# Can you drop the calories too much?



## Bashy (Jun 16, 2010)

Say for example you need to eat 2500cals a day to maintain your weight will dropping them over 500cals do any harm to your weight loss?

I had in my head a drop of 500 would be sufficient but anymore than that could hinder the progress?

Can someone put me right on this please??


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## simonthepieman (Jun 11, 2012)

It depends on your BF levels and amount of muscle mass you have.


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## Bashy (Jun 16, 2010)

Havent got much muscle mass to lose mate but got a whole lotta BF.

To be honest just trying to drop the fat really, I worked out my BMR and then took 500 calories off that to work out how much I need to eat per day.

Since learned you need to multiply the BMR by 1.2 to give you your daily needs just wondered if me dropping them so much is going to have a negative effect on the weight loss


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## L11 (Jan 21, 2011)

Nope. I've done 1000 calories under maintenance for weeks and I didn't notice a loss in strength, and I looked bigger since there was less fat (tbh I dont care about actual muscle loss as long as I don't look like i've lost muscle lol)


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## simonthepieman (Jun 11, 2012)

Bashy said:


> Havent got much muscle mass to lose mate but got a whole lotta BF.
> 
> To be honest just trying to drop the fat really, I worked out my BMR and then took 500 calories off that to work out how much I need to eat per day.
> 
> Since learned you need to multiply the BMR by 1.2 to give you your daily needs just wondered if me dropping them so much is going to have a negative effect on the weight loss


what's you height weight and lifts. That would give me a fat better indicator than a BMI (which is a crock of ****e if you ask me)

As my man above says. 1K per day is not that crazy to run. You can run double that if you are a real porker!

Personally I like to run mega low calorie days and do a massive refeed on a saturday. It keeps the metabolism firing high and fat comes off quicker. But it's not for everyone.

Tell us more about yourself and we can prescribe a better answer


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## saxondale (Nov 11, 2012)

L11 said:


> Nope. I've done 1000 calories under maintenance for weeks and I didn't notice a loss in strength, and I looked bigger since there was less fat (tbh I dont care about actual muscle loss as long as I don't look like i've lost muscle lol)


this - this is what most people who post on this board should be doing - not throwing shakes down their necks and pretending they eat chicken and broccoli four times a day then moaning they look fat.

just don`t go stupid like I did and make yourself ill.


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## Bish83 (Nov 18, 2009)

Read a VLCD study that made its subjects drop calories to 800 and they managed to hold on to their lean muscle after 12 weeks with 3 day a week weight training.


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## saxondale (Nov 11, 2012)

Bish83 said:


> Read a VLCD study that made its subjects drop calories to 800 and they managed to hold on to their lean muscle after 12 weeks with 3 day a week weight training.


VLCD?


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## Bish83 (Nov 18, 2009)

saxondale said:


> VLCD?


Very low calorie diet. Its what the scientists call it, if you visit google scholar or pubmed and put that in the search bar your find quite a few studies its primarily for obese patients trying to lose weight.


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## dtlv (Jul 24, 2009)

Very low calorie diets do not inhibit fat loss or reduce metabolic function, but through hormonal mechanisms they do promote less desire to be less physically active and a greater desire to eat.

Depending upon how overwhelming those signals are for you (there's appears to be a strong genetic element to how strongly such things drive behavior) and whether you can force through them such a high deficit may or may not be sustainable in the long run, but if you can persevere with them they can lead to very spectacular results for fat loss.

There is such a thing as 'starvation mode' where thyroid output significantly reduces and MR drops considerably, but in an otherwise healthy individual this only occurs at an extreme level of starvation and leanness when combined with malnutrition. Is not a common issue at all despite often being stated as such, (in the past I've been guilty of assuming and suggesting this was an issue under conditions when actually it doesn't seem to be).


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## ksrcrider (Feb 20, 2013)

Rule of thumb guys shouldn't go below 1500 and girl 1200.. If you drop your calorie intake down to far, you can f up your metabolism and you will start going backwards.. Your body is always on survival mode. You drop your calories, your metabolism will slow down to digest the food slower for you.. Well eventually your body will adapt to it and nothing will happen.. so you go even lower, lose a few more pounds and nothing etc.... Eventually you will get so low in calories you wont lose anything... I wouldn't go anymore then a 500 calories deficit.. 500 lower then your maintenance level. plus cardio and exercise with a good diet. You shouldn't have a problem losing 1-2 pounds a week. Anything more then that your losing muscle along with it..


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## Dirk McQuickly (Dec 29, 2010)

If you google 'harris benedict formula' it will give you a more realistic starting number for your daily caloric requirement. Takes account of your exercise and lifestyle. If you haven't already done this you may find out that your starting out with a number that's too high anyway.


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## Tom90 (Jan 29, 2010)

If your TDEE is 2500, eating at 2000 calories might give you hunger pangs. I'd try eating 2250 calories and burning off the other 250 calories through cardio.


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## L11 (Jan 21, 2011)

ksrcrider said:


> If you drop your calorie intake down to far, you can f up your metabolism and you will start going backwards.. Your body is always on survival mode. You drop your calories, your metabolism will slow down to digest the food slower for you.. Well eventually your body will adapt to it and nothing will happen..
> 
> ..


I'm not sure how this works... If you're using more calories then you're consuming, surely it's impossible that "nothing will happen"..?


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## saxondale (Nov 11, 2012)

ksrcrider said:


> Rule of thumb guys shouldn't go below 1500 and girl 1200.. If you drop your calorie intake down to far, you can f up your metabolism and you will start going backwards.. Your body is always on survival mode. You drop your calories, your metabolism will slow down to digest the food slower for you.. Well eventually your body will adapt to it and nothing will happen.. so you go even lower, lose a few more pounds and nothing etc.... Eventually you will get so low in calories you wont lose anything... I wouldn't go anymore then a 500 calories deficit.. 500 lower then your maintenance level. plus cardio and exercise with a good diet. You shouldn't have a problem losing 1-2 pounds a week. Anything more then that your losing muscle along with it..


it depends how much muscle you have to start with - your classic non bodybuiling guy will just level out and maintain lean muscle as said above.

last time this came up I posted a dozen links to US army research about it - catabolism, great in theory, not happening in real life was the conclusion


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## Loveleelady (Jan 3, 2012)

dtlv said:


> Very low calorie diets do not inhibit fat loss or reduce metabolic function, but through hormonal mechanisms they do promote less desire to be less physically active and a greater desire to eat.
> 
> Depending upon how overwhelming those signals are for you (there's appears to be a strong genetic element to how strongly such things drive behavior) and whether you can force through them such a high deficit may or may not be sustainable in the long run, but if you can persevere with them they can lead to very spectacular results for fat loss.
> 
> There is such a thing as 'starvation mode' where thyroid output significantly reduces and MR drops considerably, but in an otherwise healthy individual this only occurs at an extreme level of starvation and leanness when combined with malnutrition. Is not a common issue at all despite often being stated as such, (in the past I've been guilty of assuming and suggesting this was an issue under conditions when actually it doesn't seem to be).


love your posts always so detailed and helpful

so from what you saying on a low cal diet it would be a very extreme case that wud cause metablolism to drop?


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## Loveleelady (Jan 3, 2012)

Bashy said:


> Say for example you need to eat 2500cals a day to maintain your weight will dropping them over 500cals do any harm to your weight loss?
> 
> I had in my head a drop of 500 would be sufficient but anymore than that could hinder the progress?
> 
> Can someone put me right on this please??


I dropped to under 1000 cals for months on end to lose loads of stones and just started yesterday again for the final phase, if like i was you've loads to lose then just get stuck in there, get going, gets harder as you go along, just keep going

when it slowed i exercised like fuk or wud change my food or do something rather than keep doing the same thing


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## dtlv (Jul 24, 2009)

Loveleelady said:


> love your posts always so detailed and helpful
> 
> so from what you saying on a low cal diet it would be a very extreme case that wud cause metablolism to drop?


Thanks LL  . Basically yes, only in extreme circumstances. That's not to say that a very low calorie diet might not have other problems, especially after a couple of weeks when mood usually crashes spectacularly and the desire to eat more again can go crazy.

Have been helping a young lady lose weight who has a lot of overall weight to lose, and because she is so heavy when she drops kcals very low she loses a crazy amount of weight, but it's unsustainable and leads to depression and a yo-yo effect. With her the solution has been to allow for a few weeks of a pretty extreme kcal restriction because she really felt she needed to see a fast result kick-start to the diet, but after a month we pulled the kcals back up and slowed the rate of fat loss down. Compared to the initial phase of an extreme kcal restriction the moderate restriction feels much more comfortable and is easier for her to do and keep active (without feeling tired).


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## R20B (Apr 18, 2012)

Isn't one of the benefits of a cheat/feed up day to up your metabolism and get your body jump started for the week of low cals and high exercise?


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## Loveleelady (Jan 3, 2012)

dtlv said:


> Thanks LL  . Basically yes, only in extreme circumstances. That's not to say that a very low calorie diet might not have other problems, especially after a couple of weeks when mood usually crashes spectacularly and the desire to eat more again can go crazy.
> 
> Have been helping a young lady lose weight who has a lot of overall weight to lose, and because she is so heavy when she drops kcals very low she loses a crazy amount of weight, but it's unsustainable and leads to depression and a yo-yo effect. With her the solution has been to allow for a few weeks of a pretty extreme kcal restriction because she really felt she needed to see a fast result kick-start to the diet, but after a month we pulled the kcals back up and slowed the rate of fat loss down. Compared to the initial phase of an extreme kcal restriction the moderate restriction feels much more comfortable and is easier for her to do and keep active (without feeling tired).


thats class sure she feeling great you doin a good job with her and yeh you rite lol i been there regardless of years of being overweight us tubsters like quick results lol the challenge will be to keep her going and inspired


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## Loveleelady (Jan 3, 2012)

R20B said:


> Isn't one of the benefits of a cheat/feed up day to up your metabolism and get your body jump started for the week of low cals and high exercise?


but i read on here that if you need to lose wieght then you've had enough cheat days already lol

but be different for you skinnys


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