[socalgal2]

> and was amazed at how many calories I would have to eat in order to stay the same weight. It was huge.

Can someone explain this to me? I try to stay under 2000 calories. To me it means eating almost nothing. Let's say I have berries and yogurt. That ~300. Add a morning latte (no sugar). Now we're at 500. I've effectively had a tiny breakfast and already spent 1/4th of my calorie budget.

Taking what I just ate and multiplying by 1.5 x 2 meals are two more tiny meals and I've hit my limit. And that's no snacks and avoiding all sugar

The only way to make it lots is to eat heaps of veggies with no dressing / oil.

[coldtea]

>Can someone explain this to me? I try to stay under 2000 calories. To me it means eating almost nothing.

2000 is "almost nothing"? What are you used to eating? Is it regular natural food or food industry crap loaded with sugar and calories? Here's two examples of eating througout the day:

- 1 cup Greek yogurt + 3/4 cup berries (~230 kcal)

- 10.5 oz salmon + 5 oz baby potatoes + 5 spears asparagus (~750 kcal)

- 1 banana (~105 kcal)

- 7 oz grilled chicken breast + 3/4 cup cooked rice + - 2 cups vegetables (~585 kcal)

- 1 oz mixed nuts + 1 apple (~280 kcal)

OR

- 1 cup Greek yogurt + 3/4 cup berries (~230 kcal)

10.5 oz ribeye steak + 5 oz baby potatoes + 5 spears asparagus (~1,000 kcal)

- 1 apple (~95 kcal)

- 7 oz grilled chicken breast + 3/4 cup cooked rice + 2 cups vegetables (~585 kcal)

- 1 oz mixed nuts (~175 kcal)

Both are around ~2000Kcal. Are these "almost nothing"?

>Let's say I have berries and yogurt. That ~300. Add a morning latte (no sugar). Now we're at 500. I've effectively had a tiny breakfast and already spent 1/4th of my calorie budget.

Make the latte into a black and it's 0 calories. But even with latte, you consume 1/4 of daily calories, in one of the 4 (3 + snack) meal of the day. Sounds about right.

[code_biologist]

This isn't enough for me as 82kg mid 30s man. I will lean out by 3-5 kilos and lose strength for lifting weights.

What fats do you put on your potatoes + asparagus + vegetables, plus cooking fats for the meats? No idea how many cals "enough olive oil to lubricate" is. I consciously use cooking fats to creep in more healthy calories to sustain me.

[lbreakjai]

You have to accept that losing weight and gaining strength are generally antagonistic goals. You won't hit personal bests, you may even see the numbers go down, but as long as you have adequate protein intake and enough stimulus, your muscle mass should mostly be preserved, and what little you lost will be back as soon as you're back to eating at maintenance or at a light surplus.

[coldtea]

>This isn't enough for me as 82kg mid 30s man.

Enough for what? For losing weight, as a 82kg/mid 30s they're fine. In fact, you can live forever (and live longer that on higher calories) on those.

And you don't need to lose that much to begin with if you're at 82kg and like 5' 8"+ anyway. Perhaps your "ideal" weight is like 70kg or so, but if you're average height and 82kg and active, no real need to hit that for general health.

>What fats do you put on your potatoes + asparagus + vegetables, plus cooking fats for the meats?

Spray some EVOO a few times. A few sprays (less than 1 tbsp total).

[zipy124]

Note that the specified BMR is 2,900 in this article. If you are a heavier individual you tend to have a higher BMR.

A latte with semi-skimmed milk is closer to 100 (probably 125ish) than 200 calories in your example. A low fat greek yoghurt can be as low as 50 calories per 100g, so the 300 calories examples gives you 600 grams of yoghurt, quite a large portion.

The best way to hit a deficit though isn't to eat very little, its to eat satiating and/or high-volume food and add a small amount of exercise. For example potatoes will generally fill you up quicker than rice, pasta or bread for the same calories.

[jaggederest]

Also, BMR is not how much you need to eat, it's what you'd burn if you were effectively in a coma. RMR (resting metabolic rate) is what you'd burn if you were as lazy as humanly possible (one can dream), often 1.15xBMR, and actual output is typically 1.2xBMR for an extremely sedentary person.

Practically speaking if you do things with your life, like deliberate exercise, it'll be more like 1.3xBMR or more. Which means 3770 for a BMR of 2900 - a ton of food if you're not eating calorie dense things like e.g. ice cream.

If you were to eat, say, 1000 calories, and maintain activity levels (most people can't), youd be losing the better part of a pound of mass a day, and close to 50/50 muscle and fat.

[asutekku]

By eating different foods. I frequently get filling bento boxes in japan that are ~500-600 calories. And drinking when is extremely counterintuitive when trying to maintain/lose weight.

[jorisw]

Wonder what you need that latte for if you’re minding calorie intake. Black coffee is pretty easy to get used to and holds close to zero if not zero.

[timerol]

> avoiding all sugar

I don't think you understand macros if you think a breakfast of yogurt, berries, and milk is avoiding sugar. Berries are mostly sugar, and lactose is a sugar which makes up a significant portion of yogurt and milk's calories. Your breakfast is close to 50% sugar. I would hate to see what the macros look like when you're not "avoiding all sugar".

Also 150 calories of whole milk is 8 fl oz. How big is your morning latte? Milk is a great food for bodybuilding, because it's easy to consume a bunch of calories without feeling that full. This makes it less good when you're trying to lose weight.

[lbreakjai]

2000kcal is about 1.5kg of chicken breasts, or 2.3kg of potatoes. Vegetables are broadly not worth counting, as you likely won't be able to eat enough to make a difference.

That's a huge amount of food.

[theLiminator]

I personally skip breakfast and just eat lunch and dinner.

I'm not very active, and I've found that doing that as well as not eating snacks, sugar, or having calories in drinks makes it pretty easy to roughly be calorically neutral day to day.

[cadamsdotcom]

You’re only tracking one of the variables.

It’s the deficit that matters - the intake is not enough info.

[Geee]

My weight loss diet is coffee for breakfast and lunch, then one large pizza for dinner. That's it.

[dyauspitr]

I have one maybe one and a half meals per day which works great for me. I don’t think that works for everyone. I basically don’t eat anything from after dinner to lunch. I’m not explicitly doing IF or anything, it’s just an eating pattern I’ve settled on over the last couple of years and matches what we sort of did in our hunter gatherer phase.

I also have a sour-spicy tooth instead of a sweet tooth which means I’m naturally driven to snacks that are not calorie heavy.

[IncreasePosts]

I think you're inflating your calorie count a bit: 200 calories of whole milk is like a 20 oz latte. 300 calories of yogurt and berries is like 12 oz of greek yogurt and a cup of berries. I'm not sure putting 1.5 lbs of stuff in your stomach for breakfast really counts as a small breakfast.

[dfxm12]

The bit preceding this quote is pretty relevant to the discussion, specifically about BMR and generally making the right decisions using a data driven approach.

You try to stay under 2000 calories. Why? Is this number backed with data and helping drive you towards a specific goal?

Consider that the author's BMR might have been higher than you think.

[storus]

2000 calories is also a laughable threshold. Is anyone saying that a 4'9" needs equal amount of energy to a 6'8"?