How exactly does one eat 1500 calories a day?
How exactly does one eat 1500 calories a day?
I'm trying to lose weight and was told that hwo I eat about 800-1000 calories a day is too low and lowers my metobolism which will prevent weight loss. I've looked up some meal plans and can't really afford stuff like chicken breast, steak, or salmon every week. So that is why I'm wondering how I can eat 1500 calories a day. Are there some alternatives that I can do?
Also I'd like to ask, say I exercise and burn say 500 calories would I have to eat those calories back or no? I ask cuz I've been told yes and told no.
800-1000 calories a day is too low and lowers my metobolism which will prevent weight loss.
If you do it for real for a while, nothing can prevent weight loss.
I've looked up some meal plans and can't really afford stuff like chicken breast, steak, or salmon every week.
Eat real vegetables and fruits. Fresh, where ever possible. You wouldn't believe how cheap you can feed yourself if you do your cooking yourself.
Avoid all processed food. Avoid all sugar.
Yeah I usually do my best to eat vegetables and fruits whenever I can at least. And I'm trying my best to cut back on sugar it's hard lol but I'm getting there.
I feel you, sugar is hard. I find it easier to eat a tiny bit of something sweet like once a week than to cut it altogether. My cravings are too strong when there's no vision of fulfilling them at least a bit :)
cut back on sugar
One type of snack/dessert I do: get a slice of high-fiber bread (toasted, or not), and put a bit of honey or jam on it. Much better than a pastry, bc I can control exactly how much sugar is there.
what has worked for me is just trying to skip out on sugary stuff as often as possible and instead eating regular food that i really enjoy, eventually i just stop really craving sweets that much and now the only sweets i tend to want is stuff like cinnamon rolls and chips, which is more savoury than sweet honestly.
I’ve long said that the best place to loose weight is at the grocery store. You pretty much only ever go to the outside edge. Buy potatoes, onions, peppers, mushrooms, squash and zucchini, radishes, carrots and any other vegetables you like. Bulk is what works here. Then go buy what protein you can afford. Skip anything that has been processed beyond meat and milk.
be carefull with rapid weight loss though, my ex got gout because of it
Also gal bladder problems are a real threat when loosing weight quickly.
"Avoid all sugar"
Right. Avoid fruits.
But seriously. Fruits have very little benefit for health. They have health benefits vegetables have, but with sugars also in them. Fruits are sugared veggies.
Sugared veggies is good. As you say, fruits do have the health benefits vegetables have, which is not "very little". They're full of minerals, vitamins, antioxidants, and above all, fiber. Sugar is not all bad either. Evolutionalrily, we probably like sugar exactly because it is present in fruits and eating fruits is beneficial for us. If you ate only fruits all day, then it would be bad for you, but I'm pretty sure in reasonable amounts fruits are an important part of a healthy diet.
Measuring and establishing some boundaries by plant, rather than type, could be useful to op.
Peppers and carrots can be higher in sugar than expected. Relative to their positive flavor impact on a salad, a cutup strawberry or two adds only a small amount.
Grouping plants into fruit or veg might not be effective for calorie monitoring. Would need to know what they want to eat, and search for nutrition info. Thus a plan.
Man, I gotta be real with you. You aren't going to be able to crowd source this. There's just too much outdated information, well meaning but flawed advice, and outright bullshit online. Finding the up to date, good answers among the junk would only be possible if you already knew it.
The only reliable way to get good answers about bariatrics is going to specialists. Seriously, you can't even totally rely on a general practitioner to be caught up, though you might get lucky with an internist. You can make do with nutritionists if they're either fairly newly graduated, or you know they keep up on their subject.
Hell, there's some specialists that lag behind in terms of proper, evidence driven best practices.
And the thing nobody online will likely admit is that there isn't a single, complete answer because part of how fat loss and gain works is governed by individual circumstances regarding hormones, metabolism, and capabilities, which still ignores external factors in making a prescribed weight loss plan work. If your broke ass lives in a food desert, and you're limited to the corner store for the majority of your supplies, the task gets much harder, just as one example of what I mean by that.
Any medications you're on, that's got to be factored in to an overall plan, even OTC meds, supplements, etc.
Now, there are strategies that are fairly reliable in helping manage calorie intake, like going predominantly plant based. You'll have to study up and make sure that whatever plan you set up has the whole gamut of nutrients you'll need, but as long as a food desert isn't in play, that's usually easy enough. The good news about that is that the core foods tend to be very affordable, and easy to buy in bulk as long as you have storage space.
Another piece of good news is that if you're using exercise as part of your overall plan, not only will you give yourself a wider space for intake, but it improves your health no matter what weight you're at along the way. I mean, losing excess fat is great, but it isn't going to magically make your cardiovascular system work at its best.
And, again, you can only take this comment with a grain of salt because you have no way of knowing that I'm up to date on the interrelated subjects to a degree high enough to be useful. For all you know, I'm thirty years behind on things. And, truth is that the general subject matter isn't a high priority for my reading time. I do put a bit of time every week into digging through journals and publications with a focus on medical shit, but bariatrics isn't something I'm into for my own curiosity. So I have to be at least a little behind as default because I'm always behind even on my favorite subjects because I can't devote enough time to it all.
Weight management is something you have to take on as a long term project where you adapt along the way. You can't look at it as weight loss either, because just losing excess fat is only part of the project. You have to keep it off and improve your overall health.
Eating healthier is not nearly as complicated as this post makes it sound, unless you have unusual underlying medical issues or are aiming to sculpt your body in a very specific way.
- To lose weight, eat about 5-10% less than your daily caloric requirement (there are tons of free calculators and counters online). Water helps to feel full. Increasing exercise can help if changing dietary habits is a struggle.
- To eat healthier overall, eat less processed foods, more fresh stuff.
That's it. This is all the advice most people realistically need to lose weight/eat better. The hard part is being disciplined about it. Now, discipline, on the other hand, that's a very personal matter.
And that right there is the kind of comment I was talking about. Well meaning, I'm sure, but so damn general and vague as to be useless to anyone that's asking what the post is asking.
And, the whole "underlying medical issues" part is key there. Obesity is an underlying medical condition that changes how your body works. It messes with insulin, cortisol, serotonin, and after a point resists weight loss.
Dude is over 250 lbs at approximately six feet tall. If he isn't a fairly regular weight lifter, he's into at least overweight BMI, which is absolutely in the range where it counts as a medical condition that can be resistant to casual methodology, and that's something that bariatric specialists deal with regularly. It's part of the reason that people have so damn much trouble sustaining weight loss, and maintaining it long enough for the underlying changes to shift back to a healthier cycle.
Discipline is not a significant factor when the patient is at the point where OP is. Claims that it is are empty headed, outdated claptrap that does nothing useful for the patient.
Frankly, your comment is the kind the kind of jackassery that I was talking about.
Well CICO is always true, but what modern professionals would help with is the other stuff: mental health, planning, long term, etc.
So in the lab, CICO wins, it's thermodynamics. In real life, people need more support, and they (rightfully, realistically) can't maintain CICO.
True.
CICO it's what is called a bounding condition. It's true but the CO half is almost impossible to know or predict long term outside of being in a 24 - 7 lab.
Hormones, types of calories, activity, and biology all have a huge effect. And long term even small errors in these numbers can have big impacts on weight.
I can attest from a personal anecdote that eating plant-based makes it enormously easier to cut calories. Provided you don't decide to take the costliest, least healthy route of basically living off heavily processed plant-based substitutes or the cheapest, second-least healthy route of living off pasta, ramen, and cereal, you're likely on a diet with plenty of healthy mono- and polyunsaturated fats (and pretty minimal saturated), a high amount of proteins from nuts, seeds, grains, and legumes, a moderate amount of carbs in the form of cereal and simple sugars from fruits, and an absolute abundance of fiber (of which 95% Americans don't get enough).
Even just incorporating something like tofu into your diet helps a bunch, because it's basically all protein and good fats while having just a small amount of carbs. Per calorie, it does the best job I've ever seen of making you feel full for a long time.
Most realist comment here.
You’re absolutely going to lose weight at 500-1000 kcal a day. It’s not particularly healthy, and you’re going to lose significant muscle mass, but you will absolutely lose weight rapidly. A significant caloric deficit will not prevent weight loss; its thermodynamics. You’ll lose muscle with that much of a deficit, which in turn decreases basal metabolic rate, but you’re not going to violate thermodynamics.
How are you tracking intake? If you’re not losing weight, I don’t believe you’re tracking calories correctly. Are you using a scale and weighing portions, or just eyeballing it?
Your body probably will go full panic mode and store back as much as possible as soon as you starts to eat normally again. I'd advice agains doing anything so violent, and just lower your food intake to a bit under normal.
The talk around weight loss is kinda crazy and a lot of it is dominated by pseudoscience.
However, we are pretty much positive that eating at a calorie deficit will result in weight loss in 99.9% of cases and you aren't going to be the 0.1%. There's a lot of anecdotal data about how eating too little will make you stop losing weight or even gain more weight because of your 'metabolism', but no controlled studies that show that to be a significant contributor without other causes. It's not some magical metabolism trick, you're just cheating on your metrics and doing less because you're tired and cranky and have no energy because you aren't eating right.
Saying that, eating at a massive deficit can definitely make you feel like shit and will make it hard to exercise, do not recommend. You will also likely have a part of your brain dedicated to fantasizing about food 24/7 and your libido will likely be in the trash if that matters to you. This will be very hard to maintain, and you have to remember that there's never going to be a day where you can go back to eating like 'normal'. Your current normal is why you need to lose weight and your goal is to eventually establish a new baseline.
Lastly, highly recommend against adding calories back due to exercise. We don't have a lot of good data about there being any reliable indicators of actual calories burned available to the average person and you'll find a tremendous amount of super variable answers when you find instances where people tried to actually test the estimates you see online. The time you put into exercise isn't about weight loss, it will help, but it's a bonus just for you because you deserve to have the body that you want.
The implication of your post is that you're struggling to get to 1500 calories, but you're also trying to lose, presumably, a large amount of weight.
If you're overweight, you clearly know how to eat enough calories. Eat more, like you were doing when you became overweight in the first place.
If you're not overweight and you're struggling to eat more than 1,000 calories, you should probably see a therapist about a potential eating disorder.
More broadly, eating 1,000 calories can make losing weight harder because you are likely to lower your basal metabolism and giving yourself less energy to burn calories through activity.
The math of 1,000 calories/day works out theoretically and may seem enticing ("I will lose an entire extra pound a week!"), but in practice it can often make things more challenging than it needs to be.
The simple fact is that losing weight is a long-term process. And, in general, you can gain a lot more weight in a month than you can lose, so weight gain/loss are not symmetrical processes.
In terms of your specific question about "eating back" calories from exercise: in general, you should indeed increase your calorie consumption if you are regularly exercising. Whether you should eat back every calorie you burn is far too nuanced a question related to exercise routine, health goals, basal metabolism, diet, etc. to answer in the abstract.
my approach is to focus on hunger, obviously presuming you don't have some specific health issue regarding that.
Want to lose weight? Don't sate your hunger fully, wait until you're a bit hungrier than normal before you start eating.
Want to keep your weight? Eat when you're hungry, stop eating when you stop being hungry.
Want to gain weight? You might be able to guess this one: Don't wait until you're really hungry to eat, and eat until you don't want to eat any more.One important thing when doing this is to eat slowly and consider how different foods affect satiation.
It takes a while for your stomach to register how much you've eaten, the general rule is to put down your utensils between every bite and making sure to chew it really really well, it should be a homogenous mush.
And something like vegetables will fill more space in the stomach with less calories; complex carbs will keep you sated for longer than sugar, and getting a good amount of protein and fat together with carbs slows down the processing of the carbs even more so you stay satiated for as long as possible.
800-1000 calories a day is not “slowing your metabolism”
I'm confused too. OP is trying to lose weight by eating more calories? I feel like I'm missing something.
There is a ton of bullshit out there from the HAAS groups, that say "your body will go into survival mode if you eat a calorie deficit and will make you gain weight". It's just bullshit pettled by people who don't want to get healthy.
OPs relationship with food is clearly problematic and they’re not actually cognizant of the food and calories going into their body.
I bet soda is a culprit here
Have you looked into animal-free alternatives like tofu, beans, or lentils?
Tofu has fewer calories than chicken per 100g, though it also doesn't have as much protein for the same size.
I do eat beans and lentils on occasion maybe I should try more? I've tried tofu never cared for it lol.
Eggs. They're the most perfect source of protein and they can be prepared a dozen different ways. They're also dirt cheap. A large size egg is like 80 calories and 6 grams of protein. So $2 in eggs will get you 60 grams of protein a day and just over half your calories per day.
I have seen people eat it straight out of the package before, which is absolutely disgusting.
Not everyone will like every food, even when prepared correctly.
Weight loss advice is nearly a religion. You're going to have a million different people telling you that something absolutely is or isn't a certain way. They'll claim science isn't science, that the body is magical and mystical and you won't achieve your goals if you don't do exactly X or y.
The body does some weird things when you start going into starvation mode but it's not magic.
If you maintain a calorie deficit, eventually you will lose fat. You'll also lose muscle.
The calculations for how many calories you actually burn doing something are kind of voodoo, they vary wildly per individual.
You create a calorie deficit so that your body will burn the fat. You work out so that your body will put more energy into building the muscle you'll be losing. The only way you lose weight is through breathing out carbon dioxide. If you sit around sedentary that's going to take a very long time.
Pick a target for how much weight you want to lose over a month. Pick a calorie deficit that makes sense to you. Weigh yourself every couple of days and calculate a sliding average. Tune the number of calories you're eating after the first couple weeks to maintain your weight loss target.
You do need to be careful with extremely low calorie diets. You want to be monitored by a doctor and have regular blood tests to make sure stuff isn't going awry.
If you want to go cheap, use a free intake monitoring app, eat eggs, beans and rice, try to cram some vegetables in there where you can. Don't go out of your way to avoid fat but don't guzzle it either. Shy away from processed carbs like bread and noodles. Don't necessarily go keto, but keep your carbs in check.
Best advice in this thread. OP please read.
Can you give an example of what you currently eat? I.. doubt you aren't losing weight if you are really eating 900 calories a day.
I do eat some sugar which I'm working on cutting back bgut like my other comment it's not easy lol.
I usually have a fruit smoothie with two scoops of peanut butter every morning or sometimes an egg and english muffin
a turkey, chicken, or roast beef sandwhich for lunch along with some fruits
And dinner my mom usually cooks so I ahve what she makes which usually ranges from fish, steak, pasta, or chicken
but sadly it isn't every day some days I end up skipping lunch and dinner and just eat a snack
If you are serious about losing weight, what I would suggest you do is start recording what you are eating in detail to see where the calories are actually coming from. Make a spreadsheet and track it. Also if you aren't already active, pick up some activity to become less sedentary. Doesn't need to be working out, could be a sport, could be going for more walks.
Hi, I must agree with others that you’re eating more than what you think. I was underweight for over 20 years, so the opposite problem, and I’m one of the few people here who read “I struggle to meet 1500 calories” and nodded. For the vast majority of humans, weight loss is entirely based on energy deficit, so something must be up.
Calories are deceptive. Two days ago I had one sub sandwich (the bread I use, Schär ciabatta, comes in half sized so two of them make up one sub). It was 850 calories, far more than I expected the first time I had one— it’s not even large. That plus an Arizona tea made for 1040 calories in a single pretty volumetrically small meal.
I track the calories of every single thing I eat. I use an accurate to 0.1g scale to measure every ingredient I use in meals and to track serving size for snacks. I pour drinks into a measuring cup. It was some work at first but by now it’s basically second nature. You don’t need to go that far, but I’d highly recommend doing something. Every ingredient must be considered: are you accounting for butter or oils in pasta or even steak? Those add hundreds of calories.
The fruit smoothie sounds almost like bulking food to me. Peanut butter in a smoothie is great for weight gain. How much is two scoops? What’s in the smoothie itself? If you have vague measurements of ingredients and amount, I’d be happy to calculate a caloric estimate. It won’t be exact, but would be a good start.
This furthers my suspicions you’re not tracking properly. That’s over the 500-1000 kcal you’re claiming. You’re well over it if you consume any liquid sugar (even juice) throughout the day that you haven’t listed.
It's hard for most people to eat and drink under 1500 calories a day. Are you saying you're having issues getting up to 1500 calories a day?
Eggs are the cheapest and most perfect protein you can get. Just eat loads of those (around 80 calories an egg) and do some spinach or kale and bell peppers as well. That will cover your veggies and your protein. Then you can fill the rest out with a bit of rice or oatmeal. All of that listed is pretty super cheap.
To your other quaestion- no, you do not need to eat an extra 500 calories if you burn an extra 500 if weight loss is your goal. Eating too little calories (like less than 1200, depending on sex and height) makes your body try to keep your fat and will start removing your muscle in order to make your body have less upkeep. That's really bad. However, if your body knows it's getting more calories than that, and that your having to use a lot of your muscles (burning 500 extra calories per day) it will burn off the fat reserves and try to maintain the muscle you keep using.
Yep. Because it doesn’t seem plausible for me to get to that which is why I eat under.
That’s a good point for the eggs which I’ll eat more of.
Beans are another good, cheap food.
Are you overweight? Really, it's very easy to get to 1500 calories in a day if you throw in some carbs and some calorie dense foods. Heck, right now mcdonalds is selling a $5 meal deal that's 1200 calories. Eat that and 4 eggs for breakfast and you're already at your calories for the day. A few slices of pizza can be 1000 calories. Just one small breakfast sausage patty is 150 calories. A big bowl of cereal with milk can be 500 calories.
None of that is really a healthy way to go, but all I'm saying that is people who need to lose weight usually have issues getting down to 1500 calories. Someone overweight but having a hard time getting up to 1500 in a day is pretty strange.
Regardless, if you just aren't that hungry and need some healthy foods with a lot of calories, pecans and macadamia nuts are 200 calories an ounce. Full fat Greek yogurt is really calorie dense. So are things like peanut butter. Trail mix is also a great and really high calorie snack. Also, avocado. Really, there's a lot of foods that are super calorie dense if you look for them. These are just some of the high calorie healthier ones.
Hey my guy, if you just need to increase your calorie count just add healthy fats to your diet. Fat is incredibly calorie dense so a little goes a long way.
Nuts are a good way to add calories to your day.
Can i ask you to describe a couple of typical meals you would make for yourself?
Ill tell you how i would modify it with what i have in my cupboards
You'll get a lot of contradictory answers with this question because of two major issues.
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There is more than one way to make your scale number go down.
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Your scale number going down can be for multiple reasons.
For example, dropping a bunch of body fat is a way of posing weight, but it does not look any different on the scale than losing muscle mass or losing a leg. You can have more healthy recomposition where you drop a bunch of fat slowly over time and gain some muscle but overall lose absolutely no weight on the scale, and you can also gain weight without changing fat but be in a better position.
So what would you aim for? It depends on your goals. Do you want to be jacked? Maybe you have early signs of type 2 diabetes and want to stop it there. Or maybe you just really want to get rid of your skin issues like acne and dermititis.
Nobody benefits from being insulin resistant. That is the state that pushes you towards weight gain, diabetes, heart disease, and many other issues including dementia. Fixing that is a central goal for a lot of people and it actually helps with most other health related goals. If I were starting somewhere that is where I would probably try to start.
That said, if you have very little muscle that may be better to work on.
Can you give more detail about your goals?
Basically I have a gut which I want to get rid of (Ik you can’t spot reduce sadly). I don’t want to get super jacked I just want to lose this guy and get muscle. And avoid diabetes since it runs in my family.
I’ve currently been working on muscle more since my job thankfully has a gym I do strength there two days a week and walk/run 3
OK, so good, a clear starting point.
First, adding muscle is a fantastic way to go. Muscle burns energy and new muscle is not insulin resistant, so it lowers your overall insulin resistance. This is key to liberating fat and burning it for energy.
The other big key is diet. Your current diet is overwhelming your body's ability to burn without storing as fat. This means you are gaining body fat and this will get worse over time. Gaining muscle can help a fair bit but your existing muscle tissue along with other things like fat cells and other organs are all at the point of damage from high sugar levels in your diet. The fact that you can make yourself go to the gym is great, it means you have caught this before it has gotten too bad.
So to make progress on your diet you probably need to do a couple of things. First is check for other symptoms like swelling around the jawline, fat build up over the spine between your shoulders, rash and skin discolouration, pale gums and lips, and any sort of weakness in nails and hair. These are all potential indicators of an acute deficiency and may need medical support. That said, all of these are generally helped by dietary work, so if nothing massive is presenting like a goiter or anaemic gums you should probably just move forward with diet and reevaluate later.
So what to eat. The biggest problem seems to be sugar, followed by the sugar/fat/salt hyper palatable mix, then hyper processed, and lastly problematic plants. If you eat meat, which I would strongly recommend, then paring everything down to very simple meals is the best option. A kilogram of meat per day is a reasonable base for basically everyone. If you start there and can make it a week without anything else you will have a good starting point for completing an exclusion diet. If you can't jump directly to that then dropping out the worst items is a good step.
Dropping the worst means getting rid of the most packaged and insane foods, like cakes that last 6 months on the shelf or items with ingredients lists longer than The Art of War. If you keep eating sugars but they are in simple forms, for example honey or while fruit, you will avoid most of the worst stuff. It would also be good to learn more about cooking meat properly, so learn how to fry steak, cook chicken wings, and maybe roast a leg of pork. Learn to make basic stuff that tastes good and you will find reducing other crap easier.
Ultimately trying to hit numbers of grams of fat, protein, and carbs is a losing game. You don't know all the internal systems you have and how they allocate energy, but you do have a handy system they operate with, hunger. We should fix your hunger to make it work properly and that is what the above is for. You have simple foods, your body learns what they provide, your hunger becomes more accurate for what you need.
Once your hunger works properly you will do something like work out and you will feel more hungry in the day or two following it. Then chasing numbers won't be needed at all and you can relax.
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With practice. A lowered metabolism won't prevent weight loss. You never need to eat more to lose weight. An alternative is to just keep doing what you're doing so long as it's working. No, you never have to eat calories back.
This helped me: https://nutritionsource.hsph.harvard.edu/what-should-you-eat/
Nice resource. I get good exercise and eat a lot of raw or unprocessed foods, but my portions are whack and there's not a lot of consistency day to day. I've been wanting to clean up my diet for a while and I'm gonna add this to my planning document.
See if you can track down Weight Watchers stuff. The plan itself is expensive, but the basic approach is to simplify doing exactly what you describe. They formalize food categories, portion size, and simplified tracking. Alternatively, they have recipes meeting specific calorie goal, while also having good nutrient value
I second this, and they have a digital only plan that is just $10/month. You can use their app, which is actually very good, to track your food. They use a point system to simplify the process.
If your goal is to lose fat it doesn’t matter what you eat as long as you’re in calorie deficit.
10% restriction off your personal basal metabolic rate is not too bad. But it sounds like you’re wanting a severe cut so I’d recommend 25% under your BMR. You won’t be able to keep that up forever tho only like 6 weeks. You can find BMR charts online for age/height/sex
Fat loss is a lifestyle change. Do what you can be consistent with. It’s easier to add before taking away. So adding veges and protein is easier than trying to stop eating junk food. Protein will make you feel full and veges will fill you up just from quantity if your eating a decent amount of cals of them
Is this a European joke I'm too Free to understand?
There are a lot of good suggestions in this thread, one thing to note is that too much change too fast is a recipe for failure. Whatever you do, make sure it’s manageable. For each change, ask yourself whether it can become a permanent habit for you. This is the only way to sustain it enough to achieve your goals. It could help to write down good ideas, and try them one week or month at a time.
What do you mean by that?
For most people, big breaks in habits fall apart fast, while more gradual changes stick.
For example, many make resolutions to get fit, and start a bunch of related things. But since none of it is habitual, it requires mental effort to do consistently. Soon, something else important requires that mental attention, and the plan falls apart.
The successful ones aren't special, but they created one, little, achievable metric to hit:
- “Subscribe to 2 science-based fitness influencers and watch their content regularly”.
Because it was easy, it became habit. Then, they chose another simple thing to build on:
- “Change evening commute to pass by gym”
- “On Tuesdays, go into gym”
- “Learn proper form for one excercise”
- “Bring a protein shake”
- etc.
Each of these is so small they don’t really feel significant at all. And they're not. The important thing to understand is we’re all lazy. The real challenge isn’t getting yourself onto a diet or into the gym, it’s designing your habits so that the diet isn’t “a diet”, it’s just what you eat. It’s designing your life so that going to the gym requires less mental effort than not going.
I could write a lot more about this but it's already getting long. Atomic Habits is a good book on how to design your habits and habit chains, if you have the time.
As far as I know: forget this thing about the lowered metabolism. Your body needs the energy it needs for basic functionality.
You may feel less active, lowering the energy used above the basics, but still your heart, lungs, brain, temperature management and all the other stuff need roughly the same energy. If your body does not get it from food then it will use up the fat.
But eating this low level of calories you must make sure that you consume all needed vitamins, minerals and enough protein.
And being less active may end up in a decline of muscle mass. In the end that may lead to lower basal metabolsk hastighet, but not your metabolism shutting down.
So then that lower metabolism stuff isn't true? I was told that because I've also lifted weights to get muscle and was told that since the calories i eat will lower my metabolism I won't gain the muscle and lose the weight I want.
So then that lower metabolism stuff isn't true?
No, it's not. Just a coping mechanism for people to feel better about not being able to stick to a diet necessary for weight loss. Calories in, calories out. Maintaining a calorie deficit (i.e. consuming less than you burn) is what results in weight loss.
Metabolism does play a part, but people of all metabolisms can lose weight.
There is a great book in German called " Fett Logik überwinden" ( Overcome fat logic) that scientifically clears up a lot of the myths around gaining and losing weight. What you write about are the classics mentioned in this book.
You need the protein and minerals as building blocks for the muscles. That is why you need to take special care to ingest enough of them with that low calories.
More muscles burn more energy even when idle, that helps losing weight. Looks like you did that right.
If you're running on a deficit it will inhibit muscle growth yes because your body won't have the materials it needs to build new muscle as quickly (this could also be the case if you weren't on a deficit but eat a garbage diet) but that doesn't mean you won't make gains at all. Whoever's telling you this metabolism stuff probably doesn't know what they're talking about and it shouldn't be what you're focusing on. Start with lowering your calorie intake and go from there. I'd suggest getting a calorie tracking app to help you figure out a diet plan that keeps your carbs/protein/fat in order and do moderate workouts while you're dieting. I've used myfitnesspal in the past but I'm sure there are other options.
If you 1500 calories, then exercise and burn 500 calories, yes you would need to eat another 500 calories to reach 1500 calories.
Burning 500 calories through exercice is a lot
I can't give medical advice, I mean I can but I won't. Anyway, I was a professional chef who worked in three very different locations before leaving the pirate kitchen life of sodomy.
What's affordable is going to depend on where you are, so buy in-season fruits and vegetables. Try different recipes using things you know you can afford and when something clicks for you, write it down. Keep a list of the healthy meals and snacks that are easy for you to make because the hungry brain has no past or future. Aggressively mid foods like beans, peas, potatoes, barley and peanut butter are cheap and no one will care if you steal them.
If you're a shit cook find some videos and follow along or ask a friend to walk you through some recipes if you have one.
Keep heathy, craving satisfying food on hand. Make a batch of nut balls (nut butter mixed with seeds, dried berries and whatever) and keep them in the freezer. Have lots of different tea on hand if that's your thing, popcorn is filling and low calorie. My go-tos are: hard boiled egg, or a baked potato, or a bowl of peas. Don't knock a bowl of peas until you try it after a joint, mixed with coconut oil, salt, pepper and cayenne.
Try smoothies. One of my faves is almond milk, spinach, lime juice, cashew or hemp butter, banana, pinch of salt. Blending up greens is a great way to stuff them in and they're low calorie by volume. What's great is I can pre-portion all of those ingredients except the almond milk into containers and freeze them. Then making a smoothie is as simple as dumping the frozen brick in a blender with some liquid.
Grocery store prices can vary by day, sales usually go on before they get in a new order and need to clear the shelves. Figure that out and only buy meat in bulk on sale or wait by the dumpster at night. Make a big batch of something like curry, chili or stew with it and freeze in portions anything you won't eat in the next few days.
There is no shame in using low-income grocery options to get healthy food you can't otherwise afford. See if there are any in your area. I have friends on disability who get a box of fresh fruit and vegetables every week, food that's perfectly good but would otherwise be thrown out because of our high beauty standards for crops.
Learn how to make alfredo sauce. Put it on everything. That will solve your lack of calories.
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As someone who lost 60lb this year: just stop eating ultra processed garbage. Find real foods that you enjoy, and make meals out of those. Eat as much chicken, vegetables, fruits, unsweetened yogurt, fish, eggs, etc as you want and you will lose weight. Unhealthy stuff is fine to eat on occasion but only if you consider it well worth the calories and you are aware of how much you're eating. Dont mindlessly eat a family size bag of doritoes that you dont even like that much. Dont drown yourself in vegetable oil. I stopped buying loaves of bread, sweets, cereals (why are entire aisles of grocery stores dedicated to this garbage?) , carb-based snacks, etc.
Also no, working out does not mean you can eat a snicker's bar for free. The new Kurzgesagt video explains how that works. I dont believe you're gaining or even maintaining your weight at 800-1000 calories, but im just a random person.
The costco rotisserie chicken is only $5, just dont eat too much skin. Yogurt can be affordable and high in protein. Almond milk too. Nuts & beans are decent. Just look at protein to calorie ratios on cheap stuff so you maintain muscle, im sure you can find plenty of foods that work.
Here is a site that has some good lists: https://survival-mastery.com/diy/food_preserv/high-calorie-vegetables.html
Also, the number of calories you eat should be based on your current weight and the types of activities you plan on doing through the day. Calorie intake is variable!
Here is a chart for weight vs calorie intake vs activity:
I've read through your comments, and highly suggest a food diary for at least a couple weeks ago you really understand the calories in things you are eating.
Yes, your body does modulate its resting metabolic rate over the long term based on things like average daily exertion, food, etc, but that is largely inconsequential to weight loss.
As a rough guideline, you want about 50% of your calories to be carbs, preferably the fiber or complex variety, 30-35% protein, and the rest fat. If you run a lot, then a few more carbs. If you lift weights a lot, then a little more protein.
Protein will help you feel fuller, longer, so I like to go my ratio of protein a bit.
Meals that I enjoy: steal cut oats and peanut butter, pan seared tofu with salad and a light dressing, bean chilli, tacos or tostados using those low carb tortillas, bowl of rice, refried beans, salsa, and guac, etc
But you really, really need to have a good understanding of portions and actual calories. Most people are way off.
Edit: also, some fasting cardio, like a good brisk walk or jog in the morning before eating anything can help accelerate things. But don't fall into the trap of eating back the calories you burn.
For protein would protein powder be a good option? And I’ll try a diary too see if that helps
Also I usually try not to eat them all back I’ll sometimes eat like 100-150 back but trying to stop
Whole food is generally preferable, but protein powder is absolutely fine if that's the best you can do. Just take the route that's easiest to adhere to. You'll get much bigger benefits from simply hitting your macros than optimising their source and micronutrients and all that other jazz.
Like the other person said, getting the ratio and amount is more important than the source. But you should ask yourself why you are taking the supplement? Are you sure you're not getting enough from your food? Your body can really only prices 20-40 grams of protein at once, so if you are loading up more than that at a time, you are just piking on calories.
Personally, depending on your current weight, you might think about focusing more on weight loss than bulking muscle mass. Absolutely work out of it is helpful, but don't worry about mass gains while trying to lose fat. You will develop muscles regardless of whether you micromanage your protein intake or not, and you can optimize better after losing some fat.
But again, you need to check, with, and measure the calories in every portion of food until you develop an accurate read on the calories in things. Like peanut butter having about 100 calories per tablespoon (half ounce).
A lot of low calorie veggie to fill your stomach and intermittent fasting to save calories for a bigger dinner.
There's no way you need to somehow eat more to lose weight. Are you sure you're counting your calories correctly? Using an app? Tracking everything, especially drinks like sodas and alcohol?
So basically from what I was told, since I’m 240 lbs and 6 foot I should be eating 2000-2500 calories but if I put myself on a calorie deficit 1500 would be where to go
Yeah that sounds about right.
Look up the YouTube series on that very topic from Renaissance Periodization. It helped me loss 30 pounds and keep them off for more than 6 months now.
Extreme low calorie diet are not sustainable for long, especially if you are starting out.
First thing first, count your calories for a week or two to get the baseline calorie consumption for your current weight. Try to not change your normal food consumption while taking your first baseline calories because it will make the first weight loss cycle more difficult than it needs to be.
Then, start by removing 250 calories from your diet and burn 250 calories every day for 6 to 9 weeks.
Then, go into maintenance where you slowly add a bit more food and stabilize your weight. If you see that you are gaining weight during the maintenance, just cut back a little bit and keep that calorie intake as your maintenance intake. That will become your calorie baseline for the next cycle.
Repeat until your goals are met. Don't hesitate to take a longer maintenance break if you feel like it.
That will give you a sustainable way to lose weight and you will also learn to count calories without weighing everything you eat.
If you can easily cut 250 calories without any problem, try to cut more calories the next cycle, and see how it goes. If it's too hard, then go back to 250/250 calories cut.
As for the food, I don't know where you live, but nutritional yeast is a cheap way to add protein to any meals and add a cheesy flavor to the meal.
As for fat, cheap nuts or neutral oil can help meet your needs.
And for carbs, seasonal fruits and vegetables are usually cheaper, so go with that.
The only thing you should take from this post is that slow and steady is the name of the game. You are fighting millions of years of evolution, so it won't be easy.
TLDR: slow and steady. Cut 250 cal from your diet and burn 250 calories from activity for 6-9 weeks. Maintain for the same amount of time. Repeat.
My go-tos are legumes: cheap, easy to cook, go well with a lot of stuff, filling and full of fibre. If I feel snackish I go for a can of peas, f.i..
Pair them with rice, more veggies and lean meat, when you can score a good deal.
I loose weight by eating 2 big meals a day. My go to seems to be frozen pizza (1000 cal each) and and curries (500-600 for curry, another 200 for my naan in butter). I eat 1600-1800 calories a day and feel like a glutton while my scale keeps going in the right direction. 50lbs down so far.
you're eating a thousand calories a day and not losing weight? what's your height, weight, and sex currently?
Hope my answer doesn't get buried and I hope you don't feel too overwhelmed by all the responses you're getting. But something I found really useful is frozen veg. If you're struggling to plan healthier meals that are higher calorie, frozen veg is a game changer. It doesn't go bad, it's cheaper than the fresh stuff, and the most important thing is you can add it to your existing diet. I have a soft spot for ramen and box mac and cheese for example, and it's so easy just to throw handfuls of whatever I've got in the freezer into a pot of pasta or ramen to make it just a bit healthier. Hell, you can even forget the ramen altogether and just use the soup base (it's just stock!) to make lazy soup. Add a chopped onion if you're feeling fancy and that's that.
You also list a lot of protein sources that you can't afford to add to your diet. Protein is a necessary nutrient, but it's not the end all to a healthy diet. I say that as a lifelong athlete. It's very easy to get an appropriate amount of protein from plant based sources, and they tend to be a lot cheaper. Plus, they tend to be higher in other macros and nutrients. Soy milk, for example, has the same protein content as dairy milk (but might be more expensive depending on your area). Beans and other legumes are fantastic and tasty. Chickpeas are my favourite. If you have a blender or food processor, you can make hummus very easily. Lentils are also amazing if you are able to cook. Cheap as hell if you buy them in bulk and insanely filling. Indian dhaal is a lentil stew that's fairly easy to make and very tasty. If you can afford it, snack on nuts and seeds. Add peanut butter (look at labels to find some that doesn't have sugar in it) to your diet. Both those things are higher in calorie while also being high in nutrients. If you eat rice, try getting brown rice instead of white rice. It's higher in protein and fiber and will likely keep you full for longer. Potatoes and other root vegetables are also awesome. Versatile, cheap, relatively high calorie, easy to cook, and keep for a long time if stored properly. I like to make a huge pot of potato stew with beans and frozen vegetables and keep it in the fridge for easy meals for like a week. If you're looking for animal protein, check your local grocery for frozen fish. Its usually half the price of the fresh stuff.
I'm not your doctor, but personally, 800-1000 cal/day was terrible for my health. Yeah, it'll make you lose weight, but for me it made me really lethargic and gave me brain fog. It just wasn't enough to keep my body going. Maybe try slowly lowering your calorie intake and see how your body feels. I've also found that in the past, calorie counting was actually counterproductive to my health because what ended up happening was it became a "game" to eat fewer and fewer calories a day. Luckily I saw that and stopped counting calories before it turned into an eating disorder. My point here is just that it'll take some work figuring out what works for you and don't get discouraged if a method doesn't fit your body or your lifestyle.
In terms of exercise, I know it's not a satisfying answer, but it's really going to depend on your body and what type of exercise you're doing. If you're exercising, you should definitely be eating more than 800-1000 cal/day unless you're like, a toddler. It's dangerous in my non-professional opinion to exercise when you're under eating by that amount particularly if you're lifting weights or doing high impact cardio.
I wish you luck on your journey and I hope it all works out for you :)
Try being a pescatarian, shrimp and tilapia are fairly cheap, and finding non-animal protein is actually fairly easy if you branch out a little.
shrimp and tilapia are fairly cheap
This varies hugely based on location, primarily distance from the ocean. Pound for pound, beef and pork are far cheaper than basically any seafood in my region.
That's only a fish diet right? I wouldn't be apposed but I do love my meat though lol
Speak with a doctor, not the internet.
Instead of trying a bunch of different conflicting methods for weight loss from these comments, I would recommend you instead first understand the science of it with:
I'd be cautious stating that these videos represent science. People are free to make their own dietary choices of course, but 'water fasting' and 'low-carbohydrate high-fat' diets are questionable. Also, FYI, Dr. Jason Fung is a Kidney doctor.
I have found that after doing a 5 day water fast, it was much much easier to limit myself to whatever daily calorie goal I was aiming for.
Ok, you have been fed some bullshit. Anyone who just gives you a "eat X calories" advice without knowing your age, height, gender, etc... is full of shit. Makes me no end of mad when you see "Contains 25% of your daily..." on food packaging. Because a 19yo male rugby playing bricklayer and a 46yo female accountant have vastly different requirements.
At the core of it, its CICO (Calories in, Calories out)
https://www.calculator.net/macro-calculator.html Tap your details into that, select a REASONABLE weight loss goal a week, underestimate your exercise, and select the high protein option since you are weight training and want to avoid muscle loss.
A few eggs on a couple of pieces of wholemeal or multigrain toast, pot of greek yoghurt and a coffee is a perfectly good breakfast and Protein shakes are a great way to get protein in and keep calories reasonable, my lunch at work is 2 scoops of Casein protein and a protein bar. I eat boring and super low cal during the day because I train in the afternoon and want to enjoy my dinner.
When it comes to adding back in workout calories... both sides are right. "Diet fatigue" is a real thing, and if you want to keep your calorie defecit around a certain number to avoid getting burnt out then yes, you add them back in. Personally I calculated my macros and calories to "mild" weight loss and estimated my exercise as "none" so my training was where I found the larger part of my deficit.
I could write a very short book on this stuff so if tou have any questions feel free to PM me.
Don't lose weight to get healthy. Get healthy to lose weight.
https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/keto
The calorie model of eating isn't super helpful.
The hormonal model is more effective. Keep your hormones balanced (no sugar, no carbs, no alcohol), let your body do its own self regulation of intake and hunger, and see the direct benefits.
When you eat sugar your blood sugar increases, which your body immediately tries to regulate by producing insulin, insulin is a super hormone that impacts many systems in the body, not just blood sugar. If you keep your insulin levels low the body will function more normally, including much better control of hunger.
According to Dr Jason Fung, who does a lot of research on the pancreas and insulin, avoiding carbs and sugar is the most beneficial. The basic idea is that sugar and carbs trigger your pancreas to release insulin the most. Insulin is the hormone that tells your body to store fat.
My sifu gave us this advice.
Eat colorful foods. Don't eat white foods. Take 1 or 2 less bites of everything. Leave the table just a bit hungry. Drink plenty of water. Don't eat before bed.
One recommendation is a food tracking app. Personally I use MacroFactor, which gives custom calorie intake recommendations based on how fast/slow you're losing/gaining weight.
This is great as it allows you to select a slow, healthy, sustainable weight loss speed and the calories are simply adjusted to match that (weighing in regularly will be necessary)
Hi op, how has the journey been going? Are you still trying to lose weight?
It’s a struggle but working on it :)
Glad to hear! It really is a struggle but it’ll be worth it.
Dry beans, rice, oatmeal, eggs and milk. Buy the plain bulk containers if you want the best unit cost. While eggs and milk have gone up in price, they can still be found cheap enough at the warehouse stores.
Don't skimp on a variety of greens and fruits!
On apple there is an app called mynetdiary. HIGHLY recommended to help answer your questions. It sounds like finances are an issue, but the paid version really helps you dial in nutrition with detailed nutrient info and meal plans. The key feature of this app for me was the predicted weight loss trend line.. and then seeing my results line up perfectly. It’s almost like they knew what they were talking about.
DO NOT go below bmr..
If you are going into deficit, stave off the full effect of adaptive thermogenesis (“starvation mode”) with weights and higher levels of protein.
Poor advice, IMO. Going below BMR is ok, starvation mode is largely a myth, and, while nutrition is important, it is not necessary for caloric-deficit weight loss.
No the poor advice is to go below bmr by some rando who says, “No it’s cool. Nutritionists don’t know what they are talking about.” But go for it. Do like everyone else who is in a rush and turn your diet into a roller coaster and put your health at risk.
Basal metabolic rate (BMR) is the number of calories your body needs to perform basic functions while at rest. Consuming too few calories, also known as severe caloric restriction, can cause a number of health problems, including:
-Slowed metabolism: Your body slows down your metabolism to conserve energy when you don't consume enough calories. This can make it harder to meet your daily nutrient needs and cause fatigue.
-Weakened bones: Consuming too few calories can weaken your bones.
-Reduced fertility: Restricting calories too much can negatively affect fertility.
-Muscle loss: Going below your resting metabolic rate (RMR) for an extended period of time can cause you to lose muscle mass, which can lower the number of calories you burn each day.
-Nutrient deficiencies: Eating fewer calories than your body needs can make it harder to meet your daily nutrient needs.
-Other health problems: Other health problems associated with severe caloric restriction include anemia, menstrual disturbances, and decreased mucosal immunity.
As is always the case when people say it's on Apple/iPhone, it's also out on Android
Here's their website with buttons to both stores: https://www.mynetdiary.com
It's cheaper and easier to release on Android, and almost twice as many people use it, of course every single Apple iTunes app is going to be on the Google Play Store as well
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17469900/ just read the abstract if nothing else.
Whelp that's not helpful on its own though to be honest. "long term lifestyle change" is the key word I am aware which is... Well at least I didn't manage it so far. "just do X" is like telling an alcoholic to "just stop drinking, oh but you need a sip every other hour".
My brother.
Do not eat before 11am and do not eat after 7pm.
Drink water.
Weigh yourself daily, in the morning, right after you piss and shit, and then look at yourself in the mirror.
Eat as you please during your open window, don't lie to yourself about what you are eating. Trash is trash.
Let this truth wash over you as you buy your food. The shame will drive you to make better purchases.
To be successful, you must hate yourself as you are and love yourself as you want to be.
Good luck.