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Old October 11th, 2003, 09:32 AM
jamie
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Default Confusion over calories and healthy weight loss

Luna wrote:
If there is anyone here with good, sound, medical advice on this, please
help me to clear up my confusion and possibly wrong assumptions.

First, what rate of weight loss is healthy? Is it 1% of body weight per
week? More? Less?


As I write frequently -- from what I've read, it is extremely difficult
to lose more than one percent of your total weight in actual fat per week,
unless you exercise several hours daily. One can lose more *weight* than
that per week, by being so low in calories or protein that more muscle
mass is lost. But you want to preserve muscle, because your muscle mass
determines how many calories you burn, especially at rest.

Second, is it true that to lose weight you should eat 8 - 10 times your
body weight in calories? So a 120 pound person who wants to lose weight
would eat between 960 and 1200 calories a day? My confusion comes from
thinking that's a mighty small amount of calories. (Not that I weigh 120
pounds, lol)


According to very many people in the past years of this group, the
majority can lose weight at 10 to 12 calories per pound of current weight.
A smaller percentage, myself included, need to drop to 8 to 10 times
weight to lose. (However, I can maintain on 14 to 16, and I'm not all
that active.)

--
jamie )

"There's a seeker born every minute."