Hi,
I hear all these insane health, lifespan-enhancing benefits of calorie restriction but nobody explains how you do that. How do you count calories. How much calories do you need in a day? Can someone explain to me how you can reduce calories by 15, 20 or 30% ? Are people here doing that?
I’ve been weight lifting for almost twenty years so I’ve been through many cycles of gaining (calorie surplus), cutting (calorie deficit) and maintenance (neutral caloric intake).
It’s not difficult at all. You first need to baseline your body, height, weight, activity level, Basal Metabolic Rate with a BMR calculator, Total Daily Energy Expenditure using a TDEE calculator. Just Google BMR and TDEE for explanations as well as calculators.
Once you have a baseline of your measurements establish a goal, calorie deficit, calorie surplus or maintenence to give you a calorie target.
I would also suggest using a Macro nutrient calculator using a Macro percentage that meets your nutritional goals, plug in your calorie target and you will have a targeted Macro percentage (carbs, protein and fat) along with a calorie target.
Track your food in one of the many apps out there.
To be clear, it has more to do with methionine restriction. You should always consume maintenance to preserve your energy balance and nutritional status. Cellular degeneration -> aging is literally caused by all the junk food you eat (free radicals, oxidation, etc). The benefits of fasting, quality sleep, stress reduction, and exercise cannot be overstated either for the purpose of lifespan extension.
The app, my net diary is awesome! You get a balance of calories to spend every day, and when you eat some thing you can scan the barcode and it automatically will deduct from the balance, so you keep track of it that way. Easiest way I found to reduce is to only eat one big meal a day and either fast the rest of the day or have some thing small at morning and noon
Yes. People do it all the time. You find your basal metabolic rate and that gives you a starting point. Eating fewer calories than that will put you in a deficit and you will lose weight down to the carrying capacity of that caloric amount. How much you reduce your calories is how rapidly you will reach that equilibrium
There are many ways. A lot of people are doing it as we speak. You don’t really need calories in any single day.
The percentage will be based of your daily expenditure, say 10% of 2000 calories spent are 200 calories for a deficit, so you eat 1800
I’m lazy and I happened upon an app called Reset. It does the basic math for me and includes additional resources like a weight tracker/journal, reading materials, habit tracker and daily tips, and even live chat with a coach. It’s $73 every three months and has been incredibly helpful. Calories max out at 800 on Reset Days and the days each week you choose to Reset are completely flexible. I’ve loved it.