calories and weight loss

jaykay · 17-Jun-08, 02:31 PM

Hi,
My recommended calorie level is 2200/day based on how much exercise I do. I'm trying to lose weight so I eat 1700-1800 cals/day AND exercise 6 days/week.

Is this too FEW calories since I already am eating 500 cals less than I need. Plus,I'm doing exercise which burns more calories. So, total I'm depriving my body of more than 500 cals...probably more like 700-800 daily with the combo of eating less AND exercising.

But I thought this was the way to go.

Question: Will my RMR slow down after several weeks of doing this? I thought exercise should keep RMR elevated as weight is lost (haven't actually lost any yet...) but I find my appetite has been decreased for at least one week on 1800 calories. I may drop to 1700. I will maintain exercise.

But I'm not sure, because should I drop my calories even more (to 1700) OR eat more so that I'm only depriving myself of 500 total calories and not more?

westside24 · 23-Jun-08, 08:01 PM

you are supposed to drop the calories, but not that drastically, if maintenance of 2200 is recommended and you have confirmed that thru trial, then I would decrease it to 2100 maybe 2000 calories, not 1800-1700 thats a big decrease.

Sophie · 24-Jun-08, 10:38 AM

I have to eat around 2400 calories to maintain my current weight with my level of activity. If I drop the calories by 500, to 1900, I lose weight WAY too fast.

Try slowly decreasing your calories by 100 or so a week until you find a good rate of weight loss. Drastically cutting your calories is just going to low you metabolism.

Klide · 25-Jun-08, 06:26 AM

Do not confuse your maintenance calories with calories you need to consume due to your activity. Maintenance calories are the calories you consume when you do not do any activity. As a rule of thumb... on days you workout... increase your calories by 20% (pre and post workout meals) to fuel the activity and aid in recovery. On your rest days... decrease by 20% to safely lose body fat. Then of course adjust those calculations as you go depending on the results or lack there of.

Klide · 25-Jun-08, 06:27 AM

If you eat to little calories you run the risk of your metabolism slowing down... to keep you alive.

westside24 · 25-Jun-08, 09:43 PM

your rule of thumb is starting to sound like my thinking lol!

CliffA74 · 26-Jun-08, 07:19 PM

I know there are plenty of great studies to back the idea of eating more to lose weight. But I know from personal experience taht when I crank up the exercise intensity, I need to eat more. Not a huge amount more, but a little more here and there.
You'll have to play around with it.
But cutting calories is bad. Unless you are cutting out garbage calories. In that case, hack away.

(The above mentioned studies are all from Russia before the Iron Curtain fell, which mean they are beyond dispute, and as unchangeable as the Laws of the Medes and the Persians)

Cliff

Laurinsane · 02-Jul-08, 02:56 PM

JeyKay, it's healthy to lose 1-2lbs a week (3500-7000 calories/wk). With that being said, having a 500-1000 calorie deficite each day should be alright. As long as you are not hungry and not starving yourself then I think you're OK.

If you are feeling really light-headed after your workouts or just feel weak during the day I would suggest increasing your calorie intake. Especially in carbs since you are working out so much.

westside24 · 05-Jul-08, 09:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Laurinsane

JeyKay, it's healthy to lose 1-2lbs a week .

I agree with that. with that said never buy into stupid commercials or ads, or supplements claiming you can lose 25 lbs. in 1-2 weeks....because it will be all muscle, so whats the point.

I told this same thing to this girl at my work, tryin to lose baby weight, she wanted to try a supplement at Vitamin shoppe, and I told her, your gonna lose muscle, her response was, "so, I dont wanna be that muscular, I just wanna lose weight"

And im like yea, but its not about losing weight, its about losing fat, or losing muscle... why in the world would you wanna lose muscle but keep the fat!

Laurinsane · 05-Jul-08, 08:07 PM

Yea I had a girl on one of those Detox things where she couldn't eat food for a week!!! She just had to drink these herbal teas. She lost a lot of weight but like you say it's all muscle weight and she gained it back quickly in fat. Diet pills and rinks not worth it at all.

Like the turtle and the hare. Slow and steady wins the race.

Johnny_wal · 19-Aug-08, 02:40 AM

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**Firehawk** · 27-Aug-08, 06:15 AM

I understand some of these people's advice, but what I think is misconstrued is something like "if you eat too few calories your metabolism will bog down". If it's recommended that you are to eat 2200 cals per day to draw even, and you cut it back to 1700, you're not starving yourself. Starving yourself would be like 500 calories a day total.

If you're not losing weight yet, give it 3 weeks or so, then cut it down another 100. Keep doing that until you find results. Also, monitor your strength and performance in the gym. I'd say monitor your energy levels, but that will probably decrease at first. Watch your strength levels.

You're also not going to lose 25lbs of muscle in 1-2 weeks either. Even if you starved yourself and never ate anything, I doubht you'd lose 25 lbs of muscle. In fact, I woudln't be surprised if most women don't even have 25lbs of skeletal muscle on their bodies. It's often water loss. Like when you do Atkins, the first 2 weeks you see a drastic loss because of water loss. NO carb intake means much less water retention. Eating high clean protein intake often equates to much less sodium intake which also means less water retention.

**minime** · 28-Aug-08, 10:39 AM

I agree with Firehawk. People get a bit too freaked out about the whole 'starvation mode' or dropping of metabolism.

1700 is fine, stick with 1700 for 2 weeks and re-evaluate. If still no loss, 1600 is fine.

I think 10-12x body weight is often quoted for fat loss anyway, but I don't know how much you weigh.

so if you weigh more than 170, maybe 1700 is too low. You should lose while eating 10-12x bodyweight however.

sooner_ed · 28-Aug-08, 12:10 PM

I agree with Firehawk and minime, but I think something has been left out of the equation.

jaykay has cut his/her (sorry, I don't know if jaykay is male or female) calories by 400 - 500 and maintained exercise six days a week with no weight loss. I know this is an old post and we haven't heard from jaykay since this was posted in June.

Sometimes we do the same exercise every day and our body becomes efficient at it and starts to burn fewer calories doing the same exercise. If jaykay has cut his/her calories and has continued to exercise without any weight loss, perhaps the answer is not in continuing to drop calories but perhaps revamping his/her exercise program.

Just a thought.

**Firehawk** · 28-Aug-08, 02:32 PM

I would also say that perhaps the initial 2200 a day that was probably gotten from a calculator was perhaps wrong, and maybe she's too close to her requirement at 1800-1900 a day...seems hard to believe, but we don't know what she weighs.

My sister is in very good shape and weighs 102lbs at 5'1. It's funny becuase she has to run her butt off on the treadmill for about an hour to burn 300 calories, where the same machine for me on a incline of 8.0 and a speed of 4.2 (walking fast for me) burns me about 800 an hour. lol