Thread: 500-1000 calorie deficit

Originally Posted by kharneth

Hey,

In the nutrition section's sticky about calorie counting and macros there is a link to a website that calculates your estimated maintenance calories as well as a 500 caloric deficit for weight loss and a 1,000 calorie deficit for "extreme weight loss."

What is the purpose of this 1,000 calorie deficit? Is it a warning? Or is the term "extreme weight loss" meant to imply that you can drop your calories by 1,000 if you're looking to lose weight as fast as possible?

I'm also curious, and maybe some people with extreme restrictive eating disorder experience may be able to shed some light, does cutting excessive amounts of calories accelerate weight loss? Or does the body simply respond and adapt?

I'm looking for information, here, not advice. My goal is weight gain, not loss, but the 1,000 calorie deficit mention confused me.

Would cutting 1,000 calories be a quicker way to lose weight than 500, but would result in a loss of muscle mass and so 500 calorie deficit is the general limit for those wishing to preserve as much muscle as possible? Does restricting even further result in quicker weight loss, or do people experience some sort of diminishing returns to where cutting more than 1,000 calories stops being worth it?

I’m curious why you specifically mentioned restrictive eating disorders...

Pretty much what faithbrah said. That "extreme weight loss" number is more for people who are really overweight and likely facing serious health consequences if they don't shed some pounds. Nobody with a healthy body composition would benefit from a 1,000 calorie deficit.

Yes, the body will adapt. But the extent to which it will is massively overstated on social media and stuff with all the people saying you'll go into "starvation mode" and never lose weight again no matter how much you reduce calories. Realistically, your TDEE will go down, but there's good evidence that diet breaks can mitigate that.

You would certainly lose more weight in a 1,000 calorie deficit, but I don't recommend it at all. 500 is plenty, especially if you're trying to keep muscle

Originally Posted by kharneth

Because my friend is anorexic and is already eating well below 1,000 calories of daily maintenance. I know there are people on this forum with personal experience of restricting 1,000+ calories. I like to include both information and experience into learning about something.

Jesus, I’m sorry to hear that. I dealt with an eating disorder for 15+ years and it nearly killed me many times...

I hope they get help before it’s too late.

From my research, fat loss is usually based on % of total bodyweight.

"Extreme" to me would be losing 1% of your total bodyweight every week. So, for a 200lb person, that means losing UP TO 2lb per week, which is a 1000 calorie deficit.

If you're 150lb, that'd be a 750 calories deficit.

So in essence the 1000 calories number is probably a reasonable upper-limit for a MOST people, but it depends where you start.

If you weigh 130lb and you're 4-11" tall, then even a 700 calorie deficit could be 'extreme'.

But in short, yes, the less you eat the more fat you'll lose, but there ARE adaptations that take place -- especially over time -- which lower energy expenditure once the bodyfat drops to a certain level.

Originally Posted by kharneth

Yeah, I only recently discovered that it's one of the mental health illnesses with the highest mortality rate.

%-based seems to make a lot more sense to me, that's useful to keep in mind.

I had read online that people can lose 1-2 lbs a week in a healthy manner, but this sounds like it's rather extreme for anyone weighing under 200 lbs. I wonder if those figures are for people weighing quite a bit.

What is a more reasonable progression of body weight loss? 1% body weight every 2 weeks? Every month? I'm currently aiming to gain ~1-2 lbs a month, but I was under the impression one could lose body weight a bit faster than one can gain muscle weight. I also have a friend who's trying to go from ~220 to ~180, so I'm wondering what would be a reasonable time table for those 40 lbs.

Well, there's no 'recommended' rate because it just comes down to how fast YOU want to lose fat up to a maximum recommendation.

So again, if we assume no more than 1% per week, then that 200lb person could (within the recommendation) lose between almost nothing and up to 2lb a week...

But in practice, if you wanna actual lose weight noticeably, you should probably lose at least 1-2lb in a month, but like I said it depends how much you weigh.... i'd say just aiming for .4-.5% of your bodyweight per week is reasonable... less is fine too.

Just depends how slow you wanna go...

i do 1200 a day cuz i love the excitement of seeing daily changes. I have no desire to diet foir weeks or months.

i'm still alive, muslce is fine. I even work out (albiet lower intensity). Accurate calorie counting. Works awesome for me. I do have a cheat day, so overall - i'd say daily it's aroiund 1400 i'd say.

p.s.: i have a sitting job. So my tdee is probably like 2200 or so. only 800 cal deficit id' say.