Outlander36

Now, I know there's a lot of posts here about eating lower calories a day to stay fit, but searching for calories, I came up with tons of results but none specific to what I'm questioning.

First off, I'm 23 years old, 5'10" and weigh 190 lbs.
I'm pretty lazy and don't do much excercising except for about 45 mins to 2 hours of sex a night (not playing anything up to try to get respect or anything). I probably take in about 2000 calories a day and I pretty much stay within a couple lbs of 190.

Now, here is the question. If I were to lower my calorie intake down to about 600 to 800 calories a day, would this be healthy, and would I lose weight in the process if I normally sustain 190 lbs with what I do now?

Reason I'm asking is because most people say to lower the calorie intake daily, but they usually only say to lower it to around 1400 a day. Is anything less than that unhealthy?

I'm also looking into gyms in the area. I've never been to one and I have no clue what to do once I finally find one. I just don't want to give up because I get bored of it or something like that too.

I'm also planning on my next attempt to stop smoking as soon as I find the gym so that should help me out there a bit. Only reason I smoke so much is because I rarely have anything to do once I get home and nothing to take my mind off smoking which I believe a gym would help me with..

Any comments/flames/help appreciated

Mael

if you want to cut calories, great, but 2 things... first, less than 1000 cal a day is considered to be unhealthy. and even that's pretty low. lowering your caloric intake too drastically and too quickly could lead to your body entering "starvation mode." that's where it will think food is scarce and store what you eat as fat while burning protein from your muscles as energy. second, if you want to lose weight, just cut out a couple hundred calories a day. like, 200 hundred. that, plus working out, will burn fat off of you, and you're not likely to notice the amount difference your eating. it's a lot easier to cut out a candy bar than to try to cut out half of what you eat a day.

for exercises once you get to the gym, check out http://www.bodybuilding.com (i think, i've heard good things, but never been there), or http://about.com and go to their exercise/health and fitness section.

getting a personal training session at the gym when you first start could also be a good way to point yourself in the right direction.

yournamehere

A pound of weight is roughly equivalent to 3,500 calories, so if you were to reduce your caloric intake by 500 calories per day, you should lose a pound per week.

However, as always, the best way to lose weight is through a combination of diet and exercise. Why not increase your activities to burn off an extra 300 calories per day, and lower your intake by 200 calories to get to that 500 per day mark?

By doing that, you would also get the extra benefit of accelerating your metabolism by way of increased muscle mass, which would make the weight come off a little faster.

NOTE: Edited later to not look like such a math idiot.

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skysooner

I am in the same boat as you, and I take in roughly 1400 calories to day (while keeping fat intake low). I also do between 200 to 500 calories of cardio 6 days/week. I have been losing roughly 2.5 lbs/week on this pattern. If you want to hold 190, then you can increase what you take in roughly 200 calories per day plus what you exercise off. 1600 calories per day should do it along with whatever you are working off. I know there are charts that can tell you what sex burns off. 600 to 800 is definitely too low and will throw you into starvation mode as mentioned above. At 5'10", your BMI max weight should be around 175 lbs, but as has been stated many times on this board, the BMI isn't necessarily a good measure since it doesn't take into account body type. As long as you look and feel good, I wouldn't worry about it. I'm down from 239 to 199 currently and am going to continue to try and get to 175.

Plan9Senior

Good info here.. Bump.

By the way, 500 fewer calories than your BMR (remember to recalculate your BMR each week when your weight comes off) a day is enough to lose a pound a week. Just remember to eat clean foods, drink plenty of water, and exercise.