. And, I think I'd have trouble coping with all the many key social situations that centre on food.
  • MelissaGraham7
    MelissaGraham7 Posts: 406 Member
    You don't keep losing weight until you waste away to nothing... read the article or the OP... the goal is disease prevention and longevity, not weight loss. After a year or so of restricted calories, your weight stabilizes.

    Precisely - and the article that said eventually after the first year or so, the weight loss tapered off (i.e. what we call plateau but that may be a misnomer). I do exactly plan to keep on with my healthy lifestyle forever - including eating at a deficit and staying active and fit. That's why I won't try any type of "fad" plan that is not sustainable for the long term. I"m in this for EVER as I don't plan to ever put the weight back on. Technically, the "plateau" that I hit for the past year is just maintenance and I"m cool with that.
  • sweet110
    sweet110 Posts: 332 Member
    *sigh*. No, you wouldn't eventually die. Calorie counting may be a decent rule of thumb, but really people. Really? You think you'd die eating a little less than normal? No---your metabolism (the very important "calories out" part of the equation) would just adjust...downward.

    But as to the original question....no. I couldn't do it for the rest of my life. My goal in being healthy is to be happy and functional (and yes...look good!) while I'm alive. I accept that I will eventually die. So to eat a pretty stringent diet (and I've seen the plates of these calorie restricters...its pretty sparse), forever, in order to live a little longer? No thanks. I'd rather die sooner and enjoy food.
  • Marll
    Marll Posts: 904 Member
    Nope, because there is no reason to eat a deficit in the first place.
  • buzzcogs
    buzzcogs Posts: 296 Member
    I could get used to it I guess. I'm still struggling with getting used to it but the whole point is that very thin people are pretty much eating a calorie deficit all the time so it would just be a change in habits. I would get sick of measuring out my food however! ;-)
  • cmayfield3
    cmayfield3 Posts: 176 Member
    Also, if a certain number of calories is a deficit at 400 pounds, its not longer a deficit at 200 pounds. That is why MFP reduces calories as you lose weight. I wonder how they accounted for this in the study?

    That's a good question. I don't know how they accounted for this in the CALERIE study.

    If TDEE were linear, then if they lost 15% of body weight but ate at a 25% deficit based on original body weight, then they would still be eating at a deficit after the 15% loss, just a smaller one. Of course TDEE is likely not linear in this case.

    According to the article, 50% is the number at which lab animals begin to starve to death.

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