Group: General Diet & Nutrition

General Diet & Nutrition
Created: 2011/12/31, Members: 399, Messages: 16719

With such a topic so broad we truly try to cover the basics from all angles in this group. Nothing too big or too small. Nutrition is as significant if not more as exercise is to reaching your goals so learn all you can.

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Calories in vs. Calories out?

arunner
arunner
Posts: 4
Joined: 2002/06/12
United States
2003/04/10, 02:06 PM
I'm a 33 year old female, and had a question on weight loss. If I wanted to lose about 15 pounds and consumed 1200 calories and worked out for an hour each day, 5 days a week, will I lose weight? I'm confused by basal calories.

For example, let's say I consumed 1500 calories and worked off about 400 and since in order to lose weight, I need to consume about 1200 calories, does thos mean I'm -100 in the deficit?

All opinions are appreciated.
PoorlyTum
PoorlyTum
Posts: 7
Joined: 2003/04/29
United Kingdom
2003/05/17, 07:52 PM
Hi,

I had 20lbs to lose and was told that 3500 calories equals 1lb of body fat so if you want to lose 1lb per week you will need a weekly deficit of 3500.

My advice would be work out your basic calorie needs to maintain your weight, based on your current activity level, body weight etc. - there are plenty of tools out there online to calculate this for you.

Then to do a combination of calorie cutting (e.g. 150 calories per day off your required level) and also increase your activity to create this weekly 3500 calorie deficit and therefore 1lb weight loss. So you might cut out 150 calories a day from your diet (-1050) and burn 490 calories per gym session (-2450).

But don't be tempted to do anything too drastic eatng-wise, like starving your body of the food it needs - e.g. eating 1000 calories per day when your required level is 1600 because your body will go into starvation mode and you'll be too tired to work out, hungry from not eating and miserable with yourself for not being able to stick with it.

Finding a happy medium of calorie cutting/activity and planning a steady weight loss WILL shift the weight. Silly fad only-eat-cabbage-soup diets are a waste of time, they just mess up your metabolism. But the last ten pounds are the know to be the hardest to shift!

Best of luck!
;o)