Weightloss: KCals in v Exercise v Hunger

richa

I'm trying to get a handle on approximately how much I should be eating (calorie wise) to ensure safe/healthy weightloss.

So....
> I am 35 & Male.
> My Resting Metabolic Rate was tested 2 years ago and found to be approx 2,400 KCals.

I train for 7 hrs per week at approx 750 KCals/Hr (according to my Polar HRM), and I wish to lose 2lbs per week, which I understand is equivalent to 1,000 KCals/Day.

Therefore, I should eat:
= RMR 2,400 KCals
+ Work 750 KCals
- Lose 1,000 KCals
>>> Eat 2,150 KCals

Does this add make sense? Have I missed anything?

It seems like quite a lot. What are the consequences of eating, say, only 1750 KCals.

Thanks.

DaveyL

I think it's recommended that you have a calorie deficit of only 15% for safe, consistent weight loss - I got this from Anita Bean's nutrition book.

I.e if you burned 3150 calories per day, don't drop your intake below 2677. So that's about half the calorie burn you are aiming for, but would still knock off about a pound a week (I think.

liversedge

RMR/BMR of 2400 calories is fine if you're a brickie or binman with lots of manual labour. if you spend your time in an office you can almost halve that. The 2000 cals average for a typical man is bull in my experience. But then I sit on my ar$e all day

bahzob

Feels about right in terms of target, however devil in detail. If getting into this I'd suggest checking out Fitday. I've been using it for a while, tracking cals in via food labels/db and energy out via power meter. Got it because I had pretty much plateaued in terms of losing weight.

Been a bit of any eyeopener
- Cals in - devilishly hard to keep to target. 2150 cals a day isnt really very much.
- Food labels mislead, portion size quoted is often tiny.
- Despite best efforts to put in everything to keep at a steady state I need to eat 300cals under my theoretical BMR. I think this is good news training/riding wise as means I've got a pretty good mpg and dont need to eat much on rides but did help explain the plateau. (bears out post above, I too pretty much spend most of day sitting around)

That said, with help of Fitday, shifted another 14lbs.

(For the record, got no links to the product, just saw it mentioned on post somewhere, tried it and helped a lot).

Ken Night

Cripes Martin, since when have you lost 14lbs, and from where? Met you in June 08.....you must be wraith like!

liversedge

bahzob wrote:

- Cals in - devilishly hard to keep to target. 2150 cals a day isnt really very much.

Really? 700 cals per meal? or 500 per meal and two snacks. seems like more than plenty to me. If I eat bran flakes with fruit and natural yoghurt, veggie soup and a roll then chicken and pasta with a salad I that'll do me about 1500 cals max - throw in a couple of pieces if fruit and daytime drinks then easy make 1800.

... of course resisting the biscuits,crisps, sweets, chocolate, booze is quite tricky ;-)

bahzob

liversedge wrote:

bahzob wrote:

- Cals in - devilishly hard to keep to target. 2150 cals a day isnt really very much.

Really? 700 cals per meal? or 500 per meal and two snacks. seems like more than plenty to me. If I eat bran flakes with fruit and natural yoghurt, veggie soup and a roll then chicken and pasta with a salad I that'll do me about 1500 cals max - throw in a couple of pieces if fruit and daytime drinks then easy make 1800.

... of course resisting the biscuits,crisps, sweets, chocolate, booze is quite tricky ;-)

Yup its tricky. Doing it for a day or two is simple, doing it for the weeks/months needed to lose weight and keep it off is the hard bit. Like I said I was surprised by how small some portion sizes were to keep to the cals target.

bahzob

Ken Night wrote:

Cripes Martin, since when have you lost 14lbs, and from where? Met you in June 08.....you must be wraith like!

Started using Fitday around a year ago as part of new year resolution to lose weight and keep it lost. (I'd made a similar sort of resolution 2005 and got down from 14.5st but hit plateau at 12st).

As mentioned it worked and got down to 11st 2 at the Dragon..since then not lost so much, lowest got to was 10st 11lbs just before Xmas. So not exactly a wraith but hope to get down to around 10st 7lbs for Marmotte this year.

liversedge

Hi Bahzbob,

How tall are you? 10st7 is way out of my reach :-)

gkerr4

bahzob wrote:

liversedge wrote:

bahzob wrote:

- Cals in - devilishly hard to keep to target. 2150 cals a day isnt really very much.

Really? 700 cals per meal? or 500 per meal and two snacks. seems like more than plenty to me. If I eat bran flakes with fruit and natural yoghurt, veggie soup and a roll then chicken and pasta with a salad I that'll do me about 1500 cals max - throw in a couple of pieces if fruit and daytime drinks then easy make 1800.

... of course resisting the biscuits,crisps, sweets, chocolate, booze is quite tricky ;-)

Yup its tricky. Doing it for a day or two is simple, doing it for the weeks/months needed to lose weight and keep it off is the hard bit. Like I said I was surprised by how small some portion sizes were to keep to the cals target.

it is tough - but basically you need to avoid every gram of fat - not necessarily because fat makes you fat - but rather it is too dense in calories.

The reason I took up cycling was to lose weight - in august 2006 i was trying jeans on in next and the 34 was a bit tight - my wife asked if I wanted the 36 brough through "never ever ever bring me a 36" - was my reply! - I weight myself and found I was 13st 7lb - i'm only 5'8" and quite a skinny frame!

Anyway - I started an extremely accurate calorie diary - weighed everything i ate and calculated my intake. I was shocked at how calorie dense some things were - really bad. but with the diary I would strive for single figure fat intake per day - often the fattiest thing I would have would be the pint of semi-skimmed milk before bed and there were often days when my total calorie intake would be under 1000Kcal.
and i cycled almost every day!
I lost loads of weight - I started the diet on the 1st of september at 13st 7lb - by the first of december I was 10st 2lb - but this was completely unsustainable - I had lost tons of fat but also a lot of upper body mass. My clothes didn't fit any more and people were starting to make comments like "are you ill" - time to stop me thinks!

In new year 2007 I rose back to 11st which i am comfy with - although due to bouts of illness since december I am currently 11st 7lb - but this wil drop back when I get back on the bike.

I would say if you are serious - then start a calorie diary and see what levels you are eating at already - then try dropping 500Kcal a day and see what happens - good luck but it's tough!

LittleB0b

liversedge wrote:

The 2000 cals average for a typical man is bull in my experience.

I always thought it was 2000 for women, and higher for men...

phreak

How does this kind of thing help/hinder your cycling? Obviously the bonk is largely caused by a lack of food/drink so do you find that your performance drops if you're not eating enough to replenish what you lose in training?

Jeff Jones

phreak wrote:

How does this kind of thing help/hinder your cycling? Obviously the bonk is largely caused by a lack of food/drink so do you find that your performance drops if you're not eating enough to replenish what you lose in training?

You need to make sure you're eating enough carbohydrates to stop the bonk. How much depends on how much training you're doing. You need some good quality protein and fat to keep the rest of your body working.

A word of caution:

Speaking from experience, performance-oriented cyclists can get obsessive about their weight and lose sight of the main target, which is to go faster. Of course it all depends on how much you've got to lose in the first place but a lot go too far and wonder why they're slow, knackered and hungry the whole time. And then blame their slowness on not training hard enough!

FAT_ROB

Ah sound words of advice

I hover about the 14st mark, I'm the best part of 6' tall. So my Bmi is higher than it should be (If you believe that crap)

However I have just (well couple of months back) completed an iron man triathlon, wasn't the fastest, wasnt the slowest but lining up at the start as one of the more portly compettitiors it was a chuckle coming out of the first transition onto the bike to see just how many of these super fit wee slip of a man types were flaking out.

The reason, No fat stores and not enough Carbs.

I naturaly trundled juggarnaut like to the finish, wobbled over the finishline and was propping up the bar with a much deserved pint of guiness when the broom wagon rolled in, oh how I chuckled.

The motto of the story.

East sensibly, train regulary, don't obsess about your weight (if 98% of the body is water imagine how much weight dehydration can loose)

and remember..........

you need a heavy hammer to drive a long nail

liversedge

There is a big difference between good nutrition and overweight. Being portly doesn't mean your nutrition is any better than the wee-slips. 6ft and 14st might be ok for an ironman where the terrain tends to avoid mountains - its overweight for climbing.

richa

phreak wrote:

How does this kind of thing help/hinder your cycling? Obviously the bonk is largely caused by a lack of food/drink so do you find that your performance drops if you're not eating enough to replenish what you lose in training?

At this time of year, my rides are not intense enough to use up my carb reserves, and at this intensirty I am also using bodyfat to fuel me.

So don't tend to bonk. I carry a banana or silmilar to help me home if I do overcook it.

Ken Night

BMIs notoriously inaccurate......most of the rugby players, well over.....

According to Fitday, I'm over 25BMI....do I take this as an insult or a goad?

bahzob

liversedge wrote:

Hi Bahzbob,

How tall are you? 10st7 is way out of my reach :-)

5'8.5 inches (174cm)

BeaconRuth

Ken Night wrote:

BMIs notoriously inaccurate......most of the rugby players, well over.....

According to Fitday, I'm over 25BMI....do I take this as an insult or a goad?

If you measure your weight and your height accurately then your BMI will be a very accurate number.

It's important not to confuse an accurate number with a wrong conclusion based on that number.

If you want to be a rugby player and you have a large amount of muscle mass then don't worry about having a BMI of 25. However, I don't know of any elite endurance cyclists with a BMI that high.

Ruth

liversedge

Hi Ruth,

Couldn't agree more. What exactly is being measured accurately by BMI?

Sorry - I should add that when setting my weight targets for this season I used BMI to determine a realistic target in KG based upon the BMIs of professional athletes (i.e. that was the gold std and I should fall back from it). Beyond that I'm not sure it is meaningful?

DaveyL

BeaconRuth wrote:

However, I don't know of any elite endurance cyclists with a BMI that high.

Ruth

Magnus Backstedt isn't far off. 6 ft 4, 1.93 m, and 94 kg (BMI = 25.2) according to Wkipedia, though widely quoted at 90 kg (BMI = 24.2).

pbt150

I was thinking about this last night actually - BMI is actually a measure of how high a pile you would be (in mm) if you were run over by a steam-roller to a square with side length your height.

Al_38

You can only lose 0.5kg a week in fat. This is a 500 calorie deficit a day. Diet harder than this and you will lose more for a week or two i would imagine. But you will also be taking off muscle to make up the remaining weight loss / dehydrating and hence keeping depleted glycogen levels. So your performance will start dropping off.

If you keep this going then your body will go into starvation mode, your bmr will slow down loads and stop you loosing weight. You then either have to reduce calories again to lose more weight but your body will try and use the muscle mass before using fat. Also as soon as you start eating properly again you will probably find you gain a lot of fat very quickly as your body trys to store incase something similar happens.