Calculate Your Maintenance Level on a Hypo-caloric Diet

If you’re starting any diet, there are several things you need to take care of. First, it’s what type of diet vs nutrition it should mainly be. If your goal is weight loss you should create calories deficit on a very moderate level.

Going too far, below your daily maintenance level for a longer time could be unsafe even for a healthy individual. That’s why it’s mandatory to have a health check and see your doctor before going to a restrictive diet regime. You need to calculate your maintenance level vs. number of calories needed to function throughout the day, and then create a calorie deficit.

How to calculate your food-calorie maintenance level?

Keep in mind 3500 calories = 1 pound of fat. So, say for example, your ML was 2000 calories and you wanted to lose a pound a week, then you would have to create a 500-calorie deficit.

In other words, you have to have 1500 calories a day and you would lose 1 pound a week (2000x7days=14000 calories and 1500x7days=10500 calories, which is 3500 less calories per week. Make sense?).

You can do this by either simply eating 500 less calories, or eating all 2000 calories and burn 500+ calories by exercising.

I need to lose 10kgs ASAP and need to know how many calories I need to cut out of my diet. Any help would be great.

3500 calories per pound… 2.2 kilos per pound

3500 x 2.2 = 7700 calories per kilo

 No such thing as losing weight without exercise

If you do try to lose the weight there is no such thing as losing weight without exercise because you’re still eating, and putting stuff in. Do remember that may not lose that much but you will look slimmer, its muscle you gain after weight lost and muscle weights more than fat.

Take your time and don’t try pills or just cutting out foods, take in less fatty meats and go low on the carbs but don’t ever cut it all off because once you start putting them back in your body will just turn it all into fat. It’s not the number of calories at all…can you imagine yourself counting calories? There are more important things, just think reasonable and moderate.

Maintaining weight once you get into desired body zone

Maintaining get pretty easy once your weight only fluctuates a bit more during high stress times. Try to add exercise. Doing keto had many other benefits in addition to weight loss like better skin, better feeling overall, better body physique.

I do eat carbs sometimes for very special occasions though, but, I’ve got no problem going back to keto, as I start craving it anyway when eating carbs for a longer period

For example> cut back 7900 calories x 10 kg = 79000 cal

If your metabolic rate allows you to maintain weight at 3000 calories a day and you eat 1000 calories a day, you will be short of 2000 cal a day, and start losing weight, so pretty much you would lose 10 kg of body fat in 79000/2000=35 days. If you lose 1 kg of body fat then you have by definition had a net deficit of 7700 kCal of energy.

You will also hear people who are now going KETO for the second, third, or whatever time again, because they wanted to treat themselves, because they had a special occasion, because they were depressed. It’s natural to come up with whatever excuse they used for eating something that they knew their body couldn’t or shouldn’t have.

Gaining weight back after quitting Keto lifestyle

If you go right back to how you ate before, and essentially gain nothing from the weight loss journey, you will probably gain it back. Most people are trying to lose weight eat mindfully – they are focused on what they’re eating and how much, because that’s how you get the fat off of you.

Going back to carbs post keto, you will ALWAYS regain 5-10lb water weight, that’s just how it works with glycogen storage.

Then people hit goal – they go back to so-called “normal eating” which is what got them fat to begin with and they put the fat back on because they stop eating mindfully and start eating mindlessly again like they did before. However, if you stay with mindful eating you don’t have to gain it all back, even if you go less strict than keto.

Switching back to any diet that includes a blood sugar roller coaster, and insulin driving you to eat over and over again in a day, is just a recipe for gaining back all you’ve already lost.

An example of good eating habits on a keto diet

A good eating habit consists of several basic principles followed daily. You can variegate foods as much as you like, while keeping carbohydrates under control. For example basically in a week I like this regime:

Sunday; one generous dish of pasta, bread, dessert of some sort (often “one meal” that day)

Monday; small salad lunch, meat and veg dinner

Tuesday; no lunch meat and veg dinner and avocado or nut butter snack

Wednesday; tuna salad and veg lunch, meat and veg dinner, small treat like a glass of wine

Thursday; small salad lunch, meat and veg dinner Friday; egg and spinach lunch, veg dinner

Saturday; within a fasting window and in reasonable portions like chili with rice cheese and sour cream, half a sandwich, a small Greek yogurt with raspberries and granola.

I personally eat freely on holidays. I might gain 5 lbs. or so which come off easily. I find that after “free” eating foods that make me carb-binge I look forward to get back on the keto diet.

The ease or difficulty to get into ketosis

The ease or difficulty to get into ketosis is governed mostly by insulin sensitivity/resistance. Protein only affects ketosis if you are insulin resistant, for example prediabetic, type 2 diabetic. Eating 90% fat will only allow 10% of proteins, on 2000 kcal macro it would be only around 50g protein if you completely avoid any carbs. That might not be sustainable long term and could cause damage.

There are studies showing that leaner people have a harder time getting into ketogenesis and have to increase their fat while maintaining a lower protein intake. We have a remarkable amount of variety; what works for the majority may not work for the individual. But being lean in and of itself has no bearing on the relationship between protein intake and maintaining ketosis.