Extreme Weight Loss - What is acceptable?

bipedalhumanoid

For the last 4.5 weeks, beginning at 108Kg, I've been consuming around 1100 calories per day and on average burning at least that number of calories in exercise (walking and running). The resting metabolic calorie burn would have started at 2400 and should now be down to 2200.

So far I am not experiencing any ill-effects of this. I am dropping weight at a rate of 2Kg per week. I rarely feel hungry and I have lots of energy. I am enjoying the exercise. I feel like I could continue this for some time to come but am concerned that there will eventually be negative effects.

Why should I not continue this and what should I do for the next phase of this regime?

Zillah

General wisdom is that you'll be losing muscle as well as fat with such a drastic deficit.

ford2600

Let's make an assumption or two; your male and are 35% bodyfat and your target is 15%.

You are now at 30% bf. Soon enough your body will kick into action and defend the high level of bf it has gotten used to.

If you continue I'd expect
*low energy levels
* feeling cold
* lots of thoughts of food, especially high calorie foods
* if you do eat them they will taste better than ever

http://ss.fitness/
is a good resource on how to eat/train right. Best of luck

sawfish

Why not consume at about 1800 calories, otherwise you will eventually feel tired and your metabolism will slow right down. But maybe that will only be a problem when you get a bit closer to your goal.

bipedalhumanoid

If I consume 1800 cals I will still have a calorie deficit of 1500 calories. Won't that result in the same potential problems?

Would it help to reduce the muscle loss if I included weight training in the exercise? Would it help stave off the reduced metabolism if I inserted some rest weeks where I consume more calories, say every third week?

Pushing hard and getting fast results works well for me. I've never successfully managed to lose a lot of weight the moderate way. It's just my psychology.

My goal is to get down to 90 and then slowly increase the calorie intake back to a normal range.

Blue Whale

Somebody posted this video on a similar thread recently, i thought it was good:

bipedalhumanoid

Thanks, that makes a lot of sense.

Taking his advice, I've almost lost 10% of my starting body weight. When I get there (probably at the end of this week) I should be taking a diet break with a view to then coming back and losing 1Kg/wk for the next 10%.

Blue Whale

bipedalhumanoid wrote: »

Thanks, that makes a lot of sense.

Taking his advice, I've almost lost 10% of my starting body weight. When I get there (probably at the end of this week) I should be taking a diet break with a view to then coming back and losing 1Kg/wk for the next 10%.

Not really a diet break, you might end up gaining weight if you do.

The point is don't be suprised to hit a wall for a few weeks while your body adjusts.

Alf Veedersane

Blue Whale wrote: »

Not really a diet break, you might end up gaining weight if you do.

The point is don't be suprised to hit a wall for a few weeks while your body adjusts.

A diet break is just that. You're not in a deficit but rather maintaining the new weight. The body adapts and that means that when you go back to dieting, it doesn't take as much of a toll to drop from the weight you maintained as it would have had you continued in a deficit.

Mellor

bipedalhumanoid wrote: »

So far I am not experiencing any ill-effects of this. I am dropping weight at a rate of 2Kg per week.

You dont really know for sure about the ill effects. As Zillah said, at that huge deficit, you could well be losing muscle and not realise.
If my numbers are right, you are running a deficit of 2200 cals a day.
There's a limit to how much fat you can burned in a day. The more fat you are carrying, the higher that limit is. At higher bf% 2kg of fat per week might be possible but it won't be as you get leaner.

Alf Veedersane

This, and the other articles linked at the top, are worth a read

http://sigmanutrition.com/the-pros-and-cons-of-aggressive-dieting/

bipedalhumanoid

Your numbers are right.

I'm having a rest day today. Light exercise burning maybe 500 cals by the end of the day from walking. I'll eat about 1500 calories.

On saturday's I do a 10K+ run and a lot of walking. I'll probably burn 2500 calories in exercise alone. The last two saturdays I did this while consuming only 500-600 cals. I guess I'm going to have to do a lot of eating on these days. Even a 1000 calorie deficit would require me to consume 3700 calories.

Then there is the danger that my smart watch is not accurately calculating the calories. That makes me nervous. I'll need to be conservative.

From Sunday I'll reduce the deficit to 1000 calories/day, then 800/day in the following week before resetting to 600 per day.

eeguy

bipedalhumanoid wrote: »

On saturday's I do a 10K+ run and a lot of walking. I'll probably burn 2500 calories in exercise alone. The last two saturdays I did this while consuming only 500-600 cals. I guess I'm going to have to do a lot of eating on these days. Even a 1000 calorie deficit would require me to consume 3700 calories.

That seems very high?

bipedalhumanoid

It's from about 4 hours or more of exercise, one hour spent running and the rest walking.

Last Saturday:


The one before:

eeguy

Ah right, I thought it might be 10k plus 5k of walking, you're doing twice that.
Fair play!

Mellor

Assuming you are 100kg those numbers look about right.
Running 10km is about 1000cals
Walking is more efficient, but 18km would be about 1500cals.


Are you saying that sometimes on a Saturday, you are burning 4700total and eating only 600cals? That's a crazy deficit. Even if you feel physically fine you won't be able to burn 4K worth of body fat. So what's the point.
Somebody posted the max rate fat metabolism the other day. It's per kg of body fat. If you knew you bf% you could work it out.

bipedalhumanoid

Not sure how accurate those fancy scales at Boots are, but they claim my body fat percentage is 30%. My weight is 99Kg.

I'm reading that the max fat burn per day is 31 calories per pound of fat. For me that works out to around 2000 calories per day. That's slightly less than the deficit I've been maintaining on average (notwithstanding those two crazy Saturdays).

Although I started out exercising for weight loss, I've come to enjoy these long walks and will continue them even if I reduce the deficit by eating more. I feel quite fit and I've entered a 5k run taking place in September, so obviously I want to keep improving my fitness.

BrokenArrows

bipedalhumanoid wrote: »

Not sure how accurate those fancy scales at Boots are, but they claim my body fat percentage is 30%. My weight is 99Kg.

I'm reading that the max fat burn per day is 31 calories per pound of fat. For me that works out to around 2000 calories per day. That's slightly less than the deficit I've been maintaining on average (notwithstanding those two crazy Saturdays).

Although I started out exercising for weight loss, I've come to enjoy these long walks and will continue them even if I reduce the deficit by eating more. I feel quite fit and I've entered a 5k run taking place in September, so obviously I want to keep improving my fitness.

What exactly are you eating anyway? Are they good calories?

bipedalhumanoid

BrokenArrows wrote: »

What exactly are you eating anyway? Are they good calories?

Porridge with a small bit of honey for Breakfast.
Turkey, tomato, lettuce and pepper (capsicum) sandwich for lunch.
Quiche or a chicken breast with, Broccoli and cabbage.

Once a week I have chicken five spice at Mao restaurant. It's 570 cals.

I consume most of my carbs for breakfast and lunch and try to reduce the carbs for dinner.