Greentext

2200 is about expected maintenance level for a man that does normal daily activities (going on walks, cleaning around the house and so on).

If you currently maintain your weight with whatever you're eating and drinking then calculate how much calories there is in what you're currently eating and drinking (average for the week) and cut that by 500 a day to lose 1 pound a week.

If you're increasing your physical activity as well then take that into consideration, it's much more healthy and effective in the long run (in most situations) to just continue eating the same but to start being active, this way you're not taking anything away, you're adding something to your life.

It doesn't much matter how accurate your calorie estimates are. If you estimate that your daily caloric requirement is 2500 and you're eating 2000 calories a day, then you should be losing about one pound a week (1 pound of fat = 3500 calories). If you find instead that your weight is remaining constant, then either your caloric requirement estimate or your caloric intake estimate is wrong (or both are). In either case, your only option is to eat even less, per your measurements.

I used the same awful but free (with option to upgrade but no need) app the guy I look up to used (and it also knows how many calories I burn in activity during a day). It even has an awful name, but the results are amazing and it already has a ton of the foods I eat in it and it gets easier to use with time.

MyFitnessPal: https://myfitnesspal.com

That really is the secret sauce of Keto. Of course, good portion control and healthy food choices also help keep you from feeling hungry between meals.

Barely ever eating and still gaining weight must've been amazing a million years ago when there was no food but it's the bane of my existence now.

Yeah I really need to. I spent a year trying to keep some working out routine. It’s so easy to slip and forget about it. I usually wake up and like wtf I had this healthy routine everything was nice but then some activity/project/idea absorbed me 24/7 for few days and it just evaporated like it never existed. Whether it was learning German, blender or drawing or suddenly writing scifi or warhammer painting or music making or playing guitar or physics learning etc… it is always few days of being utterly lost in that thing

There’s no constant things ever for me but just a repeated cycle of relearning the same thing again and again. I keep enormous collection of tabs on my… developments but forget to come back to them too. I hope they stay somewhere in my subconsciousness

Yes, switching to water can drastically reduce the calories in my example.

Daily Calorie use starts at around 2100 for a male 35 y/o at 5'9" and only goes up with physical activity. The number I cited for a big mac meal, 1350, is basically a consumption limit for dieting. Extreme diets go as low as 850 or even fasting. You can in theory still lose weight by consuming any number less than 2100 but the effectiveness will be hard to see and there will be a margin of error in nutritional labeling for calories.

Eh... Depends what kind of activity and your previous activity level. Just the fact that you're adding muscle mass means you're burning more calories even at rest. My maintenance went from 2500 to about 3200 just by starting to lift heavy shit and doing an hour of cardio 5 days a week.

What people don't realize is that they start eating more because of the activities they do and they end up not losing weight, but in the end it's still much more beneficial than not doing activities and just cutting calories and contrary to going on a diet the odds of keeping the benefits long term are much higher as it's something that makes you happy instead of making you feel bad.

I hear this, but don’t think it applies for people who get into sports. My story is not common, but I get annoyed when people talk about how a non athlete could never make a significant difference in their caloric output.

I fell in love with dancing, started doing it fourteen hours a week, lost thirty pounds without really trying, and had to start eating a lot just to maintain.

If you’re young, not overweight enough to seriously tax your joints, and that sounds fun to you, see if there’s a kind of cardio that’s enjoyable for you. If you do end up getting into it, check with your doctor, because heading straight into ten plus hours of cardio a week can cause injury.