Ok, well I know that you need to have more calories out than in, to see weight loss, but what I'm wondering is...

How many calories do our bodies burn to fuel itself without working out, ect..?

Because I know most of us aren't burning 1500calories + each day at the gym...

I just feel like maybe having a better understanding of this will help me along with my weightloss...


-Thanks-

Depends on your size, activity level, etc. It's different person to person. I burn 1650 if I were to sleep all day. You can get a good general idea from online calculators, but they're usually off. The dr/nutritionist is the best person to go to.

Do a Google search for BMR which is your Basal Metabolic Rate. BMR is the amount of calories your body burns just at rest.

There are a lot of BMR calculators out there that you can use to find the general number for yourself!

Your AMR, active metabolic rate, is a modified BMR depending on your normal daily activities (are you a desk jockey or a construction worker? that kind of thing).

So AMR + exercise expenditure = roughly how many calories you burn a day.

interesting...

Those calculators just make loosing weight seem so easy.... Too bad it doesn't feel like that...

The one thing that calories in vs. calories out does not take into account is the quality of the food.

"Good Foods" or foods that are nutritionally better for you do two things. They make you feel satisfied with less and for a longer period. They also help your body optimize its performance so that it just functions better when you are exercising or losing weight.

The tricky part of losing weight is developing a meal plan that is both satisifying from a nutritional standpoint and from an emotional standpoint. After all you need to be happy with your food choices so that you can stick with the plan for the long run.

So yes calories in vs calories out is basic math but the rest is truly an art from.

lorilove
I need to start thinking like that, because I'll be honest, the only thing I care about right now is my calorie intake. I keep telling myself that can't be too bad of a way to think as I've lost 35 lbs since August.

Right... you'll lose weight just watching calories and nothing else... but you'll end up a lot less healthier. You'll look sickly, get ill quicker, lose strength, etc. You have get your nutrients in. Your macros are far more important than calories in vs out. This is your health and your life, it's not a race to a certain weight. It's a journey to healthier life.

And remember, extasee, most of that was from starving yourself. A lot of water weight and muscle was lost. But, I'm glad your on a good path now.

I just want to put in a disclaimer that I have never and am not currently starving! When I am hungry I eat! The first week or so I was hungry all the time! But now, my body has adjusted very well to the amount of food that I eat. When I get hungry I do eat, I am never starving! :-)

I was talking about what your body was going through - starvation mode - not what you were feeling.

Oh.... Even though I lose a steady 1-2 lbs a week? Wouldn't that mean my body is not starving? Cause it's willing to let go of that weight? i thought starvation mode was when you didn't lose weight because your body as trying to hold onto it for dear life?

Which, if I remember correctly, is what you were going through when you first joined the site.

I mean, they say I was, but I have consistently lost weight since August. I don't know... The whole not getting enough calories is unhealthy thing still kinda confuses me. i just smile & nod when you guys talk about it. :-) hahaha!

The problem is that your body will burn off your muscle mass if it has to. I had about a 3 week period recently where I dropped roughly 10 lbs. I was shattered to find out that most of that weight was muscle mass and not fat.

I'd been working out 5 days a week like normal and watching my calories, but didn't realize that even though I didn't FEEL hungry I just wasn't getting enough calories for the amount of exercise I was doing. So my body held on to the fat and burned the muscle. No good.

So while it seemed great because the pounds were shedding off, it wasn't the weight loss I wanted. I have no desire to be skinny fat especially with all the hard work I'm doing.

Since then I've upped my calories and now my body is still losing consistantly, but now it's losing the fat and gaining muscle!

Let's define the use of the word "starve" with regard to weight loss and message boards.

"Starvation mode" is is shorthand used on a lot of message boards for a fairly complicated metabolic situation. It's when you eat too few calories to support your metabolism and cause your weight loss to stall, but you're still eating enough calories to sustain basic function. It doesn't mean that you are actually starving to death. It means that your body is in panic mode and has stopped losing weight in order to preserve whatever nutrients you're giving it. I actually prefer to use the term "panic mode" rather than starvation mode, precisely because this kind of confusion happens.

True starvation is the next step down the ladder. It is possible to eat so few calories that your body never goes into the stall. If you're eating 500 calories a day or less (which I seem to recall is what you were doing on many days, Extasee), no matter how "panicked" your body gets, it's going to lose. There comes a point where your body can't recover from a calorie deficit and so you continue to lose. However, at this point you're not only losing fat, you're losing muscle. Worse than that, you're damaging your heart, your liver, your kidneys, etc. by not providing enough nutrition to them to sustain their proper function. Your electrolyte balances will suffer and you'll start losing organ function as time goes on.

When you hit the above point you are actually physically STARVING your body for nutrients. If you continue along that line, you will eventually starve yourself into the hospital and eventually to death.

Neither of these things have anything to do with the psychological feeling of being hungry or full or feeling "starving". Most of the time when we say we're "starving" hungry - as in "Gosh I'm STARVING! I could eat everything on the menu!", we don't mean from a nutritional standpoint. We mean from either a physical hunger standpoint (i.e. an empty stomach) or a psychological standpoint.

Your body needs a certain amount nutrition to function healthily. If you don't provide that nutrition, you damage your body. That's the bottom line. You HAVE to eat enough to nourish your body. From there, it's all about figuring out *for you* how much you need for nourishment, how much you can cut back to lose weight, and how much extra will make you gain weight.

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What PhotoChick said.

We want to lose FAT, not everything else. If someone is limiting calories really severely, they lose muscle, other tissue, and even bone--get osteoporosis--damage the heart muscle--damage kidneys--hair falls out--periods stop--not a pretty picture. So don't laugh too hard at folks who say it's not a good idea.

Jay