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Can a deficit of 2,000+ Calories will help to lose 1kg every 4 days?

Hello everyone. So I bought a Fitbit Versa about 10 days ago and I've been immensely gripped by it. I enjoy it very much. 

 

Now, I'm 27 year old Male, 5"8 / 173cm, 120kg 

 

When I'm sedentary all day my fitbit versa records around 2,600 Kcal burned in a day. Then, when I do an hour of spin bike during the day, it records a calorie burn of around 850 Kcal. It's not uncommon to end the day with a total calorie burn of 3,500 + Kcal according to my fitbit. Now the problem is that I'm increasing my workout duration everyday and soon I'll be able to burn more calories in one go, does that mean I have to gradually increase my calorie intake? My goal is weight loss and to be 90kg (for now). 

 

What if I continue eating the same 1,600 Kcal I am eating right now and burning 4,000 Kcal per day due to my BMR + Exercise? That's a deficit of 2,000 or more Kcal per day meaning I can burn a 1kg every 4 days if a kilo is 7,700 Calories? 

 

 

Moderator edit: subject for clarity

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4 REPLIES 4

What will happen if you keep increasing the deficit beyond reasonable to 50% deficit of what your body would like to have?

 

My bet is ultimately you'll join the extreme dieters where 80% fail to reach or maintain goal weight.

You'll lose enough muscle mass to make this a mess trying again next year.

You'll yo-yo diet for a long time in life, because you'll keep thinking about the extreme method that worked in the past, and attempt it again.

 

How that can play out behind the scenes.

Your body needs so many calories for the base functions of life, if the exercise is knocking a large portion of that off the top for use purely for movement, leaving barely anything, the body will try to deal with it.

Your body will attempt to adjust what you burn so that the deficit isn't so big as to be so stressful.

You'll be more tired outside exercise and move less, you'll become tired during the workout and burn less.

If that doesn't drop your daily burn enough, it'll slow the rate of hair growth, nail growth, skin replacement, muscle repair, staying warm, ect.

If that doesn't help enough, your base metabolism will slow.

Your immune system will be shot, so when sick you'll burn much less.

Many times the body will get it's slowdown when due to lack of repair you get injured finally.

Stress induced cortisol will increase and water weight along with it, so scale weight can appear to stop dropping, even though fat and muscle is still being lost.

 

That's most of the stuff that will occur if you continue to eat the same despite burning more and more.

Now, you will burn a little less due to just weighing less, but not enough.

 

Now - one saving aspect, for a little bit of calories anyway - you aren't burning that much on the spin bike. Where the Fitbit is using HR-based calculated calorie burn.

850 Kcal would imply putting out 236 Watts for 1 hr solid. You could have that as your FTP, but doubtful.

You have a bike that gives a watts figure?

Watts x 3.6  x hours = kcal.

 

For 30 kg to healthy weight left, 1000 cal deficit is reasonable, but when you get to 22.7 left, 750 is more reasonable, than 500 at about 14, than 250 for final 6kg.

That's to avoid the body reacting as I've described above.

 

You could join a research study and be measured out the whazoo as to when the body takes the turn for the worse, then stop the diet to get over the reaction it's done already, then start diet again more reasonable.

Or take the common lines in the sand for what is reasonable and try not to cross over. And hope your body doesn't react the opposite way and adjust before you even get near the line.

 

But Fitbit is indeed trying to teach a life lesson about weight management.

You burn more you eat more.

You burn less you sure better eat less.

 

In a diet a tad less in either case.

 

Good question to ask. Some people think exercise doesn't matter - but when it takes so many of the calories available from eating, and your body isn't left enough for the basal metabolism functions - it will find a way.

Oh, you'll lose fat, and muscle. Sadly the heart is a muscle and people have done permanent damage to it.

But it won't be the body you'll really want when you get there.

You'll wish you had done resistance training for instance.

Nothing but cardio and pushing the deficit will mean upwards of 20% Lean Body Mass is lost as part of the weight.

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Like my colleague Heybales: this is way too much and extreme and will fail as you will fall below your base metabolism rate. It means your body will damp or shut down vital functions in order to cope with the low calorie intake.

You need to have a smaller deficit: 1000 may be OK for the first few kilograms but then you need to shorten it to 750, then 500 then 250 when you are around 6-8 kg from your target.

You need to have recovery period.

You need to manage your exercises. 

A sustainable way to lose weight is a long course, not a sprint. A sprint will work only for a short time and at best you will simply fail to attain your goal, at worst you will damage your heart. 

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Unfortunately in my experience you can maybe do that for a day but

if you keep it up you are going to actually gain weight from this long term. 

 

I have a problem keeping up with calories lots of times to and I have

Managed to do well for about a day doing that but after that your body

Seems to go in fight or flight mode amd high cortisol, google it.

Also have gotten all kinds of scary problems like hallucinations and nightmares.

Also hormone imbalances are hell !!atleast for women, cant speak for men. 

 

I dont do it on purpose i just honestly dont like that super full feeling,

I dont get hungry very often in the day and I love working out and 

Overall just cant always keep up. 

 

I've read some people fast one day and then eat the next, may try that. 

But without trying it yet myself, cant reccomend it. 

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All the studies seem to show that people who start an exercise program to lose weight, eat more and don't lose weight.  Since exercise doesn't help you to lose weight, you need to learn how to eat better.  Most people eat the same 10 things over and over.   Are your most frequently chosen foods a reasonable number of calories.  Can you figure out some new favorites with fewer calories?  Could you substitute frozen blueberries and greek yogurt with some chocolate sprinkles for ice cream? ( For crunch you could use a sprinkle of Grapenuts cereal instead of the chocolate sprinkles.)  Just my opinion but I think you would be better off to forget exercise.  What is your goal.

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