Type 1 Base metabolic rate

Hi. Ignore any establishment recommendations on calorie intake, carb intake or whatever as they may suit the food industry coffers and be OK if you want to be obese; they just make it up! You need to find out what suits you. Basically forget calories. Keep the carbs down to something like 150gm/day or less and increase the proteins and fats to keep you feeling full. Your body will soon shout if you aren't having enough intake.

Daibell said:

Hi. Ignore any establishment recommendations on calorie intake, carb intake or whatever as they may suit the food industry coffers and be OK if you want to be obese; they just make it up! You need to find out what suits you. Basically forget calories. Keep the carbs down to something like 150gm/day or less and increase the proteins and fats to keep you feeling full. Your body will soon shout if you aren't having enough intake.

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Sorry, but I disagree.

Calories may be much less important if your body fat percentage is above 20%, but when it ventures down below 15% they become significantly more important. In my opinion, dropping from 20% body fat down to 15% is tremendously easier than dropping from 15% down to 10%. At those levels EVERYTHING becomes important.

Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) is an important calculation, but most people read too much into it. It's a baseline to get a rough idea of how many calories your body needs in a day if you were 100% sedentary (laid in bed all day). Much like BMI calculations, there are always exceptions, but for most people it's a helpful number.

Obviously, we don't lay in bed all day which means BMR by itself doesn't mean much. That's when you start to add in rough calculations for the types of exercise you do. Again, these are baselines for creating a diet and there will always be variation from person to person.

Eventually, you end up at a number that equates to your daily caloric maintenance. Most BMR calculations say I need 2100 calories a day, and most exercise calculators say I burn about 800-1100 calories. In practice, my daily caloric maintenance is about 3000-3500 calories/day which isn't far off from most calculators.

So is a slowed metabolism bad for a diabetic (or anyone for that matter)? I think most people would say yes, and if you disagree you'd certainly be the first I've ever encountered.

Personally, I look at it from a different perspective. The caloric deficit is causing you to lose body fat which certainly promotes insulin sensitivity. Plus, you're exercising regularly which also promotes insulin sensitivity. The two combined sound like they're yielding solid results, but the side-effect is that over time your body will adjust to the decreased calorie intake. There are ways to combat that, but I generally wait to cross that bridge until I get to it.