Not sure what you mean, "what is he maintaining?". His weight. If he (again, not OP particularly) ate less, he would lose weight. If he ate more, he would gain weight. If he ate at maintenance, he would stay the same weight.

"Staying alive", no. If he ate less than 4500 calories, he wouldn't die, he would lose weight (in this hypothetical).

So why is 2000 cal not sustainable?

EDIT TO ADD: Wait! I just remembered I bought bananas today for the first time in forever! Cancel the ice cream bar, I'll have a banana instead, and see how that goes.

In theory, sure it is. In practice, it probably makes it a lot more likely someone who's used to 4500 calories a day would fail. That's a lot less food to get used to.

If you're of the "suck it up, fattie" mentality though, then yeah 2000 calories works fine. I'm not. You might be more extreme still and say that everything is banned except eggs, tuna, chicken and broccoli, and let's limit it to 1500 calories, too. The weight will melt off for sure, but in practice, probably not for long I'm guessing. Perhaps down the road, it'll be easier to eat even less.

Let's see, how do I put this?

At 2700 the past several days, I've felt satisfied after each meal.
At 2000 today, I still felt hungry after dinner, which hasn't happened all week.

Now you ask, "Did you feel *that* much hungrier" today?

Well, no, I guess I wasn't *that* much hungrier, as the banana did the trick.

But the fact that I felt hungry at all is a huge difference from not feeling hungry at all, even if it's only *that* much. See what I mean?

Some of you, when dieting, seem to carry hunger around with you between meals. I'm striving to avoid that.

But I mean you can eat a fair bit of food for 2000cal... it's not like you're going to be starving yourself.

Fair enough. My question was pretty stupid anyway.

Are you a 400 pound fattie who's lived on mcdonalds and chocolate your whole life? I'm not either. I mean, it's not that you're "wrong" per se, you can indeed eat quite a lot of food on 2000 calories, but I think saying "suck it up fattie time to get healthy" to a more extreme degree is just unsustainable and thus really bad advice. Sure it's possible in theory (JP OSU did a pretty sick transformation going from ~450 to something very normal by eating 16-1700 calories a day for 2 years, or something pretty close to that), but in practice I think it would hurt compliance for most people, a lot. suzzer would agree with you though (to be fair, he was pretty ridiculed for it).

I've been reporting my food log, but not much else, and I have a few observations to make, even so early in the process:

--my energy level is already picking up.

--As indicated ITT, I'm perfectly satisfied at this calorie count. It was all that bread that was killing me! I've always eaten bread with every meal, and lots of it.

--I beat off the other night without porn, which never happens any more. And my dick was a lot harder than normal. I had gone to Viagra a couple of years ago, and the results it gave me were startling--suddenly, a routine hard-on became a raging, rock-hard, feel-like-a-young-man-again hard-on. I haven't had need for the Viagra for about a year now, but this weekend's spank session starred an erection that was startling in its intensity, reminiscent of those halcyon Viagra days.

--I can't wait to get on the scale when I wake up Friday.

Yeah, I guess it's just a whole different world for me... but 2000 cal seems fine.

Like OPs last log, he had three decent looking meals for ~1700 cal. He can still have a beer with dinner or his ice-cream and come in at 2000cal. It's not like 2000cal is a "suck it up fatty" diet. It's not like you're depriving yourself of "treats" and stuff, you're just not eating ridiculous foods.

A conservative estimate for maintenance calories is 11 to 12 calories per pound of bodyweight. This puts YTF's maintenance at 4200 to 4500.

2000 might seem fine to you, but that would put YTF at a projected loss of 4.5 to 5 pounds per week. Given his past problems with hunger issues, most likely leading to binges and other unhealthy practices, it's much better imo that he sticks with 2700 if that satisfies him and keeps him from falling off the plan. This still puts him on a projected loss pace of 2 to 3 pounds per week, which is even a tad higher than a lot of people seem to think is healthy.

IMO he should stick with 2700 for about a month and see what kind of results he gets, then adjust accordingly.

Nice start, keep it up. And yeah, bread is terrible in terms of calories versus hunger satisfaction.

Any extra movement yet? Like changes in your diet it doesn't have to be much to start - at your weight myfitnesspal figures that you'll burn something like 10-12 extra calories per minute of walking, so even a few minutes a day will make a difference over the course of a week or month. It's not a big deal imo if the answer is "not yet", but it will provide a nice boost. In your shoes I would not overdo it to start - not only will it be hard on your body but it's entirely possible that burning a lot of extra calories will make you a lot hungrier.

hurdur broscience but when I eat that not-so-tasty whole wheat, whole grain bread with tons of fiber it fills me up a LOT more than the regular stuff. I can eat an entire box of cereal pretty easily.

Also, don't get discouraged if/when things slow down, that's all part of it. gl2u

Yeah, I for one am surprised at everyone saying that bread isn't filling. I always think whole wheat bread goes a long way to curing my hunger.