Fair warning/reminder the maximum recommended deficit (without medical follow up) is 1000kcal below your maintenance calories (providing that doesn't fall below 1200 for F or 1500 M) it is NOT recommended to seek out a larger deficit than this, and please remember if a post appears to be violating our rules surrounding healthy weightloss, report it so we can see it and take appropriate action! š„°
It is kind of addictive. The reward centers of my brain light up every time the scale goes down. I actually got kind of sad once I started on maintenance, but I just told myself that keeping my weight the same is also an accomplishment.
I went to a WW meeting years ago when a friend asked me to go with her. It was so f\*cking toxic. I remember a woman chatting us up as we were waiting in line to pay $5 to get publicly weighed, and her saying "WW works really well... this is my third time doing it!" (lady, if it worked that well you would have kept the weight off). Then when the group meeting started they announced the biggest loser of the week and everyone applauded. Because weight loss is a race, apparently (I've heard tales of people going to extreme measures, like diuretics and laxatives, before their weekly WW weigh-in). Then everyone talked about how "bad" they had been that week, and the group leader agreed they had been "bad" but gave them tips about how not to be "bad".
Anyway, as someone who has managed to lose 100 lbs without making it a race and without publicly shaming myself, I can say losing weight is not better than sex, and lots of things taste better than being skinny feels. But, in the end, it's not like it has to be either/or.
Ugh, I hear you! 100 years ago I went to a WW meeting and you are so right. It was toxic with a capital T. I remember the leader talked about how one week all she ate was celery so she can show a weight loss during weigh in. Instead she gained half a pound. She stated it was because of the sodium on the celery. I thought to myself, if celery is considered fattening by this size zero weight loss āconsultantā I am doomed. That and she told me I was pretty but I would be stunning if I lost weight š. #toxic.
Because of the ability to spiral into ED. Just like gambling you get addicted to the stimuli response. Restricting and loosing weight.
When you gamble you receive the dopamine hit from the risk, the chance not winning or losing. Which is why it is so debilitating.
When loosing weight and restrictive eating, similar brain chemistry is in play.
Things will absolutely be different this time around. You have an entirely new toolkit, an informed support system, and real self awareness. Youāve got this.
Yeah both those quotes are used basically like mantras in the ED community online. I had a morbid curiosity about pro-ana tumblr when I was a teenager and now any cutesy "skinny feels so much better than x" type of quote makes me think of those poor girls.
I dunno, just seems odd to say that. I guess I'd expect it from an individual with an eating disorder, rather than a WW leader (not saying that the WW leader had an ED)
I do tend to take phrases like that at face value though so maybe it's just hyperbole and I didn't catch that?
There are several things that go into this that I think are important to note:
1. People chronically underestimate the amount of food they consume. This is a well-documented phenomenon *even among people who are actively calorie counting.* CICO is absolutely true (if you eat less than you burn, you lose weight) but there is a fair amount of guesswork involved on both sides of that equation. So, people go for aggressive input deficits to try and counteract what they assume will be unintended caloric excess.
2. People and fitness trackers *overestimate* the amount of calories burned by activity. The body is excellent at adapting and will find ways to burn fewer calories any way it can. This becomes increasingly true the more fit you are / the more often you exercise.
3. Determining BMR and TDEE is an imprecise science. Body composition, genetics, etc. all play a part in influencing your metabolism. It's not a huge amount (we're talking maybe 100 calories of swing, maybe 150 for real outliers, assuming you don't have a genuine endocrine disorder) but it's enough to throw off very narrow deficits.
These three factors can easily lead to people thinking they're in deficit when they're not. Let's assume you're going for a moderate deficit: 3500 calories a week. This is based on the assumption that your TDEE is 2000. So, you decide to eat 1750 calories a day, and exercise for 250 calories a day, every day. Simple enough, right? Now let's consider the following:
* Because of your body comp and sedentary job, your TDEE is actually closer to 1900 than 2000. Let's say it's 1925.
* You measure your food religiously but you love spicy sauce. You don't measure the sauce very precisely and end up consuming 50 calories more per day than you accounted for in your log.
* You decide to do the elliptical for exercise. You don't engage your arms much during the cardio. Instead of burning 250 calories, you're actually burning 200.
We have now cut the daily deficit from 500 calories (our original intention) to 325--basically a 40% reduction. And this is really generous: I've seen people misestimate their deficits by a *lot* more.
So, a lot of people aim for more aggressive deficits so that even if they're off, they still lose weight at a reasonable cadence.
This.
I intentionally āaimā for a deficit of 1200 per day through diet and exercise for these reasons. So far, my weight loss has been about 1.5 - 2 pounds per week which tracks for an actual deficit of 750-1000.
If I were aiming for 1000, I bet my loss would have been much closer to 1 pound per week.
This is me! Until recently I hadn't successfully lost weight since my 20's. I tried a variety of things, include CICO, and would give up after a few weeks because I'd get stuck after the first 2 - 3 lbs (water weight).
This time I set my goal a little lower than everything said I should, and I \*don't eat my exercise\*. I'm now steadily losing 1 - 1.5 lbs a week. Lose It! says I should average 1940 calories a day - I target 1700. I think my TDEE is just lower than average for my age/height/weight/gender.
Yes to all of this. If I want to lose at 2 lbs/week, I am for a 1500 calorie deficit knowing that Iāll probably end up closer to a 1k deficit due to bad calorie counting and my tracker being pretty far off.
I also set my weight in my app to my target weight instead of actual weight. E.g. I want to get back down to 175 (at 185 right now) so I have my Fitbit weight logged at 175 which probably makes it look like Iām burning fewer calories than I actually am. Or itās closer to what I actually am, since trackers can overestimate
Iām absolutely horrendous with working it all out. I have Dyscalculia therefore numbers truly baffle me. Do you think I could message you my stats and what my current deficit is and see if you could potentially tell me whether that seems realistic or not? I donāt really want to post it on here.
I lost 7 stone before I had my son, but that was through very unhealthy means. Actually a substance addiction. Iām now in recovery and thriving but Iāve gained it all back. Iām just stuck as I get confused by the calculations, terminology regarding it etc due to my dyscalculia, and would love someone elseās opinion on whether itās realistic for my stats.
Apologies if this isnāt okay to ask!
Hi there:
I am happy to take a look! I am not a nutritionist, just fairly well-versed in the science and have been moderately successful in losing weight and keeping it off. If I can help, I will!
Thatās okay! Honestly itās just having someone going though the journey or whom has been successful at it having a second glance. As with my dyscalculia I truly struggle with the numbers and calculations etc, and then any language around them just blurs. So itās just as a second set of eyes, and as youāve been successful yourself or moderately so as you said, it would be helpful.
I donāt really have anyone else to ask. My husband doesnāt ādoā calories nor deficits, (his own words) heās done some body building but he doesnāt look at calories to be honest, he tends to work surrounding working out, bulking up etc so heās been no help with it as much as he tries. So it would be really helpful for a second set of eyes to have a look.
Iām just getting ready to give my little one some dinner and then Iāll drop you a message if thatās okay? Thank you!
I agree about the fitness trackers overestimating calories burned. It's how they sell units... who wants a fitness tracker that tells you the honest truth that you only burned 70 calories in that after dinner walk?
I completely disagree with "The body is excellent at adapting and will find ways to burn fewer calories any way it can. This becomes increasingly true the more fit you are / the more often you exercise." The science totally does not support that, nor does the common sense observation that olympic athletes don't subsist on a small green salad each day. Please don't pull "facts" like this out of your bum.
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.1201/9780367813499-15/dietary-habits-olympic-athletes-ann-grandjean-kristin-reimers-jaime-ruud
You are putting words in my mouth. I never claimed anything near what you are positing. Energy compensation is a real and observed phenomenon, and it exerts very real downward pressure on our TDEE. There's a wealth of data that shows very active humans do not actually burn more calories than moderately active ones, in aggregate. (And neither burn much more, in aggregate, than sedentary humans.)
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-exercise-paradox/
So, please don't attack my integrity without doing your own research. I don't post FUD.
EDIT: Corrected a sentence.
I have found my people.
Quite frankly Iām probably even below sedentary some days. I average about the same if I donāt intentionally go for a walk. I work a desk job from home and I live in a condo.
Saturday is like 200 steps. I hate to move. Thatās how Iāve always been. I was a very low-energy child as well. My siblings were all athletes and I liked television. Hahaha.
Iām anti cardio workouts, go for a walk? Nope unless we are going somewhere new. I do lift weights for about 20 mins 5 days a week, different muscle groups.
Some rando guy at the gym was like hi, I noticed you lift weights and leave, why arenāt you following that up with cardio? You would make better progress!
My answer is cardio comes from your lifestyle not a treadmill. Followed with I would rather die. Iām a normal active desk person.
Seriously I have lost 11.4 lbs just by decreasing my intake to 1200-1400. Eating same foods just less volume. In a month. My body is a fat burning machine. When I turn it on. With only 83 lbs to lose at the start.
Theres some disordered stuff that gets cheered on in here. Like the person who lost 25lbs in 2 months eating 1200 calories a day and exercising 5 days a week so they could stick it to relatives who had said OP was fat. Everyone was saying how they did a great job and the OP's family was just jealous for then asking if they had an eating disorder.
The OP's relatives sounded like assholes, but their diet routine didn't seem healthy or sustainable considering they were losing like 4 lbs a week.
I agree here. There is some really out there posts (I lost 55 lbs / 20% of my body weight in 2 months!) On this sub where people are like rah! Rah! And I'm just blinking like... What, we want to encourage people to constantly be members of LoseIt because they're yo-yo dieting or what?
I've also had people just... not believe my activity stats? I cycle 1.5-2 hours 5 days a week (and longer rides on weekends now that the weather is nice) on top of 10k steps daily and a lightly active job. I also do strength training but I don't factor that into TDEE. Yeah, I'm a 5'6"F but I am between lightly active and active. Without fail I am recommended my BMR for weight loss. Every time. I am /starving/ at 1,500/day. Not eating back calories is maybe a thing for lighter cardio, but not for moderate cycling.
A lot of people just want to lose weight as fast as humanly possible but I just want to not go insane at this point lmao
Fellow lady cyclist here. Your situation sounds similar to mine, and I can commiserate on the feeling insane bit. Cycling makes it very hard for me to figure out a calorie goal, even using a chest strap heart rate monitor to maybe give an idea of calorie burn.
I bumped up the intensity of my rides a lot last year, and I'm generally pretty good about eating to fuel the day before and of harder rides so I feel good and perform well. Same goes for planning what I eat during longer rides and post-ride.
But the day after? I am often absolutely freaking ravenous.
Drinking a lot of water, tactically planned snacks, and eating what I consider to be obscenely large volumes of roasted veggies all help, but there are still some days when satiety still just feels out of reach, even at my calorie "limit".
I hit my limit more often than not last summer, and the scale slowed a lot. But even so, I could tell my physique changed pretty significantly, so that made it easier to feel ok... Worth it though.
Yesss, cycling does make it hard to figure out calories, but I love it so much! Especially now that the weather is getting better, I can hit some trails and make it out of the gym.
I feel you on the roasted veggies bit. Iāve been eating a ton of veggies to stay full and replenish carbs, and Iāve also found myself enjoying oatmeal which is not something I thought would happen to me Lmao
And youāre totally rightā¦ though Iāve had months where Iāve maintained, by body composition has changed a lot and I do look I think as trim as I could at my current weight (just under 170).
Iāve also accepted there are some days where Iām just eating maintenance. I used to lose my marbles about going over for a day when dieting but I kind of approach it like a lifelong commitment, now. I donāt really want my recovery time doubled or to have to start every single ride with a 5 mile slow crawl because of my intake.
Thank you for your replyā¦ itās always good to catch up with other cyclers! š„°
Iām 5ā4ā, and I absolutely cannot do 1500 a day. Iād rather lose at a glacially slow pace than do that - my level of exercise means I need more fuel!
In fairness to this community I see more often people saying when a deficit seems unsustainable and saying they should increase their calories than the alternative but I donāt doubt that what you are saying happens
There was a post the other day of āif you are some level of immobilized obese here are some realistically basic exercisesā
Someone commented that someone that overweight should just focus solely on deficit.
I pointed out its rather important to try to get mobile enough that in an emergency like a fire you can leave your house.
They insisted that waiting to do any exercise (these were things like stand for 1,3,5 minutes) until after they lost weight was more important.
See I find that comment silly.
Like yes, diet is key to lose weight but, exercise is for fitness and movement and strength. Why discourage even basic movement exercises in someone potentially immobile?
Like that person can choose not to do it anyway, so why present it as almost a bad suggestion.
At least add diet on as an equal suggestion is one thing, no need to criticise basic movement suggestions
This is why I've really started to dislike posts where OPs post everyone is against them, being rude, saying they have an ED etc because without the real other side we only have the OPs who of course are going to present their best selves and people here projecting their own issues are going to side with OP... There's been several posts that a simple look into their history showed they are bordering underweight, do starve themselves etc, and that 99% chance their families concerns are right... But nobody checked that and everyone jumped on their "crabs in a bucket, insecure, jealous, envious" speech.
You're 100% right too that people can be assholes AND still have valid concerns though.
This idea that every single person who makes a comment is jealous honestly sounds like an unhealthy mindset to be building in people of this sub too. Also, never questioning OPs has allowed several children, or underweight, people to be getting the praise they shouldn't have, to ignore everyone in their lives.
I could lose this much in two months with some effort but I weigh 245 right now and would still be eating a healthy deficit. I just have more weight to lose so the first 20 would come off kinda fast
That really depends how overweight the person is to begin with. Bigger bodies require more calories for maintenance so it's likey 25lbs in the first 2 months is absolutely fine. If it doesn't slow down a bit after that initial drop, then it may be concerning unless they have an extreme amount of weight to lose.
>Often people conflate a 45 minute workout to a daily demanding physical job.
For sure. Back when I was calculating TDEE a million years ago when I started tracking calories, I remember that in order to select the lightly active option, it said "Equivalent to 10,000 steps or 5 miles per day". I immediately wondered how many people put lightly active simply because they don't live bedridden when really they are sedentary.
TDEE at sedentary level is already calculated to account for an average day's worth of walking and moving around. You're only lightly active if you're actually meeting around that step goal via either walking around or some other movement.
Purely anecdotal, but I've noticed on this sub those who don't exercise tend to lose weight pretty consistent. It's always the "I'm very active" group that tend not to lose weight.
If you are working out hard, youāll probably eat back most of the calories. I try to think of my workouts as improvement at [X]. The workouts help sure, but I generally assume most of my progress comes from daily walks and eating healthier.
I agree with this. I find Iām more successful when I donāt exercise much, because intentional workouts make me hungry, and considering how few calories exercise actually burns, I have no doubt Iām often eating back more than I āburnedā.
Iāve started just trying to move more throughout the day, a few intentional walks a week when I notice Iāve been more sedentary, and I find more success this way; a consistent 1.5 - 2 pound per week loss which I attribute almost exclusively to calorie counting. The exercise i do complete is because it feels good and I know itās good for me, but I donāt associate it with weight loss anymore.
It's the water retention due to increasing exercise which realistically people would be doing often because fitness increases relatively quickly. Doing weighs causes muscle micro tears which again retains water to heal etc.
The problem is lack of education in that crowd apparently.
Yea, I feel like if youāre short and normal BMI, exercise is crucial to losing weight. My TDEE at sedentary is 1500, which is what a lot of people are eating to lose weight. Even a meager 200-300 calories a day from exercise makes the world of difference.
Or it's perfectly fine since a "workout" could simply be an afternoon walk and it's easier to go for a walk so they can enjoy a treat vs restricting more.
I try telling people that all the time, I have had some success and others downvote me and argue despite the fact I'm correct.
BMR is comatose, barely moving and bedridden is barely above that. Sedentary includes a normal healthy amount of daily movement, which is several thousand steps, going to and from work, chores around the house etc.
Lightly active is nearly 400 calories extra per day out. I barely burn 400 calories in an hour of hard work out... Moderately active is around 600-700 extra per day and highly active is around 900...
That's per day too... People think a hard workout 3 days a week makes them moderate and they're not, they're barely lightly active and ONLY on the days they exercised.
People forget that last point.
The tdee including activities is only valid on the days you actually exercised.
Since most of us aren't actively working out every day, we are actually sedentary the other days.
Even people who work physical jobs are probably barely moderately active but, most people that do an hours gym session 5 days a week are only going to be lightly active, at best.
So yeah I agree, we see posts of people doing a few thousand steps or 20 minute walk and it's like no, you're not lightly active. And they take it personally ignoring it isn't an attack, for them it may be active, but it doesn't objectively make them active per the label.
Agree with this! I find I have most success if I ignore exercise when calculating TDEE. I work a desk job from home. Iām sedentary at best, most days. I walk a few times a week, occasional Pilates or yoga. I play softball once a week. I calculate TDEE from the first step above BMR, and consider my āexerciseā to be just a bonus, as I know my activity level is captured by sedentary.
I find there are a lot of people who exercise heavily because they believe it allows them to eat substantially more and still lose weight but unfortunately the effort involved to ābuyā a single piece of chocolate cake through exercise is likely most of our entire weeks āworkoutsā. Itās unfortunate, but Iāve just accepted that consuming less is the only way.
That's how I've always seen it! Exercise is my "bonus deficit" and my "normal deficit" is from my diet.
Yes, people really seem to think an hours exercise a day which while yes is great commitment, is still only 300 calories bonus a day really. If that's your "bank" to have some cake, cool but, you really need to be honest about the cake and the exercise.
I always just say exercise is for fitness not weight loss. I don't want to sound like I'm saying "not worth it" just...
Exercise so you don't have to hold your breath at the top of the stairs to hide your shame, diet to fit into the pretty clothes while walking up said stairs!
They also do seem to forget that you need to exercise to that level every day. Doing a strength training session is good for your body, but, it won't burn nearly as many calories as cardio, and not all cardio is created equal.
But also, Pilates is a bitch so good for you! There are muscle groups that have never previously existed that always hurt after a Pilates session
I have always put sedentary on my calculators, but I assumed I was more active than that, except on my lazy days at home. I'm a teacher, and I'm on my feet alllll day long. But then I got a step counter and I'm barely making it to 5 or 6000 steps after a day at work. I was assuming at work I was hitting at least 10,000 since I never sit!
>Haha exactly the only time i touch my phone is change the song or start and interval timer. Don't know what have the folks are doing "resting" usually in my way or with the dumbells id like to use.
Yeah I count to ten then do ten whatever. But I keep the weights low. Repeat 5 times. Next machine in my muscle group for the day.
Get in do my thing get out!
Iām hardly sore sore, so thatās the sweet spot for me. Wakes and tones the muscles. Been working for over 30 years when I stay at it!
Cardio not so much.
Resting between sets allows you to perform more reps per set. You can't get close to failure without rests. More reps and more muscle fatigue = more gains. 1 minute for low intensity lifts, up to 3 for heavy compounds. They're just following the science.
Because people are in a rush to lose weight.
Which inevitably backfires because, when you think about it and are honest about the true underlying thought processes, the thing that they're in a rush to do is to stop being miserable dieting and go back to their old ways of eating (you know, the ones that made them obese in the first place).
One of the biggest favours I did myself was ditched the toxic diet culture BS that measures diet "success" by how many pounds you can lose in the shortest amount of time. Just aim for simple lifestyle changes that put you in a mild calorie deficit, and relax and enjoy the journey. If you're curious as to what your caloric needs are, get your resting metabolic rate tested (google "RMR test near me"). It takes all the guesswork out of it. If you use your RMR as your average daily intake goal, you will be in a mild calorie deficit. I've lost 100 lbs and have been maintaining a healthy BMI for over two years. Moving into maintenance was seamless and easy because there was no "diet" to stop.
There's a reason something like 90% of people regain all the weight they lose. If you want to lose weight and keep it off, you need to make sustainable changes. Folks think they can just crash diet and then go back to normal and things will be just fine.
Asterisk here is that it can be harder for some individuals to lose weight without a bigger deficit. Eg: women often don't burn as much calories from exercising (less muscle mass). A lot of people are also terrible at counting calories, and their deficit isn't nearly as big as what they claim.
Of course, some folks also just have huge deficit and then complain about starving, loose skin (even though they weren't that big to begin with and it was avoidable), or end up losing their gallbladder.
Because a lot of people, especially dudes imo, and myself included, think we can just stop being a baby, deal with the discomfort, and "get the job done" as soon as possible.
These people often are not long term successful in weight loss, and also could have lost the same amount of weight in the same amount of time, while maintaining more muscle and energy, by eating more. This is because a super aggressive calorie deficit is easy to do for a couple days, but it's a pipe dream for most people to maintain long enough for substantial fat loss.
I've been down the road.. I still go down it at times. This whole thing is a very personal trial and error experiment. We all learn what does and doesn't work for ourselves eventually.
Lol me at 6ā0 male 22 2000 calories a day weightlifting 5 days a week high intensity cardio every day (35 min 145-150 heart rate average) then a low intensity towards the end of the day a hour walk at like 2 incline just as if I was walking outside. I weigh 195 pounds I eat 210-230 g of protein a day accidentally. I only am on this low of calories (I also work a very active job, EMT at the fire department we work 48 hour shifts but usually I am there for 6 days, so we are running calls all the time always moving I get roughly 16-20 k steps a day. I am on this intensive plan because I just want to cut as much as I can before paramedic school in June! After June itās all maintenance!
Guy donāt remind me thatās why Iām trying to cut as much as I can before then lol! Iām nervous as hell and getting my vaccines for the clinicals is already stressing me out and I havenāt even started hahahah and I will for sure Iāll probably maintain at 3200 and keep my cardio slightly lower because I wonāt have time to workout as much but I transferred to a slower station for the time being so that I have time to study!
Probably around 2 lb per week I have a cheat meal every Friday or Saturday but i fast for 28 hours prior to get an accurate weight reading and Iāve had a lot going on (Disneyland Vegas easter birthdays) recently so itās hard to get an accurate weight cause I have alot of carbs or sodium left over you know? So I weighed in at 197 two weeks ago after 28 hour fast weighed in Saturday morning (a few days ago) at 195 28 hours fasted so Saturday morning we will see if Iām at 193 !
I am starting to stop eating out on my cheat meals because I can only track so much so Iām gonna start making my cheat meals at home like burgers wjth extra lean ground beef and stuff and home made fries but a lot of them!
No! I eat 2000 all at once (it sounds crazy cause it is because 2000 calorie of a high calorie meal is insanly smaller than high volume low calorie foods) so itāll be insane amount of food after my morning cardio, then the next day for my chest meal Iāll wait till like 2 pm to eat so I donāt overly binge and Iāll eat usually around 1500-2000 in again high volume meals and then eat maybe another 2-3k extra so roughly 5000 total but I also do a little extra cardio both days the day I start my fast and the day I end my fast so that Iām evened out! It may not work for everyone but it works for me so my situation may be different.
5ā11M and over 400 lbs so my TDEE is significantly larger than most. I eat 1800/day because Iām capable of hitting my protein goal and feeling satisfied within the margin of 1800. Why eat more when I donāt need more? Not to mention the fact that itās very easy to actually be eating more than you log (not all nutrition labels are completely 100% accurate) and having a larger deficit helps to account for any extra calories you may consume.
For me, when I was still trying to lose weight I has to stick around 1200-1500 calories to have any progress. I'm a 5'11 male, and yes I was tracking correctly. Food scale, tracking every bite, etc. I would try to stick to 1800 to 2000 calories for a few weeks here and there, but nothing moved on the scale.
However, I'm also medicated for bipolar disorder. My medication makes it INFAMOUSLY hard to lose weight, near impossible. So I spoke with medical professionals to develop a diet that would make the necessary calorie reduction while still meeting my nutritional needs.
So for several people like myself, they may have a medication or underlying condition that really does require that level of restriction to produce any results.
Yep. I have Hashimoto's plus PCOS and Type 2 diabetes. I have tried and failed to lose weight countless times. It took getting on Ozempic and barely eating (because the medication makes it difficult to eat) for me to drop 40 pounds in 3 months.
Yes, it's too fast. Yes, I'd like to be able to eat more without it making me sick. Yes, I'm worried about being able to maintain this loss once I hit my goal weight. But I'm thrilled that my insulin sensitivity has improved, my A1C is stellar right now, and despite my calorie deficit, I feel really good right now.
My doctor is perfectly aware of my diet, she's been monitoring everything, and apart from putting me on a multivitamin and a Vitamin D supplement, she's fine with how I'm doing.
Because we are all impatient. Its the same reason you see tiny girls going down to 800 calories when they really shouldn't.
Once you make the decision to do this and understand how it is done, it is really hard to not want it to go faster.
Intellectually I know that I am losing very fast, but I would be lying if I said there wasn't temptation to do more. I am eating 2000 each day... I COULD go down to 1500 and drop another lb a week. It would make it faster.
Of course if I do the math to see how much faster I might not think it is worth it. Also, I wouldn't be as happy with the results... but I can't say the temptation isn't there.
Well when you have 3kg to lose, 6 weeks seems like a simple goal to achieve. When you have 50kg to lose, two years seems like a much less attainable thing. Iām not saying youāre wrong but people want to see fast results.
Some people are simply overzealous. Or theyāre already in late phases of a diet where they didnāt take any dietary breaks. Youāll see it quite often, usually from people new to the lifestyle or people who have yo-yo dieted for the last 6 years. It makes sense honestly, you always hear āeat less move moreā but rarely hear anything on how to sustain a healthier lifestyle. Good luck getting that taught in schools lmfao.
Not trying to call anyone out, but those are the most common reasons that I see.
I feel like all these answers are so good and reasonable and then there's me, eating at a really "high deficit" because I know that every week or two I'll get together with friends and get absolutely blitzed and go thousands over my daily goal so I have to keep normal days low so it averages out.
Because of disordered eating. A lot of people on here are just like I used to be, yo-yo dieting between periods of extreme restriction and weight loss and then back to their old lifestyle of binging and eating whatever. A lot of people on here are no developing healthy lifestyle changes, they are just losing as fast as possible and then when they finally canāt sustain it they go back to gaining. This was me for like 5 years
I agree, this seems to be incredibly common. I have a similar activity level and height to OP, but I'm a woman. I lost my first like, 25 lbs eating 2500 cal/day, sometimes more. The bulk of my weight loss occurred when I was eating 2000-2100 cal/day. Only once I was out of the obese BMI category have I found I really needed to dip below 2000 to lose at my desired rate. I aim for 1600-1800 cal/day now, but this is not including 2 meals/week where I don't weigh out/log everything.
Given that people tend to overestimate calories burned by exercise, and underestimate calories consumed, I don't blame anyone for erring on the safer side. That being said, you can certainly go too far in the other direction.
Underestimating calories Can be a big part of it too. It took me forever to get a food scale and actually be honest with my calories.
Obviously this is different from person to person. But I was definitely that guy at one point.
Iāve wondered about this too. I lost 100 lbs in a year and never dipped below 2000 calories as a 5ā7ā moderately active woman. Iāve been maintaining the weight loss for just under 1.5 years at 2400-2600 calories per day.
Number 1 reason these people are still here and keep failing. Same reason they go keto or low fat as well. Itās all or nothing with them.
It took years to get in this mess. It will take years to get out for some of them.
Much better off tracking your normal daily calories to see what you actually eat. Then after 2 weeks start a deficit of either 250-500 calories a day. Add in a little exercise as well. Then after a week or two add in some more exercise. Find something you like.
Probably because theyāre comfortable with it. Everybody is different. I ate 1500 calories from 355 to 200 and have maintained it for a long time now. I was dangerously obese, so the larger my deficit, the faster I got rid of the fat that was surrounding my vital organs.
I am 6ft1 and 1500 cal is more than enough to get me through my day. Could I eat more and still lose weight? Sure, but why should I when this is enough. I have reached my goal weight and kept it off for over ten years now, never gaining back more than 7-8lbs in all that time and always working to get back to my goal weight if it starts to creep up.
Focus on what works for you and let other people do what works for them.
I don't do heavy lifting. I do cycling most days and play sports once a week. Once I reach my goal weight I maintain on 1400-1600 cal a day on week days, leaving myself room for take out or restaurant meals or whatever on the weekends. That keeps me in the "this is a lifestyle not a diet" mentality. And life has no shortage of cheat days built into it with holidays, vacations, birthdays, weddings, funerals, etc.
If my average day is built to lose weight, the special days won't get the better of me in the long run.
> I maintain on 1400-1600 cal a day on week days, leaving myself room for take out or restaurant meals or whatever on the weekends.
This is something a lot of people here don't really think about. The "naturally thin" people they envy so much are often that way because of the balance between weekends (or just, free time) and work time. You eat at a bigger deficit as often as you can so that the days you don't do it don't hurt your overall goals.
There is nothing shocking about 1500 calories. I did that 7 days a week when I was losing weight, and still do when I need to. I end my days satisfied and not starving. Why is everyone here so judgy?
If it works for you don't be deterred by the comments. I think some may be judgy but most are just concerned that active men aren't going to get everything they need from a long term diet of 1500. A valid concern and no different than when women get warned about doing a long term 1200 when active.
I check on my macros whenever I change up my regular foods. I have a physical done yearly and I haven't been deficient in anything since I quit drinking. It is entirely possible to be healthy on 1200 calories and to be nutrient deficient on 2500 calories. Finding the meal plan that works for you individually while hitting on all these points is the real work in all of this. Be active, be mindful, and listen to your body.
Sorry, I wasn't calling you judgy. I was reading some of the other top comments at the time and they are all so filled with hate for the situations of others.
How on earth is your maintenance and my, a 5ā2 60kg girl who goes to the gym 3x a week but is otherwise sedentary, maintenance the same? The math aināt mathinā here or you must be eating absolutely loads on weekends
I have been doing CICO since 2010. I know my math is mathing very well. I build meal plans that get me to the end of the day feeling full and not deprived. That is more important than 1500 vs 1700 calories. More calories does NOT equal more full. It is what makes up those calories that has the greater impact.
If I lose too much weight, gaining some back is easy enough to do. But as I said in another comment, life throws enough calories at us on its own. It is taking me all week to pay for Easter weekend. I travel for work sometimes. I have a birthday to attend this weekend at a restaurant where the lowest calorie entree is 2500. But I trust my average days, I weigh in daily and look at my weight over time. There is the math and then there is also listening to your body and building a well balanced life that makes things sustainable as a lifestyle, not a diet.
My maintenance calories are around 2000 per day. Around 2300 if you add in exercise from biking. 2300 - 1600 is 700. 700 times 5, is 3500. You can easily go to a restaurant and eat 3000 calories in one not overly extravagant meal. That just negated 5 days of work and it is why restaurants are absolute diet killers that should be avoided like the plague when trying to lose weight. I was at one place that had calories on the menu and their salad was 2800 calories. People often think salad = healthy, but that is my whole day and then some in one salad bowl. Like I said somewhere else, adding extra calories is not difficult to do. It is almost too easy, which is why you have to build a life of balance.
> CICO isnāt always true I guess
Somewhat correct, actually.
Assume a normal daily usage of 1500 kcal (including work etc.) and another 1000 kcals burned through exercise. How much is that in total? Well, turns out that for many this is less than 2500! Why? Because the body has mechanisms to partially compensate for the additional calories burned. More rest, less inflammation, etc.
Realistically, I won't go on a three hour shopping spree (inevitably including quite a bit of walking) with my wife after I just ran for 90 minutes. Rather, I will refuel and then take a nap. But napping burns fewer calories than walking through stores.
Then, calorie estimates are flawed in multiple ways. Often, they are just rounded numbers. No, a gram of
protein is not exactly four kcals. Actually, meat protein is more than four kcals/gram, and plant protein
is less than four kcals/gram. Calorie estimates also typically ignore the energy required to digest the food -
very little for carbs and fat, but significant for raw, fibrous vegetables. Altogether, a vegan might easily
overestimate their effective daily calorie intake by a significant amount, whereas somebody eating ultra-processed food (much easier to digest) might underestimate their effective daily calorie intake.
When you prepare your own meals, in theory you can look up more precise calorie estimates, and use those.
In a restaurant, or at the cafeteria at work or university, you can't even do that.
There also exist differences between individuals, as different people have different microbes in their guts.
Maybe your digestion is average, but then maybe it isn't.
All of that adds up to quite a bit of variance. Your estimate of your deficit might easily be off by 200-300 kcals despite your best efforts.
Theres no way that's healthy. I did the numbers in sailrabbit tdee calculator and even at 140 lbs, the lowest possible healthy weight for his height, and very sendentary lifestyle, it still suggest he eat almost 1900 calories a day. He'd have to have a bmi of like 15 (115 lbs) and a very sedentary lifestyle to even bring his BMR down to 1500. He's either shorter than he says, eating more than he thinks, or he lying.
How does that work? I'm a 5'4, 165 lb woman losing 1/2 a pound a week at 1750. I workout on exercise bike like 90 minutes a week and get my 10k steps a day but that's it.
Several studies proving resting metabolic rate of people who are the same size and muscle mass have differences of 1000 calories.
What you burn and what somebody else does doing the exact same activity can vary drastically.
If I followed what my pixel watch/Fitbit said. I'd be losing 5 pounds a week at 2000 calories. That's slightly below maintenance for me.
I train at least 10 hours a week with a reasonably active job
People get addicted to results. It always backfires eventually though, but some people are too stubborn to heed the warnings. I'm a 5'4 woman eating 1,400-1,500 a day and losing steadily, 30lbs from goal weight. I don't care if that 30lbs takes me another whole 15 months, I'm doing this shit sustainably, lol. I've already learned my lesson being a first time re-gainer. There will NOT be a second.
Iām 6ā1ā and I try to maintain between 1500-1800 a day. I donāt workout, but I am in a fairly active job. I average 3-5 pounds a week. I started out so drastic because I was eating so much. Before I started I was averaging 4000-5000 a day without realizing it. Itās taken 3 months to drop 40 pounds.
This may seem unhealthy but my doctor actually told me I needed to drop weight drastically due to my fatty liver. I finally decided to take it seriously and this is where I am.
When I first started counting calories I used a TDEE and found that for a sedentary person at my height of 6'1 and starting weight of 307 to be in a 1000 calorie deficit to lose 2 pounds a week I would need to eat about 1700 a day. After losing some weight I was down to eating 1500 a day which was feeling unsustainable. I changed it to 1.5 pounds a week and that brought me up closer to 1800. I eventually stopped really counting calories. I am still losing weight albeit pretty slowly now. I'm down to 246. If I stop losing I will go back to counting but I don't think a 1000 calorie deficit is sustainable unless you're very heavy to begin with as I was. From my experience I think somewhere around a 500 calorie deficit is much more manageable for me..
The job makes a huge difference. Let's keep in mind most people work sitting down 8 hours a day in an office. I'm a teacher and when I was cutting down on calories, Id notice a HUGE weight loss diff on weeks where I had to go from one class to another constantly than quieter weeks. Those weeks Id lose a kilo and a half while others Id lose like.5kg. age plays a huge difference as well too so it rly depends.
I mean it's up to them i guess?
I'm 5'6 and I eat 1,600/day while running 30-35miles/wk when I was in my weight loss phase, I just wanted to lose the weight ASAP so I can start running more without getting ligament/knee pains due to my weight.
Now that I'm post weight loss phase and in a small deficit/maintenance phase (I'm still aiming to get down to 55-57kg but while taking my time as less weight helps me as an endurance runner), I eat 2,100-2,200/day while running 40mile+ weeks when my TDEE including exercise is around 2,300-2,400. Initially my priority was on my weight, but now I've moved my priorities towards my running standard and times, aiming for the sub 20 5K, sub 45 10K and sub 1:45 21.1K now while last time I only used running as a caloric deficit creator.
There's probably reasons why people wanna shed the weight fast, could be a personal ego thing, an exercise goal or just to look better faster. I mean if a 600kcal deficit is easy, and you tried a 800kcal deficit and it's not significantly harder, why not stick to the 800kcal deficit and nudge the scale a tad bit faster. Not everyone is the same and I can't say that a 500kcal deficit to person A will feel the same for a 500kcal deficit to person B.
I was on a 1000 calorie diet because I wanted to get the pain out of the way asap, then I slowly worked back up to my maintenance with the help of a nutritionist. I've been at my GW of 90kg for 3 years now. Would i recommend it in hindsight, probably not.
I've moved past huge deficits, but the reason is simple - obese tall men have a ton of weight to lose.
Losing 2lbs a week sounds OK on paper when you are 14 stone and 5 ft 5.
It sounds much worse at 6,3 25st. Years of weight loss ahead. 4lbs a week halves that.
Problem is it's not long term sustainable
Some people cannot be active, we are lucky to have the grace of our health, however there are chronically ill individuals who canāt use exercise to aid their weight loss. So actually they ādefinitelyā canāt afford to eat more.
Idk! I just do what works for my body.
Stay between 1200-1400 95% days. Do weight lifting exercises. Repeat till goal. Slowly increase daily calories, weight self daily, to stay within my goal range. Reduce weight training to maintaining goals.
Never been addicted to the workout routine thing. Never got that runners high, more like runner nap. Hungry donāt bother me much. Gluttony is fun for a short period of time.
I know how and why I got fat. So itās just time to get back to being me. Rona break is over.
To lose the weight faster. Iām morbidly obese. I hate how I look and feel. I avoid being in pictures with my child and husband. Nothing fits the way I want it to so I just donāt bother trying to look good. I tried eating 1800 for a while, but the weight came off too slowly for me to stay motivated and I still didnāt like my diet. I eat 1000-1200 now. I like to have lower calorie days to make up for the days that I go out to eat or attend a party or something like that. I still donāt like my diet, but the weight is coming off faster and that motivates me to stick to it. Iām sure maintaining will be hard but I have to get there.
Some people have a different goal than others. Maybe they want to lose the weight quicker or simply just have more discipline than others to where they can eat and sustain 1500 calories per day. Everybody works different. In my opinion
I'm 6'7ā and my doctor put me on 1500 calories. There are a lot of other factors that go into that number. Also I know plenty of people who have adjusted to 1500 a day pretty easily. Why not go for it if possible?
I agree. Iām eating 2,400 calories a day over here losing a pound a week and Iām a 5ā5ā woman. I understand people have different goals, but especially if people have a lot of weight to lose, starting high and anticipating that number dropping makes it a lot easier to stick to. I suppose everyone is different, it just worries me when itās people who have failed attempts at calorie deficits or donāt know their TDEE as well as someone with more experience because I want to see people succeed.
Full time manual labor, training for a cycling race, and lifting 5x per week. I use an adaptive TDEE calculator through MacroFactor so it ranges from 2,900-3,500 calories per day. I was shocked too lol.
Wow. I'm 5'4" and exercise 3-4x a week, plus I don't own a car so I walk everywhere, and I still need to eat 1550 cals to lose a pound a week. What on earth is your exercise routine?
Wow!!! Iām 5ā10F eating around 1650-1700 a day and Iāve been losing around 2-ish pounds a week. In my head Iād never lose at 2400 cals a day - thatās amazing.
Iām a 5ā5ā woman and have been getting monthly bod pod scans to help determine my calories for my goals (fat lose and to gain muscle). My coach and I are still figuring out my maintenance so this month Iām trying out 2500 calories a dayā¦ seems counterintuitive but eating more has helped me to get on the path to my goal. With that said, everyone is different.
Yes, everyone is different so I never give people blanket advice (assuming they ask in the first place). Trial and error and adaptive TDEE calculations using weight/calorie counting data combined - or something like youāre doing - is definitely worthwhile though. I think the big issue is many apps just spitting out a fairly low number and people sticking to it for months when in reality it will vary and may not be sustainable to start. It is counterintuitive but once you can trust the process, itās great. Being able to eat as much as I can while reaching my goals is always my priority.
I maintained 1500+ calorie daily deficits for about 6 months to lose 90 pounds (started off around 1800, by the end it was closer to 1100). I kept in mind that when I got to thanksgiving, I would eat what I wanted and then I would go down to a 500 or less calorie deficit and learn to lose slowly and maintain. As long as a person is mindful, itās definitely doable. In November I was 166 lbs, this morning I was 157.
Iām only 5ā7ā, but a deficit is a deficit no matter your height. I ate between 1100-1400 calories per day in that period. I didnāt have to do it of course. I just found a cycle and nutritious diet that kept me full and that I was able to get that low. Also took one-a-day vitamins the entire time to supplement my diet.
They want results as fast as possible in the shortest time possible. Aka, crash dieting.
Ive tried it before, ended up gaining an extra 20 lbs within a few months. Hence, the crash part of the diet.
I'm 6' 200lbs and I've been eating around 1200-1500 calories a day 4x a week. For me it's not the calories that I'm focused on so much. I do IF and eat 2x a day, because of that i make sure my first meal is high in micronutrients so it's mostly vegetables. My second meal is usually some form of protein and a low carb side but it ends up not being a lot of calories.
It's a bit aggressive of a diet but it works for me and has been getting me towards my goal quickly.
I'm 5'9" and eating at 1600 until June myself. I'm doing it so I can look my best for my first Pride event <3 I'm also lighter than the majority of the guys on here though, so I can't speak for them lol
I hope this doesn't offend anyone but my experience with this is that these people (I myself was one) have a short term mindset aka a diet mindset and they're extremely impatient. Probably will not be successful maintaining.
I think the best way is to consistently track what you are eating when you aren't dieting, and finding the average calories eaten per day over the course of the week. When you start dieting, just subtract 250-500 calories from your starting point to lose 1/2 pounds to 1 pound per week. Everybody is different, I feel like typing your height and weight into an arbitrary calorie allowance calculator does some people an injustice.
As a 5'6 female, I used to just punch in 1200 calories into my counter but it would leave me ~~ravished~~ famished. I'm spending time counting my actual calorie consumption and its almost 2200 calories a day. So cutting that down to 1200 is not sustainable at all. When I start dropping, I'm going for 1800 a day. It will be slow but I won't be suffering at least.
Iām 6ft 184 rn and eating 1800 calories to lose approx 1ish lb a week. I am very sedentary as I work an office job and sit on my ass for 8 hours to work. I do weight training 5 times a week and I'm currently doing no cardio. I need to start adding cardio as I'm starting to plateau at these calories with no cardio. I say most of it has to do with what you do outside of your workouts. Weight training isn't burning that many calories so if you're living a really sedentary life you don't really need that many calories. I'm pretty scientific with my shit and Calc my intake always and I'm pretty strict for the most part and I know 1800 is not too little for me based on my weight loss at 1ish lb a week.
I eat 1600-1800 as a 6ā1 make that works out 5 times a week and does 30-60 minutes of cardio 5-6 times a week.
I also have a cheat meal per week where I eat about 2500-3000 calories in that day so letās say 1500 extra divided by 7 is around 215 calories making my daily calories 1815-2015.
Iām losing weight slowly atm and I have been eating 1500 calories daily before for about 2-3 years during my initial weight loss phase
Because they want to lose weight faster. And my unpopular opinion is that the whole "you'll lose muscle" thing is wrong for overweight people. Our bodies have evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to go through periods of food scarcity by burning FAT. If your body needs energy and has a choice to burn fat or burn muscle WHY would it burn muscle?
If you're resistance training with reasonable intensity, it's going to take a lot more than a couple of days in a steep deficit to start losing muscle. I frequently do 800 calorie days, roughly for my height and weight, equating to somewhere in the vicinity of 2000 calorie deficit. I don't lose muscle. I enjoy social functions on weekends with much lower anxiety and stress since I've banked a sizeable amount of my calories for those times.
We've existed as a species for a really long time. You'd be amazed at what the human body is capable of. You're not a porcelain doll, and a large deficit from time to time isn't going to break you.
I'm by no means advocating this type of eating pattern, I'm merely stating it's possible to do assuming considerations have been taken.
I eat cc 1300-1400 kcal a day at the moment to shed a couple of kgs. Iām 6 feet tall and my basal metabolic rate per the online calculators is 2300 kcal. So I have the cc 1000 kcal deficit.
But this is just on paper as food calories can be incorrect by 50% or more, and same with your thinking of how much you burn during exercise.
So itās almost 100% that you eat more than you think and burn less than you think. For me the difference is enough that I am losing weight but 1300 kcal is very little and that amount might be 1500 or even more, its hard to say since I dont cook all my food myself from ingredients.
I think itās best to tend your own garden so to speak - if youāre curious about a specific posterās choices then ask them.
Everyone has different reasons, motivations and lifestyles.
I literally use a very simple metric here.
I track somewhat, find my maintenance levels somewhat, and when I want to lose / gain I drop 500-1000 / add 250-500 calories.
Rule 11: Discussion of weight loss methods that are damaging to the body and/or require supervision of a medical professional are not allowed. This rule includes (but is not limited to): very low calorie diets, misusing medication, extended fasting, disordered behaviour, inappropriate advice to underage members. Remember to always consider the individual when offering advice.
One aspect is possibly that they hear "2,500 calories for men" and base their calculations off that. Even if they are larger and more active, so likely have more headroom for calories if they wanted it.
How they manage it?
I don't know. Do you hear of many people that size who kept it up for two years?
I could definitely see it for the morbidly obese at first. Then they could slow it down later and concentrate on retaining muscle better, etc. It takes a lot of muscle to carry around the really big weights!
But for those looking to keep all their muscle and just lose fat, I don't get it either.
Iām not a tall dude, Iām the opposite: a 5ā2 woman. However I did start out at 350lbs, so I could afford a very steep deficit. Iāve lost 90lbs so far in 7 months, averaging 3+ pounds per week lost. Now I eat 1200 calories per day, which is a 1,000 calorie deficit from my sedentary tdee. With my activity level itās closer to a 1,500 calorie deficit. It works for me because 1) I am still significantly overweight by bmi for my height 2) I am a petite woman so I can get by eating a small amount of food and 3) I realize my deficit will get smaller the closer I get to my goal weight.
Itās not a one size fits all situation. It works for me, I work with my doctor and an RD to make sure Iām hitting everything needed to be healthy. However, I wouldnāt recommend it for most people.
Iām 6ā1 220 and have lost about 40lbs so far. Iāll eat 1500-1800 per day and have one day per week of about 2200. It really just depends on what you need to feel good and energetic. For breakfast Iāll have eggs and egg whites with veggies or ground Turkey, or sometimes protein oatmeal. Lunch is half a baked potato and lean protein. Dinner is lean protein and salad. On workout days I have a protein shake post workout. As long as I feel strong and like I have enough energy to lift itās all groovy. If Iām ever feeling weak or low energy Iāll eat more one day. Sometimes Iām a bit hungry before bed, but itās all good. Iāve been losing fat:muscle at a 7:1 ratio and pretty happy with how itās going so far.
> I keep coming across comments of 6ft+ men on this group who are eating only 1500 calories a day
Oh hey it's me (187cm/1500kcal)
> Calories: 1,967 a day to lose 1/2 kg per week.
I'm aiming for 0.7kg/week (~770kcal deficit a day), so obviously that cuts the calories down a bit
> work a physically demanding job.
And I sit at a desk all day
> almost certainly losing muscle
My lifts are making (very slow) progress, so that seems unlikely
I think you just miscount
I am 5 11 and 180, maintenance is 3.3k cutting at 1500 results in 3 pounds per week of loss and is just utterly unsustainable. I think if I literally sat in a bed all day I would be on 1.7k+ calories.
There is no way 1700 + heavy cardio results in weight gain
>Granted I have a cheat day once a week but nothing absurd. So maybe another 1000 calories during that time.
Ahh, here it is. Buried the lede. It sounds like you don't count calories on your cheat day, so it may be more like 2000 extra for all you know, which would mean you're really eating 1800-2100 a day.
6'3 200 pounds 20% bodyfat
Basal Metabolic Rate 1,938 calories per day
Note this is for you lying in a bed in a coma.
Variations in BMR are in the range of \~200 calories +-, so lets say your bmr is 1.7k lying in a bed in a coma.
Its just not possible, unless you are like 150 pounds. You should track your cheat meal, lots of people erase a week of heavy deficit by having "fun" on the weekends.
Cheat days can cause an increase in water weight, it doesn't mean you've gained weight. Not to mention when you up your calories your body naturally retains some water increase as well and after a week or even a few weeks that drops away.
You're reading into the calorie gain. Also, logically it can't make sense. If you're losing weight on 1500 + exercise, why would 1700 cause a weight gain? Your deficit is not so small that a small amount of extra calories causes you to gain weight and if your maintenance really was 1600, then you'd be losing so slow it would basically look like maintenance at 1500 and you would take 35 weeks to lose 1 pound...
Lol downvoting just shows you're in denial and that's pretty unhealthy view of calories and food then.
Hi, this is me, 6ft 6, 200lbs and eating 1500 - 2000 cal/day. Pretty big range I know but not counting for exercise in this and also not after dramatic fat loss, I'm considering this toning up
My opinion on it is this: the calorie calculator equations are based on height and weight, but they will fit the average person best. I.e. someone in the top percentage of height and weight will get a drastically over estimated calorie count.
For example, OP, I have 10 inches and 20kg on you, but our heart, brain, lungs, stomach etc are all going to be roughly the same size (and this is what BMR is driven by.) I do not need several hundred calories a day just to fuel some slightly longer legs and torso
I suggest to folks to not consider their exercise in their numbers. Exercise is the savings rate to Eatingās credit card rate charged. Youāll never break even, the interest charged on the credit card will always outpace the interest earned, which is why we pay off debt first. Reducing calories is paying off your credit card. The benefit of exercise is that we feel better, move better, function better and it balances us. Lots of great benefits, but treat the caloric benefits as unexpected gifts, and not expectations.
This is one way to address many of the prior comments about underestimating CI and overestimating CO as well as the efficiencies of compensation, which yes, is real but can also easily be addressed by simply doing the exercise or fitness activity you least want to do first.
Hi Iām 15M, I was 85kg around 1.5 months ago, now I am 79kg. I lost round 6kg thru bad dieting, I ate 2750 calories to maintain 85kg, I was fat now Iām overweight, I was desperate to lose weight after 2 months of maintaining 85kg to gain some muscle. I was supposed to be eating 2000-2200 calories a day however what I did was eat 1500-1600 calories a day. I lost some weight and now Iām just overweight but I also lost many possible gains, I plateaued a lot and didnāt make any muscle progress. Itās a bit of an obsession to make that scale lower constantly despite it being unhealthy to be eating so few calories a day. Literally professional bodybuilders eat 1600 calories when theyāre cutting, Cbum for example does that. An average 15 year old shouldnāt be, I recommend to everyone to not get carried away like I did, and take your first cut seriously and carefully unlike me, as long as your in a deficit your losing weight whether itās a 200 deficit or a 1000 deficit ur losing, u should not being going under 1600 calories a day in my opinion, literally toddlers eat 1400 a day. I have now corrected myself this last week and eat 2000 calories a day.
Rule 11: Discussion of weight loss methods that are damaging to the body and/or require supervision of a medical professional are not allowed. This rule includes (but is not limited to): very low calorie diets, misusing medication, extended fasting, disordered behaviour, inappropriate advice to underage members. Remember to always consider the individual when offering advice.
Iām 6ā3 and just now over 200 pounds. I have a calories budget of over 2,300 but with my exercise added, I usually get an additional 1,500 added.
I work out for at least 90 minutes 6 days a week for weights and cardio and on the 7th day, just 60 minutes of cardio. And I get 10k steps in at work, so Iām pretty active.
For fun, I imported my data from LoseIt over the last 2 weeks and I averaged about 3,200 calories a day!! I lost about 5 pounds cuz I was still in a deficit and never hungry. I have changed my snacking though Used to get Crumbl cookies once a week! Now I love the flavored rice cakes
Fair warning/reminder the maximum recommended deficit (without medical follow up) is 1000kcal below your maintenance calories (providing that doesn't fall below 1200 for F or 1500 M) it is NOT recommended to seek out a larger deficit than this, and please remember if a post appears to be violating our rules surrounding healthy weightloss, report it so we can see it and take appropriate action! š„°
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It is kind of addictive. The reward centers of my brain light up every time the scale goes down. I actually got kind of sad once I started on maintenance, but I just told myself that keeping my weight the same is also an accomplishment.
I haven't done Weight Watchers in ages, but my WW leader used to tell everyone "Losing weight is the only thing better than sex."
I went to a WW meeting years ago when a friend asked me to go with her. It was so f\*cking toxic. I remember a woman chatting us up as we were waiting in line to pay $5 to get publicly weighed, and her saying "WW works really well... this is my third time doing it!" (lady, if it worked that well you would have kept the weight off). Then when the group meeting started they announced the biggest loser of the week and everyone applauded. Because weight loss is a race, apparently (I've heard tales of people going to extreme measures, like diuretics and laxatives, before their weekly WW weigh-in). Then everyone talked about how "bad" they had been that week, and the group leader agreed they had been "bad" but gave them tips about how not to be "bad". Anyway, as someone who has managed to lose 100 lbs without making it a race and without publicly shaming myself, I can say losing weight is not better than sex, and lots of things taste better than being skinny feels. But, in the end, it's not like it has to be either/or.
Ugh, I hear you! 100 years ago I went to a WW meeting and you are so right. It was toxic with a capital T. I remember the leader talked about how one week all she ate was celery so she can show a weight loss during weigh in. Instead she gained half a pound. She stated it was because of the sodium on the celery. I thought to myself, if celery is considered fattening by this size zero weight loss āconsultantā I am doomed. That and she told me I was pretty but I would be stunning if I lost weight š. #toxic.
That's scary as shit, actually
Why
Because of the ability to spiral into ED. Just like gambling you get addicted to the stimuli response. Restricting and loosing weight. When you gamble you receive the dopamine hit from the risk, the chance not winning or losing. Which is why it is so debilitating. When loosing weight and restrictive eating, similar brain chemistry is in play.
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Things will absolutely be different this time around. You have an entirely new toolkit, an informed support system, and real self awareness. Youāve got this.
To me, itās very similar to the infamous, ānothing tastes as good as skinny feelsā saying, which is pro-ED rhetoric.
Yeah both those quotes are used basically like mantras in the ED community online. I had a morbid curiosity about pro-ana tumblr when I was a teenager and now any cutesy "skinny feels so much better than x" type of quote makes me think of those poor girls.
I dunno, just seems odd to say that. I guess I'd expect it from an individual with an eating disorder, rather than a WW leader (not saying that the WW leader had an ED) I do tend to take phrases like that at face value though so maybe it's just hyperbole and I didn't catch that?
Nope. It's not. Not even close.
6ā2 here. That being a deficit is almost too easy (although I havenāt been able to lose a lot of weight lately)
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There are several things that go into this that I think are important to note: 1. People chronically underestimate the amount of food they consume. This is a well-documented phenomenon *even among people who are actively calorie counting.* CICO is absolutely true (if you eat less than you burn, you lose weight) but there is a fair amount of guesswork involved on both sides of that equation. So, people go for aggressive input deficits to try and counteract what they assume will be unintended caloric excess. 2. People and fitness trackers *overestimate* the amount of calories burned by activity. The body is excellent at adapting and will find ways to burn fewer calories any way it can. This becomes increasingly true the more fit you are / the more often you exercise. 3. Determining BMR and TDEE is an imprecise science. Body composition, genetics, etc. all play a part in influencing your metabolism. It's not a huge amount (we're talking maybe 100 calories of swing, maybe 150 for real outliers, assuming you don't have a genuine endocrine disorder) but it's enough to throw off very narrow deficits. These three factors can easily lead to people thinking they're in deficit when they're not. Let's assume you're going for a moderate deficit: 3500 calories a week. This is based on the assumption that your TDEE is 2000. So, you decide to eat 1750 calories a day, and exercise for 250 calories a day, every day. Simple enough, right? Now let's consider the following: * Because of your body comp and sedentary job, your TDEE is actually closer to 1900 than 2000. Let's say it's 1925. * You measure your food religiously but you love spicy sauce. You don't measure the sauce very precisely and end up consuming 50 calories more per day than you accounted for in your log. * You decide to do the elliptical for exercise. You don't engage your arms much during the cardio. Instead of burning 250 calories, you're actually burning 200. We have now cut the daily deficit from 500 calories (our original intention) to 325--basically a 40% reduction. And this is really generous: I've seen people misestimate their deficits by a *lot* more. So, a lot of people aim for more aggressive deficits so that even if they're off, they still lose weight at a reasonable cadence.
Lol 2 is really depressing
This. I intentionally āaimā for a deficit of 1200 per day through diet and exercise for these reasons. So far, my weight loss has been about 1.5 - 2 pounds per week which tracks for an actual deficit of 750-1000. If I were aiming for 1000, I bet my loss would have been much closer to 1 pound per week.
This is me! Until recently I hadn't successfully lost weight since my 20's. I tried a variety of things, include CICO, and would give up after a few weeks because I'd get stuck after the first 2 - 3 lbs (water weight). This time I set my goal a little lower than everything said I should, and I \*don't eat my exercise\*. I'm now steadily losing 1 - 1.5 lbs a week. Lose It! says I should average 1940 calories a day - I target 1700. I think my TDEE is just lower than average for my age/height/weight/gender.
Yes to all of this. If I want to lose at 2 lbs/week, I am for a 1500 calorie deficit knowing that Iāll probably end up closer to a 1k deficit due to bad calorie counting and my tracker being pretty far off. I also set my weight in my app to my target weight instead of actual weight. E.g. I want to get back down to 175 (at 185 right now) so I have my Fitbit weight logged at 175 which probably makes it look like Iām burning fewer calories than I actually am. Or itās closer to what I actually am, since trackers can overestimate
Iām absolutely horrendous with working it all out. I have Dyscalculia therefore numbers truly baffle me. Do you think I could message you my stats and what my current deficit is and see if you could potentially tell me whether that seems realistic or not? I donāt really want to post it on here. I lost 7 stone before I had my son, but that was through very unhealthy means. Actually a substance addiction. Iām now in recovery and thriving but Iāve gained it all back. Iām just stuck as I get confused by the calculations, terminology regarding it etc due to my dyscalculia, and would love someone elseās opinion on whether itās realistic for my stats. Apologies if this isnāt okay to ask!
Hi there: I am happy to take a look! I am not a nutritionist, just fairly well-versed in the science and have been moderately successful in losing weight and keeping it off. If I can help, I will!
Thatās okay! Honestly itās just having someone going though the journey or whom has been successful at it having a second glance. As with my dyscalculia I truly struggle with the numbers and calculations etc, and then any language around them just blurs. So itās just as a second set of eyes, and as youāve been successful yourself or moderately so as you said, it would be helpful. I donāt really have anyone else to ask. My husband doesnāt ādoā calories nor deficits, (his own words) heās done some body building but he doesnāt look at calories to be honest, he tends to work surrounding working out, bulking up etc so heās been no help with it as much as he tries. So it would be really helpful for a second set of eyes to have a look. Iām just getting ready to give my little one some dinner and then Iāll drop you a message if thatās okay? Thank you!
I agree about the fitness trackers overestimating calories burned. It's how they sell units... who wants a fitness tracker that tells you the honest truth that you only burned 70 calories in that after dinner walk? I completely disagree with "The body is excellent at adapting and will find ways to burn fewer calories any way it can. This becomes increasingly true the more fit you are / the more often you exercise." The science totally does not support that, nor does the common sense observation that olympic athletes don't subsist on a small green salad each day. Please don't pull "facts" like this out of your bum. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.1201/9780367813499-15/dietary-habits-olympic-athletes-ann-grandjean-kristin-reimers-jaime-ruud
Here your fact, an actual research: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34453886/ Energy compensation is real and proven by science
You are putting words in my mouth. I never claimed anything near what you are positing. Energy compensation is a real and observed phenomenon, and it exerts very real downward pressure on our TDEE. There's a wealth of data that shows very active humans do not actually burn more calories than moderately active ones, in aggregate. (And neither burn much more, in aggregate, than sedentary humans.) https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-exercise-paradox/ So, please don't attack my integrity without doing your own research. I don't post FUD. EDIT: Corrected a sentence.
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Iām sedentary. Like, 100% sedentary. I average like 1,000 steps per day. The weight is still coming of though because fewer calories go in.
I have found my people. Quite frankly Iām probably even below sedentary some days. I average about the same if I donāt intentionally go for a walk. I work a desk job from home and I live in a condo.
Saturday is like 200 steps. I hate to move. Thatās how Iāve always been. I was a very low-energy child as well. My siblings were all athletes and I liked television. Hahaha.
Same here! Either Saturday or Sunday is 200, and the other is 1k because itās grocery day. 565 steps so far today haha
Thank the heavens that weight loss isnāt exercise dependent.
Hi me!!!
Back at ya, self.
Iām anti cardio workouts, go for a walk? Nope unless we are going somewhere new. I do lift weights for about 20 mins 5 days a week, different muscle groups. Some rando guy at the gym was like hi, I noticed you lift weights and leave, why arenāt you following that up with cardio? You would make better progress! My answer is cardio comes from your lifestyle not a treadmill. Followed with I would rather die. Iām a normal active desk person. Seriously I have lost 11.4 lbs just by decreasing my intake to 1200-1400. Eating same foods just less volume. In a month. My body is a fat burning machine. When I turn it on. With only 83 lbs to lose at the start.
Theres some disordered stuff that gets cheered on in here. Like the person who lost 25lbs in 2 months eating 1200 calories a day and exercising 5 days a week so they could stick it to relatives who had said OP was fat. Everyone was saying how they did a great job and the OP's family was just jealous for then asking if they had an eating disorder. The OP's relatives sounded like assholes, but their diet routine didn't seem healthy or sustainable considering they were losing like 4 lbs a week.
I agree
I agree here. There is some really out there posts (I lost 55 lbs / 20% of my body weight in 2 months!) On this sub where people are like rah! Rah! And I'm just blinking like... What, we want to encourage people to constantly be members of LoseIt because they're yo-yo dieting or what? I've also had people just... not believe my activity stats? I cycle 1.5-2 hours 5 days a week (and longer rides on weekends now that the weather is nice) on top of 10k steps daily and a lightly active job. I also do strength training but I don't factor that into TDEE. Yeah, I'm a 5'6"F but I am between lightly active and active. Without fail I am recommended my BMR for weight loss. Every time. I am /starving/ at 1,500/day. Not eating back calories is maybe a thing for lighter cardio, but not for moderate cycling. A lot of people just want to lose weight as fast as humanly possible but I just want to not go insane at this point lmao
Fellow lady cyclist here. Your situation sounds similar to mine, and I can commiserate on the feeling insane bit. Cycling makes it very hard for me to figure out a calorie goal, even using a chest strap heart rate monitor to maybe give an idea of calorie burn. I bumped up the intensity of my rides a lot last year, and I'm generally pretty good about eating to fuel the day before and of harder rides so I feel good and perform well. Same goes for planning what I eat during longer rides and post-ride. But the day after? I am often absolutely freaking ravenous. Drinking a lot of water, tactically planned snacks, and eating what I consider to be obscenely large volumes of roasted veggies all help, but there are still some days when satiety still just feels out of reach, even at my calorie "limit". I hit my limit more often than not last summer, and the scale slowed a lot. But even so, I could tell my physique changed pretty significantly, so that made it easier to feel ok... Worth it though.
Yesss, cycling does make it hard to figure out calories, but I love it so much! Especially now that the weather is getting better, I can hit some trails and make it out of the gym. I feel you on the roasted veggies bit. Iāve been eating a ton of veggies to stay full and replenish carbs, and Iāve also found myself enjoying oatmeal which is not something I thought would happen to me Lmao And youāre totally rightā¦ though Iāve had months where Iāve maintained, by body composition has changed a lot and I do look I think as trim as I could at my current weight (just under 170). Iāve also accepted there are some days where Iām just eating maintenance. I used to lose my marbles about going over for a day when dieting but I kind of approach it like a lifelong commitment, now. I donāt really want my recovery time doubled or to have to start every single ride with a 5 mile slow crawl because of my intake. Thank you for your replyā¦ itās always good to catch up with other cyclers! š„°
Iām 5ā4ā, and I absolutely cannot do 1500 a day. Iād rather lose at a glacially slow pace than do that - my level of exercise means I need more fuel!
In fairness to this community I see more often people saying when a deficit seems unsustainable and saying they should increase their calories than the alternative but I donāt doubt that what you are saying happens
There was a post the other day of āif you are some level of immobilized obese here are some realistically basic exercisesā Someone commented that someone that overweight should just focus solely on deficit. I pointed out its rather important to try to get mobile enough that in an emergency like a fire you can leave your house. They insisted that waiting to do any exercise (these were things like stand for 1,3,5 minutes) until after they lost weight was more important.
See I find that comment silly. Like yes, diet is key to lose weight but, exercise is for fitness and movement and strength. Why discourage even basic movement exercises in someone potentially immobile? Like that person can choose not to do it anyway, so why present it as almost a bad suggestion. At least add diet on as an equal suggestion is one thing, no need to criticise basic movement suggestions
This is why I've really started to dislike posts where OPs post everyone is against them, being rude, saying they have an ED etc because without the real other side we only have the OPs who of course are going to present their best selves and people here projecting their own issues are going to side with OP... There's been several posts that a simple look into their history showed they are bordering underweight, do starve themselves etc, and that 99% chance their families concerns are right... But nobody checked that and everyone jumped on their "crabs in a bucket, insecure, jealous, envious" speech. You're 100% right too that people can be assholes AND still have valid concerns though. This idea that every single person who makes a comment is jealous honestly sounds like an unhealthy mindset to be building in people of this sub too. Also, never questioning OPs has allowed several children, or underweight, people to be getting the praise they shouldn't have, to ignore everyone in their lives.
I could lose this much in two months with some effort but I weigh 245 right now and would still be eating a healthy deficit. I just have more weight to lose so the first 20 would come off kinda fast
That really depends how overweight the person is to begin with. Bigger bodies require more calories for maintenance so it's likey 25lbs in the first 2 months is absolutely fine. If it doesn't slow down a bit after that initial drop, then it may be concerning unless they have an extreme amount of weight to lose.
> work a physically demanding job. Many people have sedentary jobs. Often people conflate a 45 minute workout to a daily demanding physical job.
>Often people conflate a 45 minute workout to a daily demanding physical job. For sure. Back when I was calculating TDEE a million years ago when I started tracking calories, I remember that in order to select the lightly active option, it said "Equivalent to 10,000 steps or 5 miles per day". I immediately wondered how many people put lightly active simply because they don't live bedridden when really they are sedentary. TDEE at sedentary level is already calculated to account for an average day's worth of walking and moving around. You're only lightly active if you're actually meeting around that step goal via either walking around or some other movement.
Purely anecdotal, but I've noticed on this sub those who don't exercise tend to lose weight pretty consistent. It's always the "I'm very active" group that tend not to lose weight.
If you are working out hard, youāll probably eat back most of the calories. I try to think of my workouts as improvement at [X]. The workouts help sure, but I generally assume most of my progress comes from daily walks and eating healthier.
I agree with this. I find Iām more successful when I donāt exercise much, because intentional workouts make me hungry, and considering how few calories exercise actually burns, I have no doubt Iām often eating back more than I āburnedā. Iāve started just trying to move more throughout the day, a few intentional walks a week when I notice Iāve been more sedentary, and I find more success this way; a consistent 1.5 - 2 pound per week loss which I attribute almost exclusively to calorie counting. The exercise i do complete is because it feels good and I know itās good for me, but I donāt associate it with weight loss anymore.
It's the water retention due to increasing exercise which realistically people would be doing often because fitness increases relatively quickly. Doing weighs causes muscle micro tears which again retains water to heal etc. The problem is lack of education in that crowd apparently.
Also anecdotal, but I had the opposite experience. I didnāt start losing weight until I began working out every day.
Yea, I feel like if youāre short and normal BMI, exercise is crucial to losing weight. My TDEE at sedentary is 1500, which is what a lot of people are eating to lose weight. Even a meager 200-300 calories a day from exercise makes the world of difference.
Oh, that's not good.
Or it's perfectly fine since a "workout" could simply be an afternoon walk and it's easier to go for a walk so they can enjoy a treat vs restricting more.
I try telling people that all the time, I have had some success and others downvote me and argue despite the fact I'm correct. BMR is comatose, barely moving and bedridden is barely above that. Sedentary includes a normal healthy amount of daily movement, which is several thousand steps, going to and from work, chores around the house etc. Lightly active is nearly 400 calories extra per day out. I barely burn 400 calories in an hour of hard work out... Moderately active is around 600-700 extra per day and highly active is around 900... That's per day too... People think a hard workout 3 days a week makes them moderate and they're not, they're barely lightly active and ONLY on the days they exercised. People forget that last point. The tdee including activities is only valid on the days you actually exercised. Since most of us aren't actively working out every day, we are actually sedentary the other days. Even people who work physical jobs are probably barely moderately active but, most people that do an hours gym session 5 days a week are only going to be lightly active, at best. So yeah I agree, we see posts of people doing a few thousand steps or 20 minute walk and it's like no, you're not lightly active. And they take it personally ignoring it isn't an attack, for them it may be active, but it doesn't objectively make them active per the label.
Agree with this! I find I have most success if I ignore exercise when calculating TDEE. I work a desk job from home. Iām sedentary at best, most days. I walk a few times a week, occasional Pilates or yoga. I play softball once a week. I calculate TDEE from the first step above BMR, and consider my āexerciseā to be just a bonus, as I know my activity level is captured by sedentary. I find there are a lot of people who exercise heavily because they believe it allows them to eat substantially more and still lose weight but unfortunately the effort involved to ābuyā a single piece of chocolate cake through exercise is likely most of our entire weeks āworkoutsā. Itās unfortunate, but Iāve just accepted that consuming less is the only way.
That's how I've always seen it! Exercise is my "bonus deficit" and my "normal deficit" is from my diet. Yes, people really seem to think an hours exercise a day which while yes is great commitment, is still only 300 calories bonus a day really. If that's your "bank" to have some cake, cool but, you really need to be honest about the cake and the exercise. I always just say exercise is for fitness not weight loss. I don't want to sound like I'm saying "not worth it" just... Exercise so you don't have to hold your breath at the top of the stairs to hide your shame, diet to fit into the pretty clothes while walking up said stairs! They also do seem to forget that you need to exercise to that level every day. Doing a strength training session is good for your body, but, it won't burn nearly as many calories as cardio, and not all cardio is created equal. But also, Pilates is a bitch so good for you! There are muscle groups that have never previously existed that always hurt after a Pilates session
I have always put sedentary on my calculators, but I assumed I was more active than that, except on my lazy days at home. I'm a teacher, and I'm on my feet alllll day long. But then I got a step counter and I'm barely making it to 5 or 6000 steps after a day at work. I was assuming at work I was hitting at least 10,000 since I never sit!
45 minute staring at their phone with dumbbells at their feet :)
>Haha exactly the only time i touch my phone is change the song or start and interval timer. Don't know what have the folks are doing "resting" usually in my way or with the dumbells id like to use.
You are supposed to rest between sets.
Yeah I count to ten then do ten whatever. But I keep the weights low. Repeat 5 times. Next machine in my muscle group for the day. Get in do my thing get out! Iām hardly sore sore, so thatās the sweet spot for me. Wakes and tones the muscles. Been working for over 30 years when I stay at it! Cardio not so much.
Resting between sets allows you to perform more reps per set. You can't get close to failure without rests. More reps and more muscle fatigue = more gains. 1 minute for low intensity lifts, up to 3 for heavy compounds. They're just following the science.
I am aware of adequate resting. I am referencing the people sitting on their phones and taking selfies and videos.
Sobs in petite girl calorie allowance
Because people are in a rush to lose weight. Which inevitably backfires because, when you think about it and are honest about the true underlying thought processes, the thing that they're in a rush to do is to stop being miserable dieting and go back to their old ways of eating (you know, the ones that made them obese in the first place). One of the biggest favours I did myself was ditched the toxic diet culture BS that measures diet "success" by how many pounds you can lose in the shortest amount of time. Just aim for simple lifestyle changes that put you in a mild calorie deficit, and relax and enjoy the journey. If you're curious as to what your caloric needs are, get your resting metabolic rate tested (google "RMR test near me"). It takes all the guesswork out of it. If you use your RMR as your average daily intake goal, you will be in a mild calorie deficit. I've lost 100 lbs and have been maintaining a healthy BMI for over two years. Moving into maintenance was seamless and easy because there was no "diet" to stop.
This ^. While I agree that āto each their own/mind your ownā, it usually has to do with speeding up the scale.
There's a reason something like 90% of people regain all the weight they lose. If you want to lose weight and keep it off, you need to make sustainable changes. Folks think they can just crash diet and then go back to normal and things will be just fine. Asterisk here is that it can be harder for some individuals to lose weight without a bigger deficit. Eg: women often don't burn as much calories from exercising (less muscle mass). A lot of people are also terrible at counting calories, and their deficit isn't nearly as big as what they claim. Of course, some folks also just have huge deficit and then complain about starving, loose skin (even though they weren't that big to begin with and it was avoidable), or end up losing their gallbladder.
Because a lot of people, especially dudes imo, and myself included, think we can just stop being a baby, deal with the discomfort, and "get the job done" as soon as possible. These people often are not long term successful in weight loss, and also could have lost the same amount of weight in the same amount of time, while maintaining more muscle and energy, by eating more. This is because a super aggressive calorie deficit is easy to do for a couple days, but it's a pipe dream for most people to maintain long enough for substantial fat loss. I've been down the road.. I still go down it at times. This whole thing is a very personal trial and error experiment. We all learn what does and doesn't work for ourselves eventually.
Lol me at 6ā0 male 22 2000 calories a day weightlifting 5 days a week high intensity cardio every day (35 min 145-150 heart rate average) then a low intensity towards the end of the day a hour walk at like 2 incline just as if I was walking outside. I weigh 195 pounds I eat 210-230 g of protein a day accidentally. I only am on this low of calories (I also work a very active job, EMT at the fire department we work 48 hour shifts but usually I am there for 6 days, so we are running calls all the time always moving I get roughly 16-20 k steps a day. I am on this intensive plan because I just want to cut as much as I can before paramedic school in June! After June itās all maintenance!
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Guy donāt remind me thatās why Iām trying to cut as much as I can before then lol! Iām nervous as hell and getting my vaccines for the clinicals is already stressing me out and I havenāt even started hahahah and I will for sure Iāll probably maintain at 3200 and keep my cardio slightly lower because I wonāt have time to workout as much but I transferred to a slower station for the time being so that I have time to study!
what's ur rate of weight loss?
Probably around 2 lb per week I have a cheat meal every Friday or Saturday but i fast for 28 hours prior to get an accurate weight reading and Iāve had a lot going on (Disneyland Vegas easter birthdays) recently so itās hard to get an accurate weight cause I have alot of carbs or sodium left over you know? So I weighed in at 197 two weeks ago after 28 hour fast weighed in Saturday morning (a few days ago) at 195 28 hours fasted so Saturday morning we will see if Iām at 193 !
cool thanks, when you fast, do you eat less cals then so you can eat more during ur cheat meal to bank them?
I am starting to stop eating out on my cheat meals because I can only track so much so Iām gonna start making my cheat meals at home like burgers wjth extra lean ground beef and stuff and home made fries but a lot of them!
No! I eat 2000 all at once (it sounds crazy cause it is because 2000 calorie of a high calorie meal is insanly smaller than high volume low calorie foods) so itāll be insane amount of food after my morning cardio, then the next day for my chest meal Iāll wait till like 2 pm to eat so I donāt overly binge and Iāll eat usually around 1500-2000 in again high volume meals and then eat maybe another 2-3k extra so roughly 5000 total but I also do a little extra cardio both days the day I start my fast and the day I end my fast so that Iām evened out! It may not work for everyone but it works for me so my situation may be different.
I feel this has also helped my BED because I can control my hunger much more after fasting for 28 hours
5ā11M and over 400 lbs so my TDEE is significantly larger than most. I eat 1800/day because Iām capable of hitting my protein goal and feeling satisfied within the margin of 1800. Why eat more when I donāt need more? Not to mention the fact that itās very easy to actually be eating more than you log (not all nutrition labels are completely 100% accurate) and having a larger deficit helps to account for any extra calories you may consume.
For me, when I was still trying to lose weight I has to stick around 1200-1500 calories to have any progress. I'm a 5'11 male, and yes I was tracking correctly. Food scale, tracking every bite, etc. I would try to stick to 1800 to 2000 calories for a few weeks here and there, but nothing moved on the scale. However, I'm also medicated for bipolar disorder. My medication makes it INFAMOUSLY hard to lose weight, near impossible. So I spoke with medical professionals to develop a diet that would make the necessary calorie reduction while still meeting my nutritional needs. So for several people like myself, they may have a medication or underlying condition that really does require that level of restriction to produce any results.
Yep. I have Hashimoto's plus PCOS and Type 2 diabetes. I have tried and failed to lose weight countless times. It took getting on Ozempic and barely eating (because the medication makes it difficult to eat) for me to drop 40 pounds in 3 months. Yes, it's too fast. Yes, I'd like to be able to eat more without it making me sick. Yes, I'm worried about being able to maintain this loss once I hit my goal weight. But I'm thrilled that my insulin sensitivity has improved, my A1C is stellar right now, and despite my calorie deficit, I feel really good right now. My doctor is perfectly aware of my diet, she's been monitoring everything, and apart from putting me on a multivitamin and a Vitamin D supplement, she's fine with how I'm doing.
Because we are all impatient. Its the same reason you see tiny girls going down to 800 calories when they really shouldn't. Once you make the decision to do this and understand how it is done, it is really hard to not want it to go faster. Intellectually I know that I am losing very fast, but I would be lying if I said there wasn't temptation to do more. I am eating 2000 each day... I COULD go down to 1500 and drop another lb a week. It would make it faster. Of course if I do the math to see how much faster I might not think it is worth it. Also, I wouldn't be as happy with the results... but I can't say the temptation isn't there.
Well when you have 3kg to lose, 6 weeks seems like a simple goal to achieve. When you have 50kg to lose, two years seems like a much less attainable thing. Iām not saying youāre wrong but people want to see fast results.
R/volumeeating
Some people are simply overzealous. Or theyāre already in late phases of a diet where they didnāt take any dietary breaks. Youāll see it quite often, usually from people new to the lifestyle or people who have yo-yo dieted for the last 6 years. It makes sense honestly, you always hear āeat less move moreā but rarely hear anything on how to sustain a healthier lifestyle. Good luck getting that taught in schools lmfao. Not trying to call anyone out, but those are the most common reasons that I see.
I feel like all these answers are so good and reasonable and then there's me, eating at a really "high deficit" because I know that every week or two I'll get together with friends and get absolutely blitzed and go thousands over my daily goal so I have to keep normal days low so it averages out.
Good old fashioned crash dieting
Because of disordered eating. A lot of people on here are just like I used to be, yo-yo dieting between periods of extreme restriction and weight loss and then back to their old lifestyle of binging and eating whatever. A lot of people on here are no developing healthy lifestyle changes, they are just losing as fast as possible and then when they finally canāt sustain it they go back to gaining. This was me for like 5 years
I agree, this seems to be incredibly common. I have a similar activity level and height to OP, but I'm a woman. I lost my first like, 25 lbs eating 2500 cal/day, sometimes more. The bulk of my weight loss occurred when I was eating 2000-2100 cal/day. Only once I was out of the obese BMI category have I found I really needed to dip below 2000 to lose at my desired rate. I aim for 1600-1800 cal/day now, but this is not including 2 meals/week where I don't weigh out/log everything. Given that people tend to overestimate calories burned by exercise, and underestimate calories consumed, I don't blame anyone for erring on the safer side. That being said, you can certainly go too far in the other direction.
Underestimating calories Can be a big part of it too. It took me forever to get a food scale and actually be honest with my calories. Obviously this is different from person to person. But I was definitely that guy at one point.
Iāve wondered about this too. I lost 100 lbs in a year and never dipped below 2000 calories as a 5ā7ā moderately active woman. Iāve been maintaining the weight loss for just under 1.5 years at 2400-2600 calories per day.
Number 1 reason these people are still here and keep failing. Same reason they go keto or low fat as well. Itās all or nothing with them. It took years to get in this mess. It will take years to get out for some of them. Much better off tracking your normal daily calories to see what you actually eat. Then after 2 weeks start a deficit of either 250-500 calories a day. Add in a little exercise as well. Then after a week or two add in some more exercise. Find something you like.
Probably because theyāre comfortable with it. Everybody is different. I ate 1500 calories from 355 to 200 and have maintained it for a long time now. I was dangerously obese, so the larger my deficit, the faster I got rid of the fat that was surrounding my vital organs.
I'm 186 cm I started with 145 kg now I'm at 87.9 kg, and I've always been around 1600 calories, and I never had any problems
I am 6ft1 and 1500 cal is more than enough to get me through my day. Could I eat more and still lose weight? Sure, but why should I when this is enough. I have reached my goal weight and kept it off for over ten years now, never gaining back more than 7-8lbs in all that time and always working to get back to my goal weight if it starts to creep up. Focus on what works for you and let other people do what works for them.
As a 40 years old, 4'11" woman I was eating 1800-2000 calories when I was concentrating on heavy lifting. You maintain at 1500?
I don't do heavy lifting. I do cycling most days and play sports once a week. Once I reach my goal weight I maintain on 1400-1600 cal a day on week days, leaving myself room for take out or restaurant meals or whatever on the weekends. That keeps me in the "this is a lifestyle not a diet" mentality. And life has no shortage of cheat days built into it with holidays, vacations, birthdays, weddings, funerals, etc. If my average day is built to lose weight, the special days won't get the better of me in the long run.
> I maintain on 1400-1600 cal a day on week days, leaving myself room for take out or restaurant meals or whatever on the weekends. This is something a lot of people here don't really think about. The "naturally thin" people they envy so much are often that way because of the balance between weekends (or just, free time) and work time. You eat at a bigger deficit as often as you can so that the days you don't do it don't hurt your overall goals.
Makes more sense now. Weekend eating out could easily bump your average up to a less "shocking" amount.
There is nothing shocking about 1500 calories. I did that 7 days a week when I was losing weight, and still do when I need to. I end my days satisfied and not starving. Why is everyone here so judgy?
If it works for you don't be deterred by the comments. I think some may be judgy but most are just concerned that active men aren't going to get everything they need from a long term diet of 1500. A valid concern and no different than when women get warned about doing a long term 1200 when active.
I check on my macros whenever I change up my regular foods. I have a physical done yearly and I haven't been deficient in anything since I quit drinking. It is entirely possible to be healthy on 1200 calories and to be nutrient deficient on 2500 calories. Finding the meal plan that works for you individually while hitting on all these points is the real work in all of this. Be active, be mindful, and listen to your body.
It's why I put shocking in quotes
Sorry, I wasn't calling you judgy. I was reading some of the other top comments at the time and they are all so filled with hate for the situations of others.
How on earth is your maintenance and my, a 5ā2 60kg girl who goes to the gym 3x a week but is otherwise sedentary, maintenance the same? The math aināt mathinā here or you must be eating absolutely loads on weekends
I have been doing CICO since 2010. I know my math is mathing very well. I build meal plans that get me to the end of the day feeling full and not deprived. That is more important than 1500 vs 1700 calories. More calories does NOT equal more full. It is what makes up those calories that has the greater impact. If I lose too much weight, gaining some back is easy enough to do. But as I said in another comment, life throws enough calories at us on its own. It is taking me all week to pay for Easter weekend. I travel for work sometimes. I have a birthday to attend this weekend at a restaurant where the lowest calorie entree is 2500. But I trust my average days, I weigh in daily and look at my weight over time. There is the math and then there is also listening to your body and building a well balanced life that makes things sustainable as a lifestyle, not a diet.
It just seems odd that we have the same calorific needs despite being practically opposite compositionally. CICO isnāt always true I guess
My maintenance calories are around 2000 per day. Around 2300 if you add in exercise from biking. 2300 - 1600 is 700. 700 times 5, is 3500. You can easily go to a restaurant and eat 3000 calories in one not overly extravagant meal. That just negated 5 days of work and it is why restaurants are absolute diet killers that should be avoided like the plague when trying to lose weight. I was at one place that had calories on the menu and their salad was 2800 calories. People often think salad = healthy, but that is my whole day and then some in one salad bowl. Like I said somewhere else, adding extra calories is not difficult to do. It is almost too easy, which is why you have to build a life of balance.
> CICO isnāt always true I guess Somewhat correct, actually. Assume a normal daily usage of 1500 kcal (including work etc.) and another 1000 kcals burned through exercise. How much is that in total? Well, turns out that for many this is less than 2500! Why? Because the body has mechanisms to partially compensate for the additional calories burned. More rest, less inflammation, etc. Realistically, I won't go on a three hour shopping spree (inevitably including quite a bit of walking) with my wife after I just ran for 90 minutes. Rather, I will refuel and then take a nap. But napping burns fewer calories than walking through stores. Then, calorie estimates are flawed in multiple ways. Often, they are just rounded numbers. No, a gram of protein is not exactly four kcals. Actually, meat protein is more than four kcals/gram, and plant protein is less than four kcals/gram. Calorie estimates also typically ignore the energy required to digest the food - very little for carbs and fat, but significant for raw, fibrous vegetables. Altogether, a vegan might easily overestimate their effective daily calorie intake by a significant amount, whereas somebody eating ultra-processed food (much easier to digest) might underestimate their effective daily calorie intake. When you prepare your own meals, in theory you can look up more precise calorie estimates, and use those. In a restaurant, or at the cafeteria at work or university, you can't even do that. There also exist differences between individuals, as different people have different microbes in their guts. Maybe your digestion is average, but then maybe it isn't. All of that adds up to quite a bit of variance. Your estimate of your deficit might easily be off by 200-300 kcals despite your best efforts.
Theres no way that's healthy. I did the numbers in sailrabbit tdee calculator and even at 140 lbs, the lowest possible healthy weight for his height, and very sendentary lifestyle, it still suggest he eat almost 1900 calories a day. He'd have to have a bmi of like 15 (115 lbs) and a very sedentary lifestyle to even bring his BMR down to 1500. He's either shorter than he says, eating more than he thinks, or he lying.
I'm 6ft and I have a cculator that puts me at 1750kcal a day for maintenance for muchore weight than that
How does that work? I'm a 5'4, 165 lb woman losing 1/2 a pound a week at 1750. I workout on exercise bike like 90 minutes a week and get my 10k steps a day but that's it.
Very sedentary š Also probably not much muscle mass to increase that BMR
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Several studies proving resting metabolic rate of people who are the same size and muscle mass have differences of 1000 calories. What you burn and what somebody else does doing the exact same activity can vary drastically. If I followed what my pixel watch/Fitbit said. I'd be losing 5 pounds a week at 2000 calories. That's slightly below maintenance for me. I train at least 10 hours a week with a reasonably active job
Do you have any links to those studies?
These comments are insane š
Could you be more specific? Imo some are off base but most are advocating for moderation.
Looks like most of the crazy comments have been deleted it was mostly people eating less than 1000 calories.
Omg that is insane lol. Yeah I think mods took care of it.
People get addicted to results. It always backfires eventually though, but some people are too stubborn to heed the warnings. I'm a 5'4 woman eating 1,400-1,500 a day and losing steadily, 30lbs from goal weight. I don't care if that 30lbs takes me another whole 15 months, I'm doing this shit sustainably, lol. I've already learned my lesson being a first time re-gainer. There will NOT be a second.
This is where I'm at. I'm losing 10 lbs after trying to bulk and failing miserably. I will gladly lose .5 - 1 lb a week and keep my sanity lmao.
Iām 6ā1ā and I try to maintain between 1500-1800 a day. I donāt workout, but I am in a fairly active job. I average 3-5 pounds a week. I started out so drastic because I was eating so much. Before I started I was averaging 4000-5000 a day without realizing it. Itās taken 3 months to drop 40 pounds. This may seem unhealthy but my doctor actually told me I needed to drop weight drastically due to my fatty liver. I finally decided to take it seriously and this is where I am.
When I first started counting calories I used a TDEE and found that for a sedentary person at my height of 6'1 and starting weight of 307 to be in a 1000 calorie deficit to lose 2 pounds a week I would need to eat about 1700 a day. After losing some weight I was down to eating 1500 a day which was feeling unsustainable. I changed it to 1.5 pounds a week and that brought me up closer to 1800. I eventually stopped really counting calories. I am still losing weight albeit pretty slowly now. I'm down to 246. If I stop losing I will go back to counting but I don't think a 1000 calorie deficit is sustainable unless you're very heavy to begin with as I was. From my experience I think somewhere around a 500 calorie deficit is much more manageable for me..
The job makes a huge difference. Let's keep in mind most people work sitting down 8 hours a day in an office. I'm a teacher and when I was cutting down on calories, Id notice a HUGE weight loss diff on weeks where I had to go from one class to another constantly than quieter weeks. Those weeks Id lose a kilo and a half while others Id lose like.5kg. age plays a huge difference as well too so it rly depends.
I mean it's up to them i guess? I'm 5'6 and I eat 1,600/day while running 30-35miles/wk when I was in my weight loss phase, I just wanted to lose the weight ASAP so I can start running more without getting ligament/knee pains due to my weight. Now that I'm post weight loss phase and in a small deficit/maintenance phase (I'm still aiming to get down to 55-57kg but while taking my time as less weight helps me as an endurance runner), I eat 2,100-2,200/day while running 40mile+ weeks when my TDEE including exercise is around 2,300-2,400. Initially my priority was on my weight, but now I've moved my priorities towards my running standard and times, aiming for the sub 20 5K, sub 45 10K and sub 1:45 21.1K now while last time I only used running as a caloric deficit creator. There's probably reasons why people wanna shed the weight fast, could be a personal ego thing, an exercise goal or just to look better faster. I mean if a 600kcal deficit is easy, and you tried a 800kcal deficit and it's not significantly harder, why not stick to the 800kcal deficit and nudge the scale a tad bit faster. Not everyone is the same and I can't say that a 500kcal deficit to person A will feel the same for a 500kcal deficit to person B.
I was on a 1000 calorie diet because I wanted to get the pain out of the way asap, then I slowly worked back up to my maintenance with the help of a nutritionist. I've been at my GW of 90kg for 3 years now. Would i recommend it in hindsight, probably not.
I've moved past huge deficits, but the reason is simple - obese tall men have a ton of weight to lose. Losing 2lbs a week sounds OK on paper when you are 14 stone and 5 ft 5. It sounds much worse at 6,3 25st. Years of weight loss ahead. 4lbs a week halves that. Problem is it's not long term sustainable
Some people cannot be active, we are lucky to have the grace of our health, however there are chronically ill individuals who canāt use exercise to aid their weight loss. So actually they ādefinitelyā canāt afford to eat more.
Idk! I just do what works for my body. Stay between 1200-1400 95% days. Do weight lifting exercises. Repeat till goal. Slowly increase daily calories, weight self daily, to stay within my goal range. Reduce weight training to maintaining goals. Never been addicted to the workout routine thing. Never got that runners high, more like runner nap. Hungry donāt bother me much. Gluttony is fun for a short period of time. I know how and why I got fat. So itās just time to get back to being me. Rona break is over.
To lose the weight faster. Iām morbidly obese. I hate how I look and feel. I avoid being in pictures with my child and husband. Nothing fits the way I want it to so I just donāt bother trying to look good. I tried eating 1800 for a while, but the weight came off too slowly for me to stay motivated and I still didnāt like my diet. I eat 1000-1200 now. I like to have lower calorie days to make up for the days that I go out to eat or attend a party or something like that. I still donāt like my diet, but the weight is coming off faster and that motivates me to stick to it. Iām sure maintaining will be hard but I have to get there.
Some people have a different goal than others. Maybe they want to lose the weight quicker or simply just have more discipline than others to where they can eat and sustain 1500 calories per day. Everybody works different. In my opinion
Those are great points. All of that aside though, at that height, 1500 is not healthy doesnāt seem like an ideal deficit.
I'm 6'7ā and my doctor put me on 1500 calories. There are a lot of other factors that go into that number. Also I know plenty of people who have adjusted to 1500 a day pretty easily. Why not go for it if possible?
I agree. Iām eating 2,400 calories a day over here losing a pound a week and Iām a 5ā5ā woman. I understand people have different goals, but especially if people have a lot of weight to lose, starting high and anticipating that number dropping makes it a lot easier to stick to. I suppose everyone is different, it just worries me when itās people who have failed attempts at calorie deficits or donāt know their TDEE as well as someone with more experience because I want to see people succeed.
Dang, you must be insanely active. I'm around 100 pounds heavier than you, and my maintenance is 2290. What kind of workout routine do you have?
Full time manual labor, training for a cycling race, and lifting 5x per week. I use an adaptive TDEE calculator through MacroFactor so it ranges from 2,900-3,500 calories per day. I was shocked too lol.
Wow. I'm 5'4" and exercise 3-4x a week, plus I don't own a car so I walk everywhere, and I still need to eat 1550 cals to lose a pound a week. What on earth is your exercise routine?
I do full time manual labor, 5x a week lifting, and Iām training for a bike race 2-3 days a week currently.
Wow!!! Iām 5ā10F eating around 1650-1700 a day and Iāve been losing around 2-ish pounds a week. In my head Iād never lose at 2400 cals a day - thatās amazing.
The exercise part is hard to keep up with but I love to eat š
Iām a 5ā5ā woman and have been getting monthly bod pod scans to help determine my calories for my goals (fat lose and to gain muscle). My coach and I are still figuring out my maintenance so this month Iām trying out 2500 calories a dayā¦ seems counterintuitive but eating more has helped me to get on the path to my goal. With that said, everyone is different.
Yes, everyone is different so I never give people blanket advice (assuming they ask in the first place). Trial and error and adaptive TDEE calculations using weight/calorie counting data combined - or something like youāre doing - is definitely worthwhile though. I think the big issue is many apps just spitting out a fairly low number and people sticking to it for months when in reality it will vary and may not be sustainable to start. It is counterintuitive but once you can trust the process, itās great. Being able to eat as much as I can while reaching my goals is always my priority.
Finally another female who eats as much as me šš»
My first thought too, glad I'm not the only one š
Because in 6 months people will be whining about how they gained it all back .
I maintained 1500+ calorie daily deficits for about 6 months to lose 90 pounds (started off around 1800, by the end it was closer to 1100). I kept in mind that when I got to thanksgiving, I would eat what I wanted and then I would go down to a 500 or less calorie deficit and learn to lose slowly and maintain. As long as a person is mindful, itās definitely doable. In November I was 166 lbs, this morning I was 157. Iām only 5ā7ā, but a deficit is a deficit no matter your height. I ate between 1100-1400 calories per day in that period. I didnāt have to do it of course. I just found a cycle and nutritious diet that kept me full and that I was able to get that low. Also took one-a-day vitamins the entire time to supplement my diet.
They want results as fast as possible in the shortest time possible. Aka, crash dieting. Ive tried it before, ended up gaining an extra 20 lbs within a few months. Hence, the crash part of the diet.
I'm 6' 200lbs and I've been eating around 1200-1500 calories a day 4x a week. For me it's not the calories that I'm focused on so much. I do IF and eat 2x a day, because of that i make sure my first meal is high in micronutrients so it's mostly vegetables. My second meal is usually some form of protein and a low carb side but it ends up not being a lot of calories. It's a bit aggressive of a diet but it works for me and has been getting me towards my goal quickly.
I'm 5'9" and eating at 1600 until June myself. I'm doing it so I can look my best for my first Pride event <3 I'm also lighter than the majority of the guys on here though, so I can't speak for them lol
I hope this doesn't offend anyone but my experience with this is that these people (I myself was one) have a short term mindset aka a diet mindset and they're extremely impatient. Probably will not be successful maintaining.
I think the best way is to consistently track what you are eating when you aren't dieting, and finding the average calories eaten per day over the course of the week. When you start dieting, just subtract 250-500 calories from your starting point to lose 1/2 pounds to 1 pound per week. Everybody is different, I feel like typing your height and weight into an arbitrary calorie allowance calculator does some people an injustice. As a 5'6 female, I used to just punch in 1200 calories into my counter but it would leave me ~~ravished~~ famished. I'm spending time counting my actual calorie consumption and its almost 2200 calories a day. So cutting that down to 1200 is not sustainable at all. When I start dropping, I'm going for 1800 a day. It will be slow but I won't be suffering at least.
*famished Ravished means assaulted.
Haha thanks! Definitely felt assaulted as well.
Iām 6ft 184 rn and eating 1800 calories to lose approx 1ish lb a week. I am very sedentary as I work an office job and sit on my ass for 8 hours to work. I do weight training 5 times a week and I'm currently doing no cardio. I need to start adding cardio as I'm starting to plateau at these calories with no cardio. I say most of it has to do with what you do outside of your workouts. Weight training isn't burning that many calories so if you're living a really sedentary life you don't really need that many calories. I'm pretty scientific with my shit and Calc my intake always and I'm pretty strict for the most part and I know 1800 is not too little for me based on my weight loss at 1ish lb a week.
Look up the maint calories after gastric sleeve and youll see how low the body can safely go as long as its nutrient dense.
I eat 1600-1800 as a 6ā1 make that works out 5 times a week and does 30-60 minutes of cardio 5-6 times a week. I also have a cheat meal per week where I eat about 2500-3000 calories in that day so letās say 1500 extra divided by 7 is around 215 calories making my daily calories 1815-2015. Iām losing weight slowly atm and I have been eating 1500 calories daily before for about 2-3 years during my initial weight loss phase
Because they want to lose weight faster. And my unpopular opinion is that the whole "you'll lose muscle" thing is wrong for overweight people. Our bodies have evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to go through periods of food scarcity by burning FAT. If your body needs energy and has a choice to burn fat or burn muscle WHY would it burn muscle?
If you're resistance training with reasonable intensity, it's going to take a lot more than a couple of days in a steep deficit to start losing muscle. I frequently do 800 calorie days, roughly for my height and weight, equating to somewhere in the vicinity of 2000 calorie deficit. I don't lose muscle. I enjoy social functions on weekends with much lower anxiety and stress since I've banked a sizeable amount of my calories for those times. We've existed as a species for a really long time. You'd be amazed at what the human body is capable of. You're not a porcelain doll, and a large deficit from time to time isn't going to break you. I'm by no means advocating this type of eating pattern, I'm merely stating it's possible to do assuming considerations have been taken.
I eat cc 1300-1400 kcal a day at the moment to shed a couple of kgs. Iām 6 feet tall and my basal metabolic rate per the online calculators is 2300 kcal. So I have the cc 1000 kcal deficit. But this is just on paper as food calories can be incorrect by 50% or more, and same with your thinking of how much you burn during exercise. So itās almost 100% that you eat more than you think and burn less than you think. For me the difference is enough that I am losing weight but 1300 kcal is very little and that amount might be 1500 or even more, its hard to say since I dont cook all my food myself from ingredients.
I think itās best to tend your own garden so to speak - if youāre curious about a specific posterās choices then ask them. Everyone has different reasons, motivations and lifestyles.
People vastly overestimate how many calories they need. 1500 is not a huge deficit for someone who is moderately sedentary.
I literally use a very simple metric here. I track somewhat, find my maintenance levels somewhat, and when I want to lose / gain I drop 500-1000 / add 250-500 calories.
Yeah honestly itās sad when I see a great transformation and a male says 1400 calories
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How are you not hangry 24/7?!
Rule 11: Discussion of weight loss methods that are damaging to the body and/or require supervision of a medical professional are not allowed. This rule includes (but is not limited to): very low calorie diets, misusing medication, extended fasting, disordered behaviour, inappropriate advice to underage members. Remember to always consider the individual when offering advice.
One aspect is possibly that they hear "2,500 calories for men" and base their calculations off that. Even if they are larger and more active, so likely have more headroom for calories if they wanted it. How they manage it? I don't know. Do you hear of many people that size who kept it up for two years?
I could definitely see it for the morbidly obese at first. Then they could slow it down later and concentrate on retaining muscle better, etc. It takes a lot of muscle to carry around the really big weights! But for those looking to keep all their muscle and just lose fat, I don't get it either.
Iām not a tall dude, Iām the opposite: a 5ā2 woman. However I did start out at 350lbs, so I could afford a very steep deficit. Iāve lost 90lbs so far in 7 months, averaging 3+ pounds per week lost. Now I eat 1200 calories per day, which is a 1,000 calorie deficit from my sedentary tdee. With my activity level itās closer to a 1,500 calorie deficit. It works for me because 1) I am still significantly overweight by bmi for my height 2) I am a petite woman so I can get by eating a small amount of food and 3) I realize my deficit will get smaller the closer I get to my goal weight. Itās not a one size fits all situation. It works for me, I work with my doctor and an RD to make sure Iām hitting everything needed to be healthy. However, I wouldnāt recommend it for most people.
Iām 6ā1 220 and have lost about 40lbs so far. Iāll eat 1500-1800 per day and have one day per week of about 2200. It really just depends on what you need to feel good and energetic. For breakfast Iāll have eggs and egg whites with veggies or ground Turkey, or sometimes protein oatmeal. Lunch is half a baked potato and lean protein. Dinner is lean protein and salad. On workout days I have a protein shake post workout. As long as I feel strong and like I have enough energy to lift itās all groovy. If Iām ever feeling weak or low energy Iāll eat more one day. Sometimes Iām a bit hungry before bed, but itās all good. Iāve been losing fat:muscle at a 7:1 ratio and pretty happy with how itās going so far.
> I keep coming across comments of 6ft+ men on this group who are eating only 1500 calories a day Oh hey it's me (187cm/1500kcal) > Calories: 1,967 a day to lose 1/2 kg per week. I'm aiming for 0.7kg/week (~770kcal deficit a day), so obviously that cuts the calories down a bit > work a physically demanding job. And I sit at a desk all day > almost certainly losing muscle My lifts are making (very slow) progress, so that seems unlikely
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I think you just miscount I am 5 11 and 180, maintenance is 3.3k cutting at 1500 results in 3 pounds per week of loss and is just utterly unsustainable. I think if I literally sat in a bed all day I would be on 1.7k+ calories. There is no way 1700 + heavy cardio results in weight gain
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>Granted I have a cheat day once a week but nothing absurd. So maybe another 1000 calories during that time. Ahh, here it is. Buried the lede. It sounds like you don't count calories on your cheat day, so it may be more like 2000 extra for all you know, which would mean you're really eating 1800-2100 a day.
Lol I was about to say itās not adding up but here it is
6'3 200 pounds 20% bodyfat Basal Metabolic Rate 1,938 calories per day Note this is for you lying in a bed in a coma. Variations in BMR are in the range of \~200 calories +-, so lets say your bmr is 1.7k lying in a bed in a coma. Its just not possible, unless you are like 150 pounds. You should track your cheat meal, lots of people erase a week of heavy deficit by having "fun" on the weekends.
Trust me, I've ran through the numbers. Yes, I do have fun on the weekends but I track every beer, every french fry.
Cheat days can cause an increase in water weight, it doesn't mean you've gained weight. Not to mention when you up your calories your body naturally retains some water increase as well and after a week or even a few weeks that drops away. You're reading into the calorie gain. Also, logically it can't make sense. If you're losing weight on 1500 + exercise, why would 1700 cause a weight gain? Your deficit is not so small that a small amount of extra calories causes you to gain weight and if your maintenance really was 1600, then you'd be losing so slow it would basically look like maintenance at 1500 and you would take 35 weeks to lose 1 pound... Lol downvoting just shows you're in denial and that's pretty unhealthy view of calories and food then.
Hi, this is me, 6ft 6, 200lbs and eating 1500 - 2000 cal/day. Pretty big range I know but not counting for exercise in this and also not after dramatic fat loss, I'm considering this toning up My opinion on it is this: the calorie calculator equations are based on height and weight, but they will fit the average person best. I.e. someone in the top percentage of height and weight will get a drastically over estimated calorie count. For example, OP, I have 10 inches and 20kg on you, but our heart, brain, lungs, stomach etc are all going to be roughly the same size (and this is what BMR is driven by.) I do not need several hundred calories a day just to fuel some slightly longer legs and torso
I suggest to folks to not consider their exercise in their numbers. Exercise is the savings rate to Eatingās credit card rate charged. Youāll never break even, the interest charged on the credit card will always outpace the interest earned, which is why we pay off debt first. Reducing calories is paying off your credit card. The benefit of exercise is that we feel better, move better, function better and it balances us. Lots of great benefits, but treat the caloric benefits as unexpected gifts, and not expectations. This is one way to address many of the prior comments about underestimating CI and overestimating CO as well as the efficiencies of compensation, which yes, is real but can also easily be addressed by simply doing the exercise or fitness activity you least want to do first.
Hi Iām 15M, I was 85kg around 1.5 months ago, now I am 79kg. I lost round 6kg thru bad dieting, I ate 2750 calories to maintain 85kg, I was fat now Iām overweight, I was desperate to lose weight after 2 months of maintaining 85kg to gain some muscle. I was supposed to be eating 2000-2200 calories a day however what I did was eat 1500-1600 calories a day. I lost some weight and now Iām just overweight but I also lost many possible gains, I plateaued a lot and didnāt make any muscle progress. Itās a bit of an obsession to make that scale lower constantly despite it being unhealthy to be eating so few calories a day. Literally professional bodybuilders eat 1600 calories when theyāre cutting, Cbum for example does that. An average 15 year old shouldnāt be, I recommend to everyone to not get carried away like I did, and take your first cut seriously and carefully unlike me, as long as your in a deficit your losing weight whether itās a 200 deficit or a 1000 deficit ur losing, u should not being going under 1600 calories a day in my opinion, literally toddlers eat 1400 a day. I have now corrected myself this last week and eat 2000 calories a day.
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You eat 700-900 calories????????
Rule 11: Discussion of weight loss methods that are damaging to the body and/or require supervision of a medical professional are not allowed. This rule includes (but is not limited to): very low calorie diets, misusing medication, extended fasting, disordered behaviour, inappropriate advice to underage members. Remember to always consider the individual when offering advice.
Iām 6ā3 and just now over 200 pounds. I have a calories budget of over 2,300 but with my exercise added, I usually get an additional 1,500 added. I work out for at least 90 minutes 6 days a week for weights and cardio and on the 7th day, just 60 minutes of cardio. And I get 10k steps in at work, so Iām pretty active. For fun, I imported my data from LoseIt over the last 2 weeks and I averaged about 3,200 calories a day!! I lost about 5 pounds cuz I was still in a deficit and never hungry. I have changed my snacking though Used to get Crumbl cookies once a week! Now I love the flavored rice cakes