cutting calories

[spoonhead]

As i am 330 lbs my maintance calours is near 5000. Acourding to the bodyweight * 15 rule. And i hear it alot that i should subtract 500 cals from my maintances cal needs. but there is no way i can heat 4500 cals a day. I can't affored to and i couldn't imagine eatting all of that food. So could i cut it down to 3k cals a day

[Dirty Shoez]

I don't mean to hi-jack here, but I have about the same question and I'm in your situation.

I'm 5'9 250 (about 30%bf, not sure) and I've been eating around 1800-2000 cals a day, but I don't feel like I'm starving at all. Still, I'm working out 3-4 times a week, and losing next to nothing (1lb a week? Fk that!).

I suppose if I'm forced to, I can add some more calories in a good way--Peanuts, Fish, Fruits, and so on. But I'm a student on a budget so I can't spend too much.

Anyways.........What gives?


I'm going to be steamed if I find out I'm not losing weight because I'm not eating enough!!

[Worldwide]

I'm going to be steamed if I find out I'm not losing weight because I'm not eating enough!!

You're not eating enough - seriously.

[Dirty Shoez]

I've been reading up for the past 2 or so hours.....glad i ran into this place. Lots of good info here.

I'll run with 2800 or so for a while and see how that goes. Hope it works.

[EviL1]

I've been reading up for the past 2 or so hours.....glad i ran into this place. Lots of good info here.

I'll run with 2800 or so for a while and see how that goes. Hope it works.

People always seem to drastically overestimate how many calories you need here. There is no 1 rule for all. You can't just multiply your bodyweight by 15 17 or whatever it just doesn't work like that.

You have to factor for you age, your activity level, your height and importantly your body fat percentage. If you're 250 and 30% you don't need anywhere near as much as someone who is say 250 and 10%. You could be looking at a 500 calorie a day difference just because of that.

Look at this site http://www.freedieting.com/tools/cal...alculator.htm# enter in your details use the advanced options and you'll see you're on track with around 2000 calories.

It could also be that you actually losing more than 1lb a week because you are building some muscle at the same time so your weight kind of evens out but your body fat percentage will be going down. It depends on how you're measuring yourself.

[ann6918]

If I'm making the wrong assumption here, I apologize, but I assume at 330 you're in the obese range and need to drop a lot of weight.

One way that I've found very accurate is to calculate your bodyfat percentage and multiply your lean mass by 15. This will give you a pretty close estimate to what your RMR is. I've had the BodyGem test done and it was just a few calories off of the above formula.

Example: 330 pounds with 35% BF = 215 pounds of lean mass

215 x 15 = 3225 calories RMR

Next adjust that base number depending on how active your life is and how much exercise you do, and how much of a caloric deficit you can live with.