Maximum Recommended Daily Calorie Deficit?

[OutdoorGuy]

Hello everyone - This is my first post . I did a search, but came up with so many hits that I thought I'd post this here where the 'hardcore' folks are :) Hopefully you can clear this up for me. - - I thought I'd get myself back in much better shape. After using the Zone program for awhile I thought I'd try the Protein Power low carb program. (Just started this week). - - I'm wondering if there is a maximum recommended daily calorie deficit ?
I ask because I used the FitDay program for the first time this week after reading about it in the forums and it calculated that I'm eating about 1700-1800 cals per day and have a daily calorie expenditure of about 3800 cal per day for a total of 2000 cal deficit per day. I've never calculated total calorie expenditure including basal, daily work activities, and exercise/physical activity. I don't know if my numbers are particularly unusual or if others have even greater daily calorie deficits without losing muscle mass. Can you have too much of a daily calorie deficit, even if youre getting the recommended levels (and more) of protein, and adequate amounts of the other needed nutrients ? Thanks in advance for your comments. All the best, - -
P.S. - - I think I read in one of Barry Sears' Zone books that the maximum recommended weight loss is 2 lbs per week. Beyond that, youre eating into lean muscle mass. Does this 'rule' apply to low carb eating programs ? My 12000 to 14000 weekly calorie deficit would equate to more than 2 lbs loss.

[LessLiz]

I'm wondering if there is a maximum recommended daily calorie deficit ?No. Calculation of calories expended during exercise are notoriously wrong, usually calculating far more calories than are expended.

[M Levac]

Hello everyone - This is my first post . I did a search, but came up with so many hits that I thought I'd post this here where the 'hardcore' folks are :) Hopefully you can clear this up for me. - - I thought I'd get myself back in much better shape. After using the Zone program for awhile I thought I'd try the Protein Power low carb program. (Just started this week). - - I'm wondering if there is a maximum recommended daily calorie deficit ?
I ask because I used the FitDay program for the first time this week after reading about it in the forums and it calculated that I'm eating about 1700-1800 cals per day and have a daily calorie expenditure of about 3800 cal per day for a total of 2000 cal deficit per day. I've never calculated total calorie expenditure including basal, daily work activities, and exercise/physical activity. I don't know if my numbers are particularly unusual or if others have even greater daily calorie deficits without losing muscle mass. Can you have too much of a daily calorie deficit, even if youre getting the recommended levels (and more) of protein, and adequate amounts of the other needed nutrients ? Thanks in advance for your comments. All the best, - -
P.S. - - I think I read in one of Barry Sears' Zone books that the maximum recommended weight loss is 2 lbs per week. Beyond that, youre eating into lean muscle mass. Does this 'rule' apply to low carb eating programs ? My 12000 to 14000 weekly calorie deficit would equate to more than 2 lbs loss.

Eat more to grow fat, eat less to grow lean? That's not how it works. This is how it works: Carbohydrates drive insulin drives fat accumulation.

[carlh_uk]

Eat more to grow fat, eat less to grow lean? That's not how it works. This is how it works: Carbohydrates drive insulin drives fat accumulation.

I dont agree, this is exactly how it works. Your statements leads people to believe they can eat all the protein and fat they want and still lose weight. The simple fact of the matter is that if they are eating more calories than they burn they will not lose weight (only water weight if just starting). Carbohydrates are seen as the devil on this forum, but they play their part post workout for people doing intense weight training.

To the OP, the only way you can accuratly work out your BMR is to be very consistent with your diet / training for a few weeks and monitor your weight. This is the most useful thing i have done, as now i can just manipulate the numbers to lose what i want.

I agree on not losing any more than 1 - 2 pounds a week to maintain your lean body mass. If your training intensely you will want the extra calories to recover. Another thing i would recommend is having a weekly refeed day where you eat more calories than you burn. This is to trick your body so it does not get used to a consistent calorie deficit causing a "stall". You will obvioulsy have to factor in the calories taken in on this day so you still have enough weekly deficit to lose fat.

[M Levac]

I dont agree, this is exactly how it works. Your statements leads people to believe they can eat all the protein and fat they want and still lose weight. The simple fact of the matter is that if they are eating more calories than they burn they will not lose weight (only water weight if just starting). Carbohydrates are seen as the devil on this forum, but they play their part post workout for people doing intense weight training.

To the OP, the only way you can accuratly work out your BMR is to be very consistent with your diet / training for a few weeks and monitor your weight. This is the most useful thing i have done, as now i can just manipulate the numbers to lose what i want.

I agree on not losing any more than 1 - 2 pounds a week to maintain your lean body mass. If your training intensely you will want the extra calories to recover. Another thing i would recommend is having a weekly refeed day where you eat more calories than you burn. This is to trick your body so it does not get used to a consistent calorie deficit causing a "stall". You will obvioulsy have to factor in the calories taken in on this day so you still have enough weekly deficit to lose fat.

We can and we do eat as much fat as we want and we still lose weight. But we can't eat as many total calories as when we eat carbs. We're just not hungry. Ever. Maybe it's because as we eat no/low carb, insulin level drops, fat is released from adipose tissue thereby adding to the total calories available.


A short quiz on how our body works.

If our body stores surplus calories when we eat too much, by what mechanism does our body determine how many calories to use and how many calories to store? What's the hormone or organ that does this selection and how does it do it?

If our body stores the surplus and uses the stored calories when in deficit, how can our body store a tiny surplus or use a tiny deficit over long periods when it also has the capacity to adjust to the varying caloric intake day after day?

Does our body react the same way toward carb calories, fat calories and protein calories?

Does our body use carb calories, fat calories and protein calories for the same purpose? Does it process them the same way?

When using calories for fuel, is the cost of using carb calories, fat calories and protein calories the same for all forms of fuel?

Do our cells use carbs (glucose,fructose, lactose, etc), fat (fatty acids) and protein (amino acids) directly when it uses it for fuel?

Do cells use glucose and fatty acids the same way?

How many ATP (adenosyne triphosphate) molecules does one molecule of glucose and one molecule of fatty acid yield?

Can carb calories, fat calories and protein calories produce the same insulin response?

Does carb calories, fat calories and protein calories satiate us the same?

Is our blood lipid profile the same when we eat a high carb or a high fat or a high protein diet?

Which macro-nutrient is blamed for diabetes? Which macro-nutrient should we not eat when we have dabetes?

Which macro-nutrient is blamed for Metabolic Syndrome? What happens to this condition when we stop eating that macro-nutrient?

Which macro-nutrient is required for cancer growth?

What is insulin resistance and what causes it? What happens to lean tissue when it becomes insulin resistant and how does that fit in with a carb up diet?

[Hutchinson]

Because I suffer from the late effects of polio (http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/post_polio/detail_post_polio.htm#107223172) and have to closely monitor additional weakness, excessive fatigue, and unduly prolonged recovery time additional exercise is not an option for me but I have lost just over 2lb/weekly for the last 16 weeks+ without once counting calories or worrying about calorie deficit.

I took one look at the total of calories a sedentary person of my height/weight requires daily and thought if I limit myself to that I will give up in no time at all.

Not bothering about calories makes eating a pleasure. Once you get rid of those foods that increase your appetite you find you naturally eat less of those foods you really enjoy.

Dr Dahlqvist's plan (http://blogg.passagen.se/dahlqvistannika/?anchor=my_lowcarb_dietary_programe_in)

[carlh_uk]

You can throw around all the scientific words you want martin. I do what works for me based on my own experiances. At no point did i say your body will store excess calories, as this is an area i havent really experimented in while eating low carb.

I have read many contradicting articles about the subject. I have tried eating near to zero carbs, and yes i did lose weight. What i didnt realise at the time is that it wasnt mainly fat that i was losing. I dont believe you can eat "as much fat as you want" - you rely on the fact that it doesnt make you feel as hungry. When I ate more calories than i used for the day, i didnt lose weight - go figure. How long have you been dieting? whats the change in your bodyfat% for the weight you have lost? I would be interested to see your progress pics over 6 months. I have been dropping around a pound a week for nearly a year now, you can see my pics in my profile.

If you want to go into that much science on the subject, your gona have to be a bit more open minded than just saying "dont eat carbs". I know what works for me, and im just trying to help ensure that people dont get sucked into being so narrow minded on the subject.

[M Levac]

You can throw around all the scientific words you want martin. I do what works for me based on my own experiances. At no point did i say your body will store excess calories, as this is an area i havent really experimented in while eating low carb.

I have read many contradicting articles about the subject. I have tried eating near to zero carbs, and yes i did lose weight. What i didnt realise at the time is that it wasnt mainly fat that i was losing. I dont believe you can eat "as much fat as you want" - you rely on the fact that it doesnt make you feel as hungry. When I ate more calories than i used for the day, i didnt lose weight - go figure. How long have you been dieting? whats the change in your bodyfat% for the weight you have lost? I would be interested to see your progress pics over 6 months. I have been dropping around a pound a week for nearly a year now, you can see my pics in my profile.

If you want to go into that much science on the subject, your gona have to be a bit more open minded than just saying "dont eat carbs". I know what works for me, and im just trying to help ensure that people dont get sucked into being so narrow minded on the subject.

Either you argue your personal experience, or you argue the science. If you argue your personal experience, there is no argument. You saw what you saw and that's that. If you argue the science, you must know your subject.

As far as being open minded, I am. I just prefer to avoid fallacious arguments like the Positive Caloric Balance hypothesis and instead rely on the science behind carbs, insulin and fat accumulation. The questions I asked are fair. I didn't want to put you on the spot. I wanted to make you see how many questions the PCB hypothesis bring up.

Speaking of personal experience is one thing, drawing conclusions from them is another. It's impossible to argue against the personal account of somebody who says they lost that much weight. Anybody can read a scale. On the other hand, incorrect assessments are what they are and will inevitably be challenged by somebody at some point. When I read that somebody lost weight because they ate less, I must question the assessment. I can't question that they lost weight. I can certainly question that the reason they did so is that they ate less total calories.

There is one interesting fact about eating less calories than your body needs. As we eat less total calories, we invariably eat less carbohydrates. Then it's all about insulin level dropping and fat being released from adipose tissue. Now the next time you see how much weight you lost following a period of caloric deficit, ask yourself how much less carb you ate during that period. Better yet, have your blood tested before and after and compare the two to see if there was a drop in insulin level and/or hba1c and/or blood glucose level and/or triglycerides. Insulin level will drop inevitably when we eat fewer carbs. hba1c, blood glucose level and triglycerides will drop as well.

There's another interesting thing about eating less total calories. We could simply cut out all the fat in our diet while we ate the same amount of carbs. That would reduce the total amount of calories. So if we believed that eating less total calories is the way to go, we would assume that doing that would cause us to lose weight. It might. But since we would eat just as many carbs as we did before, the insulin response would be the same and so blood insulin level would not drop and fat would not be released from adipose tissue. The point is, if we did lose weight by doing that, the weight we would lose would not be fat. It would be lean tissue.


You write that "When I ate more calories than i used for the day, i didnt lose weight". You make an assumption based on your current understanding. I don't doubt that you did not lose weight and I wasn't there when you made the observation so I must take your word for it as is. But we can't possibly know what caused you to not lose weight unless we looked at the mechanisms that control our weight. And so your assumption can be challenged. What was your exercise level during that period? Did you eat more carbs than otherwise? Did you eat less fat than otherwise? Did you eat more salt than otherwise? Did you take prescription drugs that would otherwise change the hormonal profile? Did you get enough sleep? All those are fair questions considering that we don't know the exact state of the mechanisms that control your weight during that time.

When somebody asks how much deficit they should go to lose weight, that's a statement in its own right not attached to a personal experience of any kind. The fact is, that statement is incorrect and we know the reasons why and we know the science behind it. It's based on erroneous assumptions about how our body works. For instance, it's believed that any excess will be stored as fat. By extension, it's believed that any deficit will cause fat to be released from adipose tissue. Yet when this hypothesis is challenged and questioned as I have done with the series of questions, we find that there is no science behind the PCB hypothesis.

[LessLiz]

Science cares little for opinion. It is what it is. Summing it up to "Don't eat carbs" is a bit overstated, but not far off the currently known mark.

[ruthla]

I'm not so sure that the Fitday calculations of calorie expenditures are accurate. It's fine to use Fitday to keep track of various activities you're performing in addition to using it to keep track of your food intake, but I wouldn't put TOO MUCH stock into the calculations it does for those activities.

[Rocketguy]

Hello everyone - This is my first post . I did a search, but came up with so many hits that I thought I'd post this here where the 'hardcore' folks are :) Hopefully you can clear this up for me. - - I thought I'd get myself back in much better shape. After using the Zone program for awhile I thought I'd try the Protein Power low carb program. (Just started this week). - - I'm wondering if there is a maximum recommended daily calorie deficit ?
I ask because I used the FitDay program for the first time this week after reading about it in the forums and it calculated that I'm eating about 1700-1800 cals per day and have a daily calorie expenditure of about 3800 cal per day for a total of 2000 cal deficit per day.

<SNIP>
P.S. - - I think I read in one of Barry Sears' Zone books that the maximum recommended weight loss is 2 lbs per week. Beyond that, youre eating into lean muscle mass. Does this 'rule' apply to low carb eating programs ? My 12000 to 14000 weekly calorie deficit would equate to more than 2 lbs loss.

The better way to address the issue is to consider the Sears comments on maximum weight loss per week. Lots of other people have been saying similar things for years and years. Don't lose weight too fast. There are probably exceptions as to when fast weight loss is OK, but don't count on being one of them.

Period.

Forget all of the junk about calculated calories expended. Those calculated numbers on exercise machines are more to make you feel good than to be used to fine tune your exertion.

Metabolisms vary. The efficiency with which your muscles use calories for work varies. Computed calories expended may well be a comfortable fantasy.

Just don't over do the fast weight loss, and you'll probably be fine.

Maybe you should read a little less. :)

Good luck.

[OutdoorGuy]

Thanks everyone for your comments. I can see this is a new way of looking at the whole matter of fat loss and health. I havent been doing low carb long, but can already see positive results. Best regards, - -