The Best Online
Calorie Calculator,
According to Science.
But it might not work for you.

Another free online calorie calculator, the Body Weight Planner, is now available to the public after several years of being used as a research tool for scientists at the National Institutes of Health. This one is noteworthy because its algorithms were validated in several controlled weight loss studies in human beings, and because it takes into account a person's slowing metabolism.
 
Kevin Hall, a scientist at the NIH's National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, created the tool.

Dr. Hall says the 3,500-calorie rule is accurate only if a pound of human fat is burned in a lab.  However, unlike a lab, the body is not a static environment, and instead adapts when a person changes their diet and exercise.

As a person diets and loses weight, the body slows the metabolism in an effort to conserve energy. As a result, eating 500 fewer calories a day leads to slightly less weight loss as time goes on.

Instead of 3,500 fewer calories, over 12 months, a person will need to eat 7,000 fewer calories to burn a pound of fat.

Dr. Hall said that the biggest flaw with the 3,500-calorie-rule is that it assumes weight loss will continue in a linear fashion over time. "That's not the way the body responds. The body is a very dynamic system, and a change in one part of the system always produces changes in other parts.”

He admits that dieters may be “bummed out” by news that they must double their efforts at reducing calories. “But we believe it's better to have an accurate assessment of what you might lose, that way you don't feel like a failure if you don't reach your goal.”

Dr. Hall added that very few people seem to be able to keep losing weight after 12 months.

The BWP calculates how many calories a day a person should eat to achieve their weight loss goals in a certain time (for example, to lose 10 lbs within a year).  The link can always be found here in DietHobby, under RESOURCES, Links, Body weight Calculator - NIH (Timeline Projections).

The NIH bills the planner as a cutting-edge tool that will empower people to take their health into their own hands, but research on the success of such calculators and trackers is mixed.  Although the federal government is to be praised for its official nod toward the utility of trackers and calculators,  human beings themselves are not “simple machines” who operate on a calories in, calories out basis.
 
The assumption is that calories in and calories out are independent of each other.  That is, if you reduce Calories in,  Calories out are not affected.  However, this is untrue.  

DietHobby contains many posts talking about how hard it is to get an accurate ongoing count of  “Calories in”, but getting an accurate ongoing count of “Calories out” is far more difficult.  Most everyone makes an erroneous assumption that the “Calories out” number stays constant.

“Calories out” is not under our conscious control.  There are many metabolically active tissues, including brain, kidneys, heart, liver, etc whose activity is very difficult to measure. There are numerous hormones and enzymes and genetics involved in our individual metabolic processes…and some of these are still undiscovered. 

We make the incorrect assumption that our only variable that changes is the energy we spend in voluntary exercise or activity.  This is also not true.  Basal Energy Expenditure is not stable and can change up or down 50%.  Reducing Calories In reduces Calories Out. They are not independent of each other.

This isn’t news to anyone who has ever seriously tried to lose and maintain weight. A London research study released in July 2015 that tracked 278,982 participants, using electronic health records from 2004 to 2014 estimated that for people with a 30-35 BMI (Stage 1= obesity), an obese man’s chances of reaching a normal body weight (<25 BMI) were 1 in 210 for men, and 1 in 124 for women. For the severely obese-people with a 40+ BMI (Stage 2+ =severe obesity+), only about 8 percent of obese men and 10 percent of obese women were able to lose five percent of their body weights.  Almost all of the participants who achieved weight loss regained it within five years. 

At my highest weight, 24 years ago at age 47, my personal BMI was 52.9  (Stage 4=super-obesity). I have been at-or-near a "normal" BMI for the past 10 years. See ABOUT ME.
 
Calculators can't provide prescriptions for weight loss or protections against regain. They don’t apply equally to every single individual, and are merely averages ... standardized guidelines. The problem is that not all metabolisms, circumstances and eating habits are standardized.
 
For example, if a professional athlete walked at 3 miles per hour speed for a half hour, that athlete would burn calories totally differently than an average non-athlete who was the same exact weight.
 
Many factors are at play when it comes to how people consume and burn calories. Environment matters, for example. Also, everything from stress, to genetics, to cultural influences plus more, can affect an individual’s dietary habits and exercise levels.
 
Emerging research shows that even gut bacteria affects a person's ability to absorb calories. For instance, food may be absorbed as three calories in a lean person and seven calories in an obese person simply because of differences in how gut bacteria breaks down the meal.
Therefore, it is unreasonable to expect ANY calculator to give everyone a full and accurate game plan.

In the video below, Dr. Hall demonstrates how the calculator works by using his own weight loss goals as an example:

Hall, a 44-year-old man who wants to lose 20 pounds off his 5’10, 180-pound frame, is going to have to eat about 2,300 calories per day, provided he sticks to his resolution to walk his dog in the mornings three times a week. Once he reaches his goal weight, he’s going to have to maintain that weight loss by keeping up his dog-walking activity level and eating about 2,600 calories a day.

NOTE: originally posted on 12/1/2015.  Bumped up for new viewers.

The issue of Projections about the Rate of Weight-Loss has been on my mind for a very long time, and so this article is going to be quite long and detailed.  Those who bear with me and press on through, might learn some helpful information, or at least be exposed to something other than empty promises.

The Diet Industry knows that people want to lose their excess fat ASAP, and that people also want to spend as little time possible on a weight-loss Diet.  It takes advantage of that fact by using the diet-of-the-moment’s maximum 1st week weight-loss number as a marketing tool. 

Typical is: “Lose 15 pounds in 7 days”; or 10 pounds or 7 pounds, etc.  We see that ploy used continually in the media.  It is almost impossible to look at any magazine display rack in a supermarket checkout line without seeing a similar Headline.

What is implied by this claim is that the number of the first week’s weight loss is a prediction of weight-loss for the subsequent weeks. Marketing claims: “10 pounds in 1 week”.  People think, “Wow, If I stick to this Diet for just 5 weeks, I can lose 50 pounds.” 

Then, when they don’t experience that rate of weight-loss, they feel disappointed. Upon expressing their disappointment to the medical doctor, the nutritionist, the diet guru, the group leader, the program counselor, or whoever, the most common response is: “YOU didn’t follow the diet correctly.”  People are blamed for their weight-loss failure; while the Diet Industry gets the credit for their weight-loss success.

This is universal. I’ve never seen or participated in ANY diet program that didn’t follow that line of thinking, and during the past 60 years …from adolescence on… I’ve been involved with a great many of them.  I have personal experience with a great many diets and diet programs, and I’ve closely watched the experiences of many hundreds of other people as they dieted.

People WANT TO BELIEVE the claims of rapid weight-loss that they hear, and they desperately hope that they will personally experience rapid weight-loss by following their latest Diet-of-choice.   Some of these rapid weight-loss claims are based on lies; some are based on ignorance; some are based on personal experience together with poor memory; and a few are based on the real results of very unusual people. There are those who make these incorrect rapid weight-loss projections in good faith; who stubbornly hold onto an unreasonable Belief by stubbornly ignoring the overwhelmingly-vast-weight-of-the-evidence stacked up against it. However, the fact is that almost all of those claims are false, and the rest of them are based on factors that don’t apply the the majority of dieters. 

Almost everyone on a Diet, including me, is curious about their own potential rate of weight-loss.  

Here are a few facts to consider.  Typically… all other things being equal…, males lose weight faster than females; younger people lose faster than older people; larger people lose faster than smaller people; fatter people lose faster than thinner people; athletic people lose faster than sedentary people; people who have gained weight after maintaining a lifetime of “normal” weight lose faster than people who’ve been fat for a long time.  When people become lighter, their bodies require less fuel to function, and therefore after successfully dieting, they must continually eat less than they did to maintain their old weight. 

In addition to the facts mentioned above, different people of the same age and same size naturally have different metabolic rates. The two main formulas that cite Metabolic rates, and list weights and calories together, are the Harris-Benedict formula and the Mifflin formula.  These are similar in that their numbers are based on AVERAGES… which means that there are many people ABOVE that number, and many people BELOW that number. The standard deviation of the Harris-Benedict formula is about 14%, and it is not uncommon for people to be 14% above or 14% below that Average number.  Also, the studies include  “Outliers” which are people who are situated away or detached from the main body and differ from all other members of a particular group.  An Outlier has a metabolic rate very much higher or very much lower than the rest of the Group.

It is important to understand that the calculators, charts, graphs and predictions we see online are based on the Averages used in the above-mentioned formulas, and although they are a good place to start, they may not apply exactly to you personally.  AND, even if they apply to YOU personally, it doesn’t mean that they will apply to EVERYONE personally.

I’m going to show you how this works by sharing about ME, personally.  In order to better understand, it would be helpful if you read or re-read the article: ABOUT ME.  Next read or re-read the article: How Fast…How Much…Weight Lost After Gastric Bypass?  This article contains a detailed chart of my rate of weight-loss during the year immediately after my RNY gastric bypass 24 years ago.

The rate of weight-loss that I experienced during the year following weight loss surgery is extremely valuable information because there can be NO QUESTION of whether or not I was “faithful to the diet”.  I had no other physical option, as my body would not allow me to eat in any other way.  No normal “cheating” was possible, and even a very tiniest amount of extra food resulted in severe physical discomfort, i.e. vomiting and/or other painful symptoms.

It is also important, because my diet after a gastric bypass was an extremely low-calorie diet, from less than 300 daily calories to a maximum of around 600-800 daily.  So, ….other than a total water fast… no other diet exists which would cause a faster rate of weight loss for me.

Here is a summary of my numbers (see the chart mentioned above for details).
Start: 271 pounds; End: 161 pounds.

Information from the first 7 months or so is the most relevant for this article.

Before WLS weighed 271
The first week: … week one I lost 17 pounds.
Start of week 2, weighed 254 pounds
Weeks 2-6 (5 week period) I lost 14 lbs for a 2.8 lb average loss per week.
Weeks 7-12 (6 week period) I lost 15 lbs for a 2 ½ lb average loss per week.
Weeks 13-18 (6 week period) I lost 16 lbs for a 2 ½ lb average loss per week
Weeks 19-24 (6 week period) I lost 15 lbs for a 2 ½ lb average loss per week
Weeks 25-30 (6 week period) I lost 14 lbs for a 2 ⅓ lb average loss per week
End of week 30, weighed 180 pounds.

In the weeks that followed, my body was able to tolerate more food, and my weight loss began slowing to a standstill.  Although this information is not all that relevant to this current article, I include it to satisfy those who might be curious.

Start weight 180 
Weeks 31-36 (6 weeks) I lost 3 lbs = ½ lb average loss per week
Weeks 37-42 (6 weeks) I lost 7 lbs = 1 lb average loss per week
Weeks 43-48 (6 weeks) I lost 5 lbs = ½ lb average loss per week
weight 167
Weeks 49-54 (6 weeks) I lost 1 lb = 1/6 lb average loss per week
Weeks 55-60 (6 weeks) I lost 2 lbs = ⅓ lb average loss per week
Weeks 61-64 (4 weeks) I lost 3 lbs = 3/4 lb per week
Final low weight 161.

So, regarding projections about my own future rate of weight-loss, the  information about myself shows that in the 7 or so months immediately following a RNY gastric bypass, which forced me to eat in a very low-calorie manner …. my average rate of weight loss was about 2 ½ pounds per week.

I am still female, and still 5 ft 0 in tall,
however, at this time……
I am 24 years older. I am physically much less active. Instead of being obese between 254-180 pounds, I am now a “normal” weight - 123.  All of these factors make a difference in my metabolic rate. It is now lower. My body now, simply does not need as many calories as it did before.  Because of this, it is unlikely that any type of diet … other than a total water fast… would cause an ongoing weight loss as high as that previous 2 ½ pound weekly average.

There are very few people who have kept exact and detailed long-term records of their weight-loss histories, or had the same diet experiences. So while my information is relevant to me, personally, it might not be all that helpful to others. Keeping all of that past personal information in mind, now I’m going to move on to share about making personal projections for my FUTURE rate of weight-loss on a very-low calorie diet.


This is an visual of my current weight maintenance graph.

My ultimate goal is to keep my weight within my “normal” BMI range.  At times this involves some rather serious dieting.  Currently, I am doing some more experimentation with “The 5-Bite Diet”, which is a very low calorie diet which mimics the volume of eating immediately after a Gastric Bypass.  This morning the scale said that I weigh 123 pounds.

In the next examples, I’m going to be using the Body Weight Planner Tool.  For my detailed discussion of this tool, read or re-read Body Weight Calculator -Timeline Projections. Remember, the numbers in this tool are based on AVERAGES, and people are commonly both Above and Below these Averages.

  Now, I’m going to use the Body Weight Planner Tool to run some calculations in order to see what a “reasonable” timeline projection of my rate of weight-loss would be if:

(1) I went on a “Total Water Fast”;  or 
(2) I followed the 5-bite diet eating only 2 Snickers bars or their equivalent daily (500 calories); or
(3) I followed the 5-bite diet eating only 1 Snickers bar or it’s equivalent daily (250 calories).

This following information is for those people who might be interested in learning how to use this Calculator to find out what a “reasonable” timeline projection might be for their own personal rate of weight-loss.  BTW, in order to force the tool to go under a 1, 000 calorie diet, you have to use the button “Switch to Expert Mode”. 


Scenario One….. A Total Water Fast.

In this example, I use my own numbers, to see how long it would take for me to lose from 123 pounds to a 105 pound goal on a total water fast. 

Notice the graph gives my total daily energy equivalent (TDEE) as 1,110 daily calories.  It says that after I reach 105 pounds that TDEE will drop to 1058 daily calories. In actuality, from my detailed 10 year history of personal records, my actual TDEE is a couple of hundred calories lower than  Average. 

According to this calculator, it would take 32 days of a total water fast for me to reach 105 pounds.



 Above is a graph of that same information.  Note, however, that immediately upon reaching 105 pounds, and starting to eat 1058 calories, there is a projection of an immediate up bounce, due to the increased weight of food/water/salt/waste. This projected up bounce is almost 8 pounds, leaving the final weight result 113.6 pounds.

Scenario Two….. 5-bite diet - 2 snickers bars per day (500 cal)

In this example, I use my own numbers, to see how long it would take for me to lose from 123 pounds to a 105 pound goal on a perfect 5-bite diet of 2 snickers bars or 500 calories per day.  All of these graphs will give me the same TDEE info.

According to this calculator, it would take 95 days of 2x5-bites (2 snicker bars=500 calories) for me to reach 105 pounds.



Above is a graph of that same information.  Note, however, that immediately upon reaching 105 pounds, and starting to eat 1058 calories, the projection of an immediate up bounce, due to the increased weight of food/water/salt/waste is less. This projected up bounce is about 4 pounds, leaving the final weight result 109 pounds.


Scenario Three….. 5-bite diet - 1 snickers bars per day (250 cal)

In this example, I use my own numbers, to see how long it would take for me to lose from 123 pounds to a 105 pound goal on a perfect 5-bite diet of 1 snickers bar (250 calories) per day.  All of these graphs will give me the same TDEE info.

According to this calculator, it would take 55 days of 2x5-bites (1 snicker bars=250 calories) for me to reach 105 pounds.


Above is a graph of that same information.  Note, however, that immediately upon reaching 105 pounds, and starting to eat 1058 calories, the projection of an immediate up bounce, due to the increased weight of food/water/salt/waste is less. This projected up bounce is about 6 pounds, leaving the final weight result 111 pounds.

  What does all this mean?
First, undoubtedly, it it means that I am a compulsive record keeper, who is obsessed about my weight.

Second, the information in the above pictures does not apply universally. It is applicable ONLY to me personally…. and even then… only to the “average” person whose height, weight, sex, age, and activity level numbers match my own. 

Next, the tool I’ve demonstrated can be used by anyone who wants to input their own numbers, and play the game of “how many calories = how fast a weight loss”.

Finally, my wish and hope is that everyone who is interested in their own rate of weight loss, will not simply take the amazingly erroneous weight-loss projections of any “Expert, including any Medical Doctor” as Truth, and then blame themselves for failing, when even despite their very best efforts, their bodies do not meet those impossible-and-unreal rapid-weight-loss standards.

NOTE:  Originally posted in January 2016. Bumped up for new viewers.

Endurance is the ability to do something difficult for a long time.
                Lie: A diet is temporary
Believing this lie is the biggest mistake that obese people make.

Obese people convince themselves that they will change their eating BEHAVIORS for a relatively short period of time, … until they see the weight RESULTS they want.  The truth is that changing one’s diet must be a permanent and ongoing activity. It takes just as much, or more, effort to keep lost weight off, as it does to lose that weight initially.

A Marathon isn’t just a 26 mile race.  The definition of “Marathon” includes ANY endurance contest, ANY activity that is characterized by great length or concentrated effort. The length of a diet Marathon is “for the rest of one’s life”.

The dieting Marathon doesn’t end when one reaches “goal” weight, because as soon as the desired weight-goal number appears, the task of maintenance begins. Maintenance of weight-loss requires continual, permanent, ongoing effort.  The “Finish Line” is crossed at death.

The “health and wellness” marketing industry publicizes the Lie, and actively works to conceal this unpopular truth.  However, that Truth continues to exist, and it is visible to anyone who chooses to look beyond the B.S. mirage and examine the actual facts that exist in reality.

For a better understanding, see: Running Down the Up Escalator.

What did

one skeleton

say to

the other?

Congratulations!

You

reached

the

Finish

Line