According to everything I read if I my intake is 3500 calories over my output I will ga pound. It doesn’t seem to work that way in reallife. Myself like a lot of people I know seem to stay about the same amount overweight all the time. We obviously eat way more than what it takes too loose weight. Why don’t we continue to gain?
I stay about 20# over weight. If I loose most of that then go off my diet I will gain that 20 right back and then it stops. The best I can tell if I stay at about 2200 calories my weight seems to stay stable at my desired weight. If I eat about 3,000 calories it seems to stay stable at my current weight. I should be gaining at least about 50# per year. What is the truth on this?
No contradiction. If you eat 3,000 calories a day and are not gaining weight, it means you are burning 3,000 calories a day.
Michael Phelps famously ate something like 12,000 calories a day while training, yet he wasn’t gaining weight because he burned it all off. Similarly, when I was doing backcountry canoeing, we had a 7,000 calorie/day diet and most of us lost weight.
One thing to bear in mind is that when you’re overweight you will burn more calories than a lighter person. Reasons for this range from the increased effort it takes to get up and move around when you’re heavier, to metabolic respiration required just to keep those fat cells alive.
Bear in mind that your body doesn’t have to store every single calorie you eat. Even if you’re eating a bit over however much you burn, your body might not want to have to do all the things you do in a day with the penalty weight added. Over the long course of time eating the same diet with the same activity level, you’ll gain weight, but it’ll be fat & muscle combined.
The point is that at my ideal weight eating the same diet I eat normally I will quickly go back to 20# over weight over a few months. So the heavier body burns more calories thoery seems to make more sense.
Keep in mind to that often people that are dieting are exercising as well. I didn’t run the numbers, but if memory serves - at least for my size - a 20 pound difference in weight would be like ~200 calories a day - not 800.
You can find the calculators on line - they vary, but when I diet seriously - and keep track of calories in and out - over the long term (getting rid of diurnal variations) - they usually match up less than 10% error.
I think you’ll find that as you age, this equation will shift and you put on a few pounds each year if you do nothing. Your metabolism will slow down and you become less active, and the weight will sneak up on you.
I have found that to be true but thats not the point. The point is that too many calories does not cintinue to add weight beyond a certain point. Maybe I am not expressing it right but so far only one person seems to know what I am talking about here.
Think of it like this. 2000 calories = 165#
2200 calories= 175#
2400 calories = 185#
2600 calories =195#
Instead of we need x amount of calories and going over that will continue to gain weight. I will always level off and with age a slight increase with each decade.
I’m not sure why you think we don’t get this - too many calories does lead to excessive weight - If you aren’t gaining weight at 3000 calories a day (and I suspect that is 3000 max a day - the average is probably less) than your requirement is 3000 a day.
Your body has a certain set point. Most people tend to stay around. If you eat more than that set point - you will gain weight. So if you started eating 3500 calories a day - you would gain weight until which time the 3500 calories per day met the need for the excess weight you were carrying.
Conversely - if you ate 500 calories less a day - you would only lose weight until which time the 2500 calories a day matched your basal metabolic rate + activity level.
And the 3500 calories per pound is an estimate based on percentage lipid and stuff like that - it can range a bit.
Also I hope you aren’t trying to convert the whole “3500 calories equals a pound of fat” thing into the amount you need per day - they are two different things - one is the caloric defecit you must have to lose one pound of fat - the other is your basal metabolic rate which is mostly based on the amount of fat free mass. There are formulas you can use to estimate this based off age, weight, and sex - but I think they are basically capturing what the amount of fat free mass is.
Technically the BMR is only for at rest, but often people use this term to mean daily caloric need – since it is for someone at rest - it needs to be multiplied by a factor to account for activity level - there are plenty of websites on the web to calculate this for you.
Plenty of people lose weight - and then regain it - and level out about where they were - there is really no mystery here.
If you were eating 3000 calories a day and weighed X
Then you dieted at 2500 calories a day and weighed Y
If you start eating 3000 calories a day again - you absolutely should end up at X again
You nailed it with the set point comment, so we do have a recognised set point. I was under the impression that regardless of how much we weighed we would only use so many calories and the rest would go toward fat. Between thanksgiving and the first of the year I always put on about 7# or so and loose it by about march. This agrees with the set point for each weight theory.
A different swimmer claiming he does 10k a day - I note that:
Claims that
I don’t get how swimming is 3x as strenuous than running 26 miles. I mean I guess if you are doing it at your max - you are working as hard as you can - and more muscles, but I’ll never be an Olympic swimmer or marathoner.
I think lots of people put on pounds during the holidays - plus it is cold out - so I don’t walk as much.
Basically your body needs to burn fuel - keep in mind your operating at 98.6 +|- and like anything else - that takes fuel - which is the food. The more weight you add - the bigger the mass is of your body that needs to be heated and have blood move around and whatever else goes on there.
That is general accepted scientific fact.
The set point stuff I think is more of a theory right now. I believe it is generally accepted, but haven’t done enough research to really know for sure.
But even without the set point theory - the way it works is still the same mechanically - it is just a difference of the reason (as in your brain/body wants to get you back to that point) - whether you do it voluntarily, by accident, or are forced to - the rescue is the same.