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Anon figures out how dieting works (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (4 children)

Yes, switching to water can drastically reduce the calories in my example.

Daily Calorie use starts at around 2100 for a male 35 y/o at 5'9" and only goes up with physical activity. The number I cited for a big mac meal, 1350, is basically a consumption limit for dieting. Extreme diets go as low as 850 or even fasting. You can in theory still lose weight by consuming any number less than 2100 but the effectiveness will be hard to see and there will be a margin of error in nutritional labeling for calories.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I've personally found lower deficits to be more maintainable over time, with a big deficit you can see the effects really fast but I also find that my weight was more prone to rubberband very quickly after stopping the diet.

If you can maintain a super low deficit and then keep the weight that way after that's great, I just don't think it's really universally applicable.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

I didn't have much money, and my doctor told me I was eating twice as much as I should so I figured I'd cut my grocery bills in half. One trick I learned was that if I was hungry I'd drink a big glass of water and wait fifteen minutes. If I was still hungry I'd have more water and wait another fifteen minutes. If I was still hungry I'd have a small bowl of pasta or rice with vegetables.

Got down to my ideal weight in about six months, alongside a lot of manual labor getting and keeping a house ready for sale. It also helped that I didn't have a significant other, so mealtimes weren't social.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

1 pound of body fat = 3500 calories, so if your normal caloric requirement is 2500 calories a day and you instead eat 2000 calories a day, you will lose one pound a week. Which doesn't sound like a lot but if you keep that up for one year you can lose 52 pounds - which is a lot.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Alright, but the daily expenditure will go down alongside your current weight. The average* 35 y/o 5'9" man, who exercises at least 30min a day 5 days a week, who weighs 217 will maintain weight at 2,871 while at 165 lbs will maintain at 2,452.

*average is emphasized to help explain why the calorie number is larger than in previous comments, which were a minimum estimate.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

A 420 calorie drop from a 52-pound weight loss implies a resting metabolic requirement for body fat tissue of about 8 calories per pound, which I think is a serious overestimate but I'm not sure. I've seen some sources claim 2 calories per pound for fat and 6 calories per pound for muscle, but other sources have claimed significantly higher amounts.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Yeah it's really hard to pin down consistent numbers on this subject due to both interpersonal differences and demographic trends in data.