Calories

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nicolega2001
nicolega2001 Posts: 48 Member
edited October 2017 in Health and Weight Loss
My fitness pal says I should eat 2000 calories a day to lose a pound a week. Lately I've been eating about 1600-1800 a day and feel satisfied. I feel like I'm eating a good variety of nutritious food and I'm not hungry. I am 5'9 and 270 lbs. I go to the gym about three days a week and exercise for about thirty minutes each time (working on building up to more). What is too low to eat? I don't want to go too low and slow my progress. I'm also pondering if I should go lower to lose more weight each week. I've been losing about a pound a week for a month now.

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  • JeromeBarry1
    JeromeBarry1 Posts: 10,182 Member
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    You will not ever slow your progress by going too low. However, that is no reason to go as low as you possibly can. Starvation happens prior to death, not prior to weight gain.

    Myfitnesspal will not recommend that a woman consume less than 1200 kcal per day. At 1600-1800 you are safely above that. The point of this is that the variety of nutrients you need are very difficult to collect on a budget of only 1200 calories. Since you are playing with 1600-1800, win that game by including a wide variety of colorful vegetables in your diet along with good sources of protein, which may be from any plant or animal source. Try to include protein sources other than beef and pork most days, as beef and pork are high in saturated fats. Saturated fats aren't the worst thing you can eat, and aren't even close to the worst, but you can do better by eating protein with unsaturated fats. Always, always choose to eat food you enjoy, because you want the changes you make to be changes you can live with for the rest of your life.
  • ladyhusker39
    ladyhusker39 Posts: 1,406 Member
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    nicolega2001 wrote: »
    My fitness pal says I should eat 2000 calories a day to lose a pound a week. Lately I've been eating about 1600-1800 a day and feel satisfied. I feel like I'm eating a good variety of nutritious food and I'm not hungry. I am 5'9 and 270 lbs. I go to the gym about three days a week and exercise for about thirty minutes each time (working on building up to more). What is too low to eat? I don't want to go too low and slow my progress. I'm also pondering if I should go lower to lose more weight each week. I've been losing about a pound a week for a month now.

    It sounds like you're right on track with the goal you set, so on average you're burning about 500 calories/day more than you eat regardless of the actually numbers. You're in a safe and effective range now. It doesn't sound like you need to change anything. But if you wanted to speed things up a little you could cut another 100 -200 calories a day and still be safe. If you find you're too hungry and overeating you can always add the calories back. One thing I love about calorie counting and MFP is that I can be very flexible with my calories day by day, week by week or on special occasions like my birthday or vacation. The flexibility is what keeps me on track and focused on the long term results.

    Sounds like you're doing great. Congrats!
  • geltner1
    geltner1 Posts: 85 Member
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    Congratulations on your weight loss. Keep up MFP. You've gotten some good answers above.
  • MegaMooseEsq
    MegaMooseEsq Posts: 3,118 Member
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    A pound a month is a nice, sustainable rate, and you're not feeling hungry and miserable - it's a win win! Going too low won't slow your progress unless it makes you give up on the entire thing as unsustainable, or if too strict calorie restriction leads to binging. And of course, there's the problem of maintaining any weight you lose - a slower rate of loss encourages a more natural eating style as opposed to extremely restrictive diets. I agree with @janejellyroll that you're probably either under-logging calories in or over-logging calories out (really, really, really common) or else you're just a bit outside of the estimate.
  • nicolega2001
    nicolega2001 Posts: 48 Member
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    I really appreciate all the replies!
  • cbelc2
    cbelc2 Posts: 762 Member
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    If you feel satisfied after 1600-1800 calories, I don't think you should feel obliged to eat the 200-400 extra calories. I'm trying to eat more whole type food, and it comes with a lot of fiber. I too am feeling more satisfied on fewer calories.

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