Starting CR at 54

[jbbarea]

Hello everyone!  I joined this forum today and am very excited to find a group of folks working on something that I have been doing on my own with no direction.  Read a few articles about calorie restriction and started CR about 2 months ago.    I started at 5'8,   200 pounds and am currently at 186.    Checked BMR and am around 21% which is pretty good for my age.    Here is my quesion:

I started the first month at 1300 calories per day which was pretty low,  but actually managable even though I do 30 minutes of varied workouts a day.    Found that increasing to 1500 (max) worked better and still losing weight about 1 pound or more per week.     Can I maintain at 1500?  I've done it in the past for as long as a year or two (when I was younger).      Anyone else of my size and age have similar experiences?  I'm trying to nail down my maintenance calories for the long term.   Thank you!

 

 

[Todd Allen]

I think it is good to be considering the long term but I wouldn't stress over finding some optimal calorie level and sticking to it.  Focus on food quality and developing healthful habits that you are comfortable adopting for life.  Rapid fat loss can be very motivating for a while but eventually it must slow and stop.  Shifting emphasis from scale weight and calories to how you feel, look and perform should provide ongoing motivation and satisfaction to sustain effort.  When you are satisfied with your body whatever calorie intake you end up at will be the right level.

[mccoy]

Jbbarea, I agree with what Todd has written above, and you can also restrict calories without overdoing it, sometimes it's even better that way to loose weight, since it doesn't trigger abrupt alarms to the bodyweight homeostatic processes.

1500 kcals would sound maybe too low a regimen to be maintained for a long time. Starting from 1800 and then watch the weight trend and eventually go down in small steps or staying that way seems often more effective on the long run.

Also, if you don't already do that, you should use some app to see if all requirements are met (EAAS, vitamins and minerals) and in case supplement what's missing.

[Ron Put]

6 hours ago, jbbarea said:

I started at 5'8,   200 pounds and am currently at 186.    Checked BMR and am around 21%

This doesn't make any sense. This weight/height combination would indicate BMI (not BMR, which is expressed in calories) of about 29% and borderline obese.

And Capitao Nascimento's timely post makes me wonder...

[Todd Allen]

1 hour ago, Ron Put said:

This doesn't make any sense. This weight/height combination would indicate BMI (not BMR, which is expressed in calories) of about 29% and borderline obese.

BMI isn't a %.  The units are kg/m².  Some mistakenly think it correlates to body fat % but while 10% body fat could be excellent a BMI of 10 is catastrophic.

[Ron Put]

On 3/25/2021 at 3:07 PM, Todd Allen said:

BMI isn't a %.  The units are kg/m².

Of course, you are right. I don't know what I was thinking... I guess I was looking at his "Checked BMR and am around 21%"

But the gist of my comment still stands.

[jbbarea]

Thanks for the advice folks.