Too much deficit?

[janickic]

LONG VERSION:
Suppose you need 2000 calories a day to maintain, and you are entering a cutting phase. It's a known fact that if you eat too little your metabolism slows down and you go into a fat conservation mode. It is also (so far as I've heard) considered healthy to lose up to 1.5 pounds per week, which could be accomplished by eating 1200 calories per day. So, theoretically, 1200/day for this person is about as low as you want to go without making the body to resort to conservation. This leads to the question at hand- suppose this person burns about 500 calories per day in cardio, and consumes 1400 calories per day. This would lead to a gross of only 900 calories per day. However, this would theoretically be safe, correct? I say this because the body is still getting enough food, so I wouldn't think it would start to conserve fat. Thoughts?

SHORT VERSION:
If you are cutting and eat 500 below maintenance but also burn 500 in exercise (lets say your maintenance is 2000, so you would in effect be consuming 1000 calories per day), will your body still go into the fat conservation mode that it does when you don't eat enough, even though you are eating a healthy amount, just burning more off?

 

[Freighter]

It may put your body into starvation mode. If your maintenance leve is 2000 calories without exercise, and you add exercise, you are not at maintenance anymore. If you eat less and exercise more, you could put yourself at too much of a deficit.

What I try and do for my cutting cycles is eat as much as I can and still lose fat at the desired rate. To acieve the appropriate deficit I would rather add cardio than take away calories, to an extent. Obviously there is a limit to how much exercise you can do. Exercise speeds up your metabolism and so does more food. So, it is best to have as much as possible of both.

 

[Double D]

If your eating every 3 hours or so I have a hard time believing you will be in a starvation state.

Secondly I have seen very few people who work with weights who are only around 2,000 calories maintence. That is very low.

 

[janickic]

I'm a 20 year old guy, 152lbs and 70" tall, probably about 12-13% body fat right now, been trying to cut for a long time but it seems like when I eat enough to make a 500 cal deficit with exercise included (so about 2500 cal, I conservatively work off 4-500 calories), I can't shake the weight. This is with weight training 3x/week as well. All of the calculators I could find (including the Harris-Elliot) tell me my maintenance should be around 2000-2100 plus whatever exercise I do. Hmm

 

[Double D]

Those calculators really mean absolutly nothing. I used one and it said my bodies maintence level was around 3200 and mine is higher than that. You will only know by experimenting.

 

[janickic]

Right...it seems mine might actually be lower, or maybe I'm screwing something up somehow... Eating 2000-2500/day and burning 400-600 (very conservatively, I go off of knowledge rather than what machines tell me) I haven't gotten the fat to go away, so I'm trying to figure that out. I'm very much in shape aerobically, I've heard that the more in shape you are the more efficiently you burn calories (so I wouldn't burn as much), but I wouldn't think that that would make that much difference.

 

[Double D]

Lower than that? Wow thats crazy. Maybe I am just a very active person? What do you do at work?

 

[janickic]

I'm not sure..there's the possibility that I'm miscalculating or something similar (and I hope that's the case... I like to eat ). I'm in college right now, I'm on my feet only while walking to classes/places, or doing stuff with buddies. I'm training for the Marines, so I do some pretty crazy workouts, but unfortunately apart from that there's a lot of sitting. Even then though, I wouldn't think it would be that low.

 

[Luke95]

"fat conservation mode" means HIGH levels of free Glucocorticoids (stress hormones). That will depend SOLELY on genetics. Excess free corticoids = extremely reduced ability to digest food (which may prevent some weight gain initially) and elevated insulin resistance (this will lessen your ability to store glycogen or process glucose for that matter). As a result of the insulin restistance, you will also have a lot of trouble pulling vitamins, minerals and amino acids into your cells as well. Having consistantly elevated corticoid levels leadings to water soluable vitamin deficiencies, dead bowels... (ewww), and the insulin restitance gets to the point where you'd be diagnosed as a type II diabetic.

If you think you are 'nearing' these levels, throw in a periodic banana. The goal of this would be to try to antagonize the cortisol levels with a jolt of insulin. (they fight for the same receptors.) Throw in some B6 (100-200mg) and a couple amino's too.

If this makes you feel (significantly) better. You need to rework your diet plan.


-Luke

 

[Double D]

If you are doing all of that your cal maitnence has to be higher. My wifes is even higher than that. Hers is around 2300!

 

[janickic]

Interesting Luke, thanks

D- Yeah, from what I can figure my maintenance with the workouts included is about 2500, but even when I eat 2000-2500 and do my regular workouts/weight training I don't seem to cut any. I must be missing something real obvious, that or I'm real jacked up...

 

[Double D]

Do you record everything you eat?

 

[janickic]

I keep track of how many calories I eat in a day, I am forced to use my best educated guesses with the cafeteria food, I find nutrition info whenver I can but it's not usually available. I should start keeping track of what I eat, when, how much, and how many calories it contains though..that would be a better way of going about it

 

[Double D]

Realize your cafeteria food is probably all cooked in things like butter and grease. This is where your problem may lie. Take a week and see if you can get a bunch of good foods and dont eat in the cafeteria and keep track of those foods and see what happens.

 

[janickic]

That's the problem, I already take that into consideration (good thought, though). I really don't eat much of that, when I go to the cafeteria it's usually salad (no dressing) crutons and carrots/peas, some sunflower seeds for healthy fats, water, and any plain turkey or ham that I can find. Sometimes grapes or an apple, but that's about it

 

[janickic]

Another question, to somewhat diverge from the topic at hand-
For as far as weights go right now, I do the following (bear with me, I'm not too familiar with the names of most of them..):
Bicep Curls
Tricep (grab the rope with both hands and push down)
Negative incline bench (knees higher than shoulders)
Pec (butterfly machine? Arms extended out to sides, try to push the bars around so both are in front of you (like an exaggerated clap)
Negative incline situps/crunches with weight
Leg press
Leg (sit with shins behind padded bar and extend legs)
Calf (stand on a step with heels off, hold a weight and extend my feet like I'm standing on tip toes)

Is this enough, or what other weights should I be doing? If there's a suggested ab/pec workout that's better than

sorry for that butchering of names!

Oh yeah, as far as reps/sets go:
I do 3 sets of each exercise (is that the right word?)
7 reps per set
75 seconds rest in between sets
I keep a 1/4/3 ratio, with bench press as an example it would be press for a count of one, lower the bar back down for a count of 4, and hold it down there (under stress) for a count of 3, then begin the push again.
Ultimate goal would be more hypertrophy than all out strength or endurance

 

[Double D]

Another question, to somewhat diverge from the topic at hand-
For as far as weights go right now, I do the following (bear with me, I'm not too familiar with the names of most of them..):
Bicep Curls
Tricep (grab the rope with both hands and push down) Rope Pushdowns
Negative incline bench (knees higher than shoulders) I have no clue
Pec (butterfly machine? Arms extended out to sides, try to push the bars around so both are in front of you (like an exaggerated clap)Pec Deck Machine. So refer to these as peck decks
Negative incline situps/crunches with weight Weighted decline crunches
Leg press
Leg (sit with shins behind padded bar and extend legs) Leg extensions
Calf (stand on a step with heels off, hold a weight and extend my feet like I'm standing on tip toes)Calve raises

Is this enough, or what other weights should I be doing? If there's a suggested ab/pec workout that's better than

sorry for that butchering of names!

Oh yeah, as far as reps/sets go:
I do 3 sets of each exercise (is that the right word?)
7 reps per set
75 seconds rest in between sets
I keep a 1/4/3 ratio, with bench press as an example it would be press for a count of one, lower the bar back down for a count of 4, and hold it down there (under stress) for a count of 3, then begin the push again.
Ultimate goal would be more hypertrophy than all out strength or endurance

I helped you with some terms. Just check through the journal section and see if theres programs you like. And if so then give them a try. I can work with ya to get you a program just pm me and we can go from there. Sounds like I will have to do some explaining of exercises for ya.

 

[janickic]

Thanks a lot for all of the help, I'll check into those and get back to ya with any questions

 

[Plateau_Max]

Janickic, well first of all it's "Decline Bench Press" that you guys are looking for, and the Pec Deck machine is actually just extended arm flies, or just pec flies. The machine you do flies on that requires you to have your elbow joint at a 90 degree angle works the same muscles for the chest, you just don't use your triceps to help. AAAAANyway

So you're trying to cut even though you're nearly 6' tall and you're only 152lbs? I guess you're not too interested in mass, I usually weigh 170 when i'm FINISHED with my cutting phase

The thing with cutting is you need to be so on the ball with your eating habits it's not even funny. This is why the whole dependance on getting the right foods from a cafeteria is a screwy subject. The only way you can be 100% on your cut is to purchase and prepare your own food so that you can be in complete control of everything that goes into your body. As far as knowing how many calories you need, those calculators are nearly worthless, you can differ several undred calories sometimes just depending on who's calculator you use. The best way someone like you can achieve a good figure is to go to a gym and use the breathalizer, they just stick this device in your mouth and you breath regularly for a few minutes and it determine based on your breathing patterns, strength of breaths, etc etc, how many calories you burn in a day. Only thing with those is make sure you've fasted for a good 12 hours before you use it.

When you plan your meals, the more often and smaller size meals the better. During my cutting phase it's 6 meals a day, 3 hours apart starting first thing in the morning. Also know that your carb sources need to be from the best sources possible, such as raw oats, fruit, and berries. Scale your food in Carbs, protein, and fat, and make sure you emphasize carbs in the morning, protein during the day, and healthy fats in the evening. My post is becoming absurdly long so I'll wrap it up, most of the time 20% deficit is the best way to go for calories. This means your calories burned at rest plus total excess calories burned from exercise and activity for the day, less 20%.

As has been said though when it comes to knowing the best amount of calories to restrict you're going to have to use some trial and error.

 

[janickic]

For how normal I look for some reason I'm a pretty light guy. I was on the crew team last year (collegiate rowing), which was pretty intense stuff. We did weight lifting and I had a good bit goin for me, probably 6-7% BF and I only weighed 145. I was in a motorcycle accident over the summer, and couldn't move for a while. Lost all of of my muscle, and when I got back on the scales I was a whopping 136 pounds! But yeah, I'd like to get down to a bit lower body fat, if I have time before heading off to OCS (Marines) I'll bulk a bit, but depending on how long it takes to shake some weight I might not bother, a) speed and endurance are more important than all out strength in that environment, and b) it's extremely demanding, your body gets broken down and it would all go to waste. In any event, I'll start a bulk when I get back. For now, I'd like to at least look good and pack on a pound or two of muscle after getting rid of the fat

Is that breathalyzer test really accurate? I've never heard of it before