Q&A for: 29-Sep-05
607. Q:
if my bmr is 2300 calories and I reduce my diet to 1600 calories daily for 6 months will my bmr still be 2300 or will it decrease to 1600?
A:
Your BMR will decrease over time with reduced calories. Your body can adjust to a wide range of caloric intakes and/or diets and maintain the same weight. So after you initially drop the calories you will lose weight, but after some time (which could anywhere from just a couple of weeks to several months) your body will adjust to the new regime and the weight loss will stop. The trick is to extend this weightloss period as much as possible by keeping your metabolism high. All the advice and articles on this site is designed to help you do just that.
608. Q:
when I had a body composition of 28.5% I was wearing size 38 pants.Now my BC is 18.5% but I can barely fit into a size 36.My 38 pants are looser now than before but I'am surprised that my pany size has not changed much.
A:
That does seem a bit strange, but not impossible. If you have wide hips and happened to carry most of your old extra fat above the beltline it could happen. It's also quite possible that the body fat percent measures were off -- even when done by professionals using calipers, a 2-3% error is not uncommon. And if you're using a handheld device or a scale, then even a 5% error is to be expected (which, in my opinion, makes those devices essentially useless).
If your weight hasn't dropped by more than 15 pounds and it's only been several weeks or less between the two measures, then the error in BF% measurement (either first one or last one) is quite likely. For a 200-pound person to go from 28.5% BF to 18.5% BF, he'd typically need to lose around 30 pounds and it could (and should) take several months.
Finally, even pant sizes can be a misleading measure as well since a well-worn size 36 can be easier to fit into than a new size 38. Add the fact that different brands have different 'size 36' and it gets even more confusing.
A 10% drop in body fat should be VERY apparent to the eye without the aid of any BF%-measuring devices. If you can honestly say that you're looking much better now than before, then that's all that really matters and you don't need to focus on the numbers so much.
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