Thread: do you reduce your calories as you are losing weight?

Hi everyone. I was just wondering about setting my calorie limit. I want to set it to 1200 per day however what happens when i start losing? Will i keep losing throughout with that amout or will i have to reduce it further? i have a lot of weight to lose- around 80 pounds so I am worried that I will get really low calories as i lose weight and not be able to stick to it

As far as I am aware you shouldnt reduce your calorie intake below 1200, when you come to maintain your intake will increase.
As you get closer to your goal weight, your losses may slow down because you have less body fat to loose.
I'm sure some one will post shortly with more information for you x

Mcv is absolutely right!! If anything up ur intake slightly but as long as there is a calorie deficiency u will lose weight!! The less u to lose the longer it can take. 3500 cals = 1 lbs so if u ate 500 cals less than u burned a day theoretically u should lose 1lb a week. If u burned an extra 500 cals a day in exercise on top of that u'd lose 2 lbs a week

so if i eat 1360 calories is that ok? will i lose weight even if i am not exercising at the moment?

1200 is minimum. Don't eat any less than that, EVER. And if you are on 1200, you NEED to eat your cals back from any exercise.

If you are going along fine, counting EVERYTHING properly, and still losing (yes half a pound a week is slow, but its still losing and still managable) its all good.

If not you can try a few things:

- eat a clean diet, cut out processed crap, and salt.
- eat more protein, less carbs, and a moderate amount of fat.
- drink lots of water - dehydration leads to water retention
- eat small more often or change the ratio... if you have the typical breakfast:lunch:dinner 1:2:3 ratio, then change it around, eat more in the morning or at lunch.
- don't eat the same kind of food day in day out.
- ALWAYS eat back your exercise calories.
- exercise more - get a good training plan - more lean muscle mass means your basal metabolic rate will be much much higher and will make it easier in the long run to lose fat.


Now this comes with a caution, as its not always a success with everyone, but its worth a try if you are desperate. The thing with people on a smaller number of calories per day is that their metabolism often starts to drop after consistently eating 1200 calories. Your body isn't designed to survive on weightloss calories long term and can crash to help cope with the lack of food... i dislike the "starvation" theory thats bandied about an awful lot, but its a similar theory.

What I find is that sometimes your body needs an increase every now and then. for 1200rs - saying you weigh in in the morning; that day of your weigh in - have maybe 1400 calories. Then go back to 1200 for the week. Honestly 200, even 300 calories over the week will not have you automatically put on weight. Don't be scared of a few extra calories! If you are on -1lb a week loss rate, it would take 3500 for you to maintain, so still well under that. I've come across cynics of this method but I personally find it to be the best, and most effective way of getting out of a rut/plateau.

HTH

Hannata,
You certainly seem to know your stuff, and really good advice there.
Last week I calculated that I should be on around 1400 calories, but signing up to MFP it says I should be on 1200, which personally I think is too restricted for me so I'm going to go back to my original plan and see how I get on.
Cheers for your helpfull advice x

I was on 1200 when I was calorie counting to lose weight and as I lost weight I still ate 1200 just lost a little less each week. As you get closer to "a healthy bmi" you should have less of a deficiency anyway.

When I got to goal weight I still kept to 1200/1300 in the week (on days not exercising, I now eat back any exercise calories) but ate much more at weekends to avarage my maintenance calories. This is still how I do it and it works for me, I prefer to work over the week which is easier to do now I'm maintaining.

I personally think if you can get away with eating higher and are still losing, why not? Means you can manage that chinese at the weekend, or the drink or two at the weekend.. and you're far likely to stick to it when you've got a bit more room to move.

Oh and BMR isn't an exact science, you don't have to take what it has given you as gold. Play around with it and see how you go. 50/100 calories here or there will not put weight on, it takes 500 additional calories PER DAY to gain a lb

I'm on 1500 cals a day and I'm going to be reducing them by 50 for every stone I loose.. So when I loose my first stone I'll go down to 1450 always make sure you eat breakfast because for 3 weeks I didn't eat it and my loss was -2.5 -2 then +0.5 this week with breakfast every day I'm -5.5 so it is important to eat your 3 meals then I snack on fruit or use fruit as my pudding x good luck x