I replied to someone's post in the Cohen's Forum accidentally. I hadn't realized that I was actually in the Cohen's room, a place I like to stay out of. But, just to put my reply into context for you, the original poster was unsure how she could lose weight for weeks and then, simply plateau. It triggered this from me:
Many people seem to struggle with the figuring out how large their calorie deficit should be and what their expectations as far as weight loss should be.
Let's pretend your maintenance is 2500 calories per day. This means, you are eating 2500 calories worth of energy per day and you are expending roughly 2500 calories worth of energy per day. Results in a net break-even and theoretically, there is no weight gain or loss. Right?
BTW, 2500 calorie maintenance level would be for someone roughly 170 lbs. The bigger you are, the higher your maintenance level is.
INFORMED individuals looking to lose weight will cut calories by some small margin, say 10-25%. As they begin to lose weight, their metabolism will slow, even though they are going about weight loss in an appropriate fashion. You can't continue losing weight forever at your original deficit. Your metabolism catches up to you and it slows to a point where you won't see results. This is a normal physiological response to having less tissue to support and move around as well as less food to digest and utilize.
In addition, there's an adaptive component to eating a deficit that many folks refer to as the starvation response. It mostly has to do with things like nervous system output, thyroid, insulin, and leptin hormones, and reduced spontaneous physical activity. If you really want to dive into the details of this stuff... just ask. And please know that mileage varies from person to person... some folks tend to be more sensitive to this than others.
At this point, though, where you're beginning to plateau... you could cut calories again to trigger another deficit based on your NEW maintenance level. You've left space for this sort of incremental and systematic downward shift in calories as you progress. Obviously at some point you can't keep cutting calories. As you get leaner and leaner, more advanced tactics can be brought into play say as cyclic/refeed type setups... but that's beyond the point of this post.
What I'm seeing around here is something entirely differently. Rather than taking a sane approach to creating a deficit... many people are doing the equivalent of punching their metabolisms in the face. Many people cut calories originally by some ridiculous amount. Still using a maintenance of 2500 calories, I find many around here will slash to 1200 right off the bat, or something ludicrous like this.
Why a 50% calorie slash seems OK to some of you I will never understand. Our bodies are very adaptive, finely tuned machines that are built to survive. And you better believe that you are sending many, many signals to your body that say, "Time to change physiologically because it looks like we are going through some hard times."
This should be about gently nudging the fat off. Not taking a jackhammer to it! Never mind the psychological repercussions of the jackhammer approach, which we won't even get into here.
Here's a little food for thought. One of the most often cited pieces of research in the literature pertaining to metabolism was the Minnesota Starvation Diet. Here, they slashed calories by 50% off of maintenance to realize the impacts STARVATION had on post war and Jewish victims of the Nazis, and how to best go about rehabbing them.
Last time I checked, concentration camp victims weren't the epitome of health and fitness! So how about we stop trying to replicate their nutrition conditions in our own lives?
The poster that triggered this response said she didn't understand how she can lose weight for weeks and then plateau. That is because she doesn't understand how her body works. She's not speaking the same language as it. Never mind the fact that your body adapts at its own rate... so you really can't set a fixed deficit and expect a fixed rate of weight loss over time. That's grossly oversimplifying a very complex system. Secondly... with or without adaptation... weight loss STILL wouldn't be a linear phenomenon. People aren't robots. They expend different amounts of energy every single day... so the deficit is always changing. People eat different amounts of food every day. Weight is comprised of more than fat... it's also made up of water, glycogen, connective tissue, muscle, bowel matter, etc. Some of these things can be going up while fat is going down... thus masking fat loss on the scale.
Again, it's not a linear process. It's important to align your expectations with the facts of your body.
For those of you who do things the least optimal way through starvation* are going to have a long, hard road ahead of you if your goal is actually looking and feeling good, and not just what the number on the scale says.
*realize that starvation does not actually mean eating nothing and being on the verge of death. i mean depriving your body of the basic macro and micro nutrients as well as sufficient calories in so that you are creating a below par atmosphere for your overall health and continued success.
Many people seem to struggle with the figuring out how large their calorie deficit should be and what their expectations as far as weight loss should be.
Let's pretend your maintenance is 2500 calories per day. This means, you are eating 2500 calories worth of energy per day and you are expending roughly 2500 calories worth of energy per day. Results in a net break-even and theoretically, there is no weight gain or loss. Right?
BTW, 2500 calorie maintenance level would be for someone roughly 170 lbs. The bigger you are, the higher your maintenance level is.
INFORMED individuals looking to lose weight will cut calories by some small margin, say 10-25%. As they begin to lose weight, their metabolism will slow, even though they are going about weight loss in an appropriate fashion. You can't continue losing weight forever at your original deficit. Your metabolism catches up to you and it slows to a point where you won't see results. This is a normal physiological response to having less tissue to support and move around as well as less food to digest and utilize.
In addition, there's an adaptive component to eating a deficit that many folks refer to as the starvation response. It mostly has to do with things like nervous system output, thyroid, insulin, and leptin hormones, and reduced spontaneous physical activity. If you really want to dive into the details of this stuff... just ask. And please know that mileage varies from person to person... some folks tend to be more sensitive to this than others.
At this point, though, where you're beginning to plateau... you could cut calories again to trigger another deficit based on your NEW maintenance level. You've left space for this sort of incremental and systematic downward shift in calories as you progress. Obviously at some point you can't keep cutting calories. As you get leaner and leaner, more advanced tactics can be brought into play say as cyclic/refeed type setups... but that's beyond the point of this post.
What I'm seeing around here is something entirely differently. Rather than taking a sane approach to creating a deficit... many people are doing the equivalent of punching their metabolisms in the face. Many people cut calories originally by some ridiculous amount. Still using a maintenance of 2500 calories, I find many around here will slash to 1200 right off the bat, or something ludicrous like this.
Why a 50% calorie slash seems OK to some of you I will never understand. Our bodies are very adaptive, finely tuned machines that are built to survive. And you better believe that you are sending many, many signals to your body that say, "Time to change physiologically because it looks like we are going through some hard times."
This should be about gently nudging the fat off. Not taking a jackhammer to it! Never mind the psychological repercussions of the jackhammer approach, which we won't even get into here.
Here's a little food for thought. One of the most often cited pieces of research in the literature pertaining to metabolism was the Minnesota Starvation Diet. Here, they slashed calories by 50% off of maintenance to realize the impacts STARVATION had on post war and Jewish victims of the Nazis, and how to best go about rehabbing them.
Last time I checked, concentration camp victims weren't the epitome of health and fitness! So how about we stop trying to replicate their nutrition conditions in our own lives?
The poster that triggered this response said she didn't understand how she can lose weight for weeks and then plateau. That is because she doesn't understand how her body works. She's not speaking the same language as it. Never mind the fact that your body adapts at its own rate... so you really can't set a fixed deficit and expect a fixed rate of weight loss over time. That's grossly oversimplifying a very complex system. Secondly... with or without adaptation... weight loss STILL wouldn't be a linear phenomenon. People aren't robots. They expend different amounts of energy every single day... so the deficit is always changing. People eat different amounts of food every day. Weight is comprised of more than fat... it's also made up of water, glycogen, connective tissue, muscle, bowel matter, etc. Some of these things can be going up while fat is going down... thus masking fat loss on the scale.
Again, it's not a linear process. It's important to align your expectations with the facts of your body.
For those of you who do things the least optimal way through starvation* are going to have a long, hard road ahead of you if your goal is actually looking and feeling good, and not just what the number on the scale says.
*realize that starvation does not actually mean eating nothing and being on the verge of death. i mean depriving your body of the basic macro and micro nutrients as well as sufficient calories in so that you are creating a below par atmosphere for your overall health and continued success.
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