Question about too much of a caloric deficit

(Vic) #21

I do the same thing, Most times I have the same things and I find its impossible to eat too many cals, And I don’t restrict

Last night doing new recipe, Almond flour fried fish and decided needed more protein so I decided at bread some shrimp as well I didn’t calculate till later found out I added 1K more cals

I didn’t stress but will make the decision not to bread the shimp next time only the fish

Its different then previous calorie restriction because I don’t eat less or have less satiety but instead I might alter what recipe I use of how I prepare a meal to maximise satisfaction in satiety.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #22

From what I’ve read, the most reliable way to match energy intake to energy expenditure is to eat to satiety. One study demonstrated that, while the day-to-day match between intake and output is not precise, over any seven- or eight-day period, the match is quite precise when people are allowed to eat ad libitum. This is important because, as Gary Taubes has pointed out, even a 20 (k)cal daily mismatch is enough to account for a surprising weight differential over time. And 20 calories is what–a bite of food?

Since we know that the body’s response to food intake has a bigger effect than the actual number of calories consumed, it makes a lot of sense, to me at least, to rely on the mechanisms that our bodies evolved over the past two million years to ensure that we eat the proper amount of food; namely, hunger and satiety. But I recognise that a lot of people feel they’re “doing it wrong” unless they are actively using their brains to dictate to their bodies. Letting our body tell us what it wants is so not Western sciencey.

#23

nooo!! not that calculator (based on long-term, high carb calorie restriction… not relevant to either fasting or keto)

#24

Welcome, Tyler!

There’s a lot of disagreement about calorie-counting on here. Nothing to do with you, so please don’t take it personally :slightly_smiling_face:

I’ve always thought about it exactly as you have it in your first post: if we have access to and are using our own fat for fuel, then it’s not calorie-restriction. That’s been true for me and for many others, but it doesn’t seem to be quite so straightforward for everyone (@lfod14’s recent experience is a good example of how it doesn’t always work that way).

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #25

You had better tell Richard and Carl, then. It’s their calculator and it’s designed to help one figure out how much of a deficit you can safely have while fasting.

#26

Yes, I know. I wrote Richard about it years ago and he knows the study that it’s based on, but in the meantime that calculator has had an incredible staying power on this forum!

#27

It doesn’t work for everyone.
In my case, my food choices are very important. That’s why I do keto a lot, actually. And my SO (who can’t eat low-carb) needs to be often hungry on his active lifestyle to keep his weight and he isn’t even slim (but not fat).
Now I have no problems with not gaining but losing, that’s tricky.

+20 kcal (or 200 or 400) doesn’t really matter to me, my metabolism can follow it. I don’t know where are my limits, once I suddenly ate +1000 kcal for a month, no gain at all but I probably would saw something in a year or if I was more slim… My current weight is very stable.

Another problem that not everyone can wait until serious hunger or other good reasons (I need some extreme determination to do it and it often backfires anyway. I need too big meals when really hungry, it’s much better to eat before). And eating to satiety isn’t so simple either. For me, it often takes a lot to reach satiation even on a good diet but subtle hunger may come twice a day - so I overeat easily. Or just eat enough not to lose any fat.

I can eat a ton of food and just getting hungrier - or in a better case, staying just as hungry as I was. Now I know what to avoid all the time but it’s still not easy. I can’t be the only one like this. If someone has very reliable hunger and satiation, at least on keto, good for them. I am a tad envious but not very much as there are way more unfortunate people than me…

I never dictated what my body should do, that approach is impossible and weird for me. My body has power over me, I shouldn’t piss it off :smiley: I want to be nice to it anyway, our relationship is good, I listen to my body and it tells me what it wants (lots of calories and keeping this 30lbs extra fat, apparently. no gain, no lose, THIS. but I will trick it somehow, I worked for such a method in the last several years). And I have my inner hedonist, inner rebel, my health-consciousness, my circumstances (it’s the least problematic as I have power on them)… I need to satisfy everything. It’s not easy but if I give up to lose fat on keto ever, I can have an easy time.
I will never give it up :slight_smile: And it’s not like I don’t have fun. I like challenges even if this one is a tad too much.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #28

I’ve talked about this before and will mention it again just in case it’s helpful to @Tyler_Hobbie or anyone else who doesn’t want to count calories or thinks it’s a useless chore. Per @Shinita some of us don’t have reliable hunger/satiation signals. I do count calories, weigh food and eat to macros. But I often miss meals due to one thing or another and experience little or no hunger to remind me. Instead, I feel either cold during winter or weak. Those signals tell me it’s time to eat.

On the other hand, I am never satiated. I could eat virtually non-stop until I’m physically unable to stuff more into my stomach. In fact, for most of my SAD life I did just that, grazing all day. Fortunately, I was one of those folks who didn’t get T2D, prediabetic or obese because of it. And not because I was particularly intelligent about what I ate. It was SAD with a lot of junk included.

Now, I use overall weight to tell me when I’m eating enough or not. If I don’t hit my daily calorie target for several consecutive days (not feeling the least hungry) I will lose weight. If I go above it (not feeling the least satiated) I’ll gain. If I hit that target within a couple hundred calories high or low I will maintain. That’s how I match energy intake to energy expenditure. It works well for me.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #29

It depends on how you define “calorie restriction.” Generally, the term refers to exogenous calories; but of course when you include endogenous calories from excess stored fat in the picture, then calories aren’t really being restricted. The point of the advice to “eat to satiety” is that we shouldn’t deliberately limit our caloric intake, but we should allow our appetite to determine how much to eat.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #30

I believe that’s true in everyone’s case. One of the problems with a high-carbohydrate diet is that the resulting elevated insulin level not only deprives cells of needed energy, but the excess insulin also blocks the receptors in the hypothalamus that are supposed to acknowledge the leptin secreted by our fat tissue as a signal that we have enough energy on board to stop eating for a while. The result is that we are perpetually hungry on a high-carb diet, partly because the brain never receives the leptin signal that it’s safe to stop eating.

#31

And that’s where people differ, a lot. One can be nicely satiated all day on a high-carb diet, potentially even while losing fat (it varies), it’s a fact for many people, whatever they body does… Just like I can be hungry on keto while eating more than my energy need - I need to do things quite wrong for that though, bad food choices (like added fat, cream, vegetables and nuts, not in tiny amounts) and maybe bad timing.
Carbs make me hungry and mess with me in other ways so high-carb is the worst for me and the less carbs I eat, the better - but I never went hungry on high-carb. That can’t be true for most people, some have that, I know but I never even saw that. People doesn’t complain about hunger after a big carby meal… They are full and everything. Maybe they get hungry again but then they eat again… Maybe they get fat but people around here eat their fill and reach satiation, these are normal instincts and people love to eat anyway, the bigger problem is eating a ton after satiation is reached…
I never had long hunger on high-carb ever and I did that for 4 decades. I just ate high-protein and very high-fat to balance the hunger-inducing carbs out. Maybe it’s different on low-carb but many people feels great on HCLF too… So it’s individual.
My SO gets satiated about the same with everything. Low-carb breakfast? Rice with fruits? Doesn’t matter, only the calories and no chance for hunger for 6-8 hours just the same. So some people have interesting inner workings and satiation is extremely individual…

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #32

That’s interesting, because I would eat a half-pound of spaghetti, my stomach would be at the literal bursting point with no room for even another bite of food, and I’d still want more. Whereas eating a ketogenic diet to satiety, I lose interest in food at a point where my belly is probably only about half full. Plenty of room for more, but I just don’t want it.

One of the things that ketogenic eating has taught me is the difference between true hunger and craving carbohydrates. Interestingly, while I may still occasionally give in to one of those cravings, not being hungry helps keep me from going on a binge with the carbs (though the cravings still become stronger and more persistent). Another thing that ketogenic eating has done is to demonstrate that a lot of what I thought was a normal part of the ageing process is actually the result of inflammation from a high-carbohydrate diet. My joints are mostly pain-free these days, and I no longer wake up feeling like death warmed over.

#33

My SO can eat 1000 kcal white rice with fruits and get perfectly satiated for 6-8 somewhat active hours (running and physical work) but he’s special.
I am like you, carbs keep (even make) me hungry. I never did HCLF, I would have been starving :smiley: I ate high protein and very high fat to balance out the carbs. 2 liters is a big volume and my stomach can handle that at once. It usually wasn’t even needed. We Hungarians have very fatty, very carby traditional dishes, usually with much animal protein, it’s pretty impossible eating just a kilogram of them without getting satiated, at least it takes a very exceptional person! I ate very much animal protein even when I was a vegetarian. And of course, huge amounts of fat, both animal and plant.
But I can get satiated with protein-rich plants too, legumes and gluten is very effective, I don’t even need overeating there. Legumes are too carby though, they were helpful in the past.