What causes plateaus when dieting?

[thin]

Yes. Even if your goal is to be very thin you should never eat less than:

11*your weight - 500

11 times your weight is a *low* estimate of BMR or Base Metobolic Rate, most people at this forum will have MUCH higher BMR due to all of the muscle they have.

500 calories is about as much as you can 'skip' in a day without your body catching on and going in to a "famine panic"

not to all you big chicks... this can happen even if you are eating what seems like a normal diet.

Let's say you are 160 lbs and rather muscular-- also you lift for an hour most days.

so we find the BMR (12 since the high muscle mass):
160*12 = 1920

then add in 300 cal for the lifting:

2220

the LEAST this person should eat on a diet is 1720 a day, anything less will result in a slower metabolism.

(correct me if any of this is wrong....)

-Susan

 

[wlibbe]

Susan-

Are you serious?

 

[KEL]

very good susan

wlibbe I'm afraid you're in survival mode-- you will hang on to every ounce of fat in your body while you lose water and muscle tissue.

You might try to up your calories by adding in lean protein.

 

[wlibbe]

Kel-

What would you suggest? Fishes and chicken?

 

[rez]

then add in 300 cal for the lifting:

2220

the LEAST this person should eat on a diet is 1720 a day, anything less will result in a slower metabolism.

(correct me if any of this is wrong....)

-Susan [/B][/QUOTE]

where does the 300cal come from?

 

[KEL]

fish, chicken, turkey, egg whites and even low/no carb shakes.... you get the picture many choices just takes a little to get the metabolism moving!


rez- I'm guessing that is a basic estimate of how many calories are burned in a session of weight-lifting.

 

[thin]

If you weigh 160 and lift for and hour (and arn't too lazy about it) you should burn about 300 no?

I burn 400 cal in an hour running ... so I just thought lifting would be a little less...

 

[thin]

Susan-

Are you serious?

This is the same info I post on the thin page all the time. lol!

for me:

92lbs * 11 = 1012
plus running & lifting: 1412

- 500

912 cal

this is why I eat so "much" I try to make 900 or 1000 most days

-S

 

[Taps]

Damn, you girls are smart. I've been wondering about that diet/plateau thing for a while now....

I need to visit the womens board more often.

 

[mini_mouse]

I always feel like my body is betraying me because it never seems to follow all these rules for energy expenditure and basal metabolic rates.

I was doing a 200cal/day diet last week and so, obviously, I lost a few lbs on that. But then I had one day where I consumed 1000 cals - still a low enough amount, allegedly, for me to lose weight - and blimped up 2lbs!! So I tried to rationalise and trust that the gain was just some water level fluctuation shit. I then decided to try upping my cals because of the reasons ppl have stated above. I have been eating 600-800cals/day for the last 5 days and yet, STILL, the weight hasn't shifted . It's making me feel like I'm going to have to stick to the fucking awful 200cal/day thing forever. What can I be doing wrong? My next plan is to try some light lifting in the hopes that it might help my metabolism speed up a little. But, then again, I am not too convinced that will help seeing as I already have a body lean status of 91.1% and so should be burning cals pretty efficiently already .

My bodystat worked out my BMR to be 1457 cals/day (expenditure of 14cals/lb) so, if I'm to follow susan's rule of thumb, that means I shouldn't cut back to less than 957 cals ... but I GAIN WEIGHT on that!!! So what's the deal?