Cutting down to 1500

athenalawrence5791

Hi all! I've been on MFP for almost 10 years and this is my 1st post. For the past 3 weeks I've been doibbg one of the Katy Hearn challenges and it was having me eat 1886 cals/day. There is a ton of lifting (5 days/week 45 mins - an hour a day) and moderate cardio (2x/week 15-30 mins). I found that I wasn't losing any weight! My measurements went down a little, but about the same amount they usually do when I reduce sodium. Yesterday I cut my calorie goal to 1500 and added an hour of walking as well as a half hour of yoga to my daily workout. Do you think I'm going to burn out by lowering my calories?

Thanks for reading! I love reading all of your posts and they have helped so much! (26 yr old woman, 5 7, 178 lbs)

SteamPug

Okay so I’m not an expert here but I think people are probably gonna suggest that 3 weeks is not long enough to see results - and if you’re doing hardcore strength you may also be building muscle alongside losing fat and thus not seeing much movement on the scale?
Have you noticed changes when you look in the mirror?
My intake goes up to 1,500 on some days and I don’t do any deliberate exercise, so I can say that for me personally I don’t think I could keep up with that routine on that amount.

malibu927

A couple things could be happening:

-you’re retaining water from the new exercise routine, which will mask weight loss
-you’re eating more than you think. How are you measuring your calorie intake?

missmysty

From what I know, building muscle depends on what's maintenance and what's surplus for you. 1800 sounds a little low to be a surplus unless you're a bit short, but it's also a pretty small deficit, so it's more likely that you're going to lose less than you would with the same amount of exercise at 1500, yes. I wouldn't worry too much about it.

fuzzylop72

I suspect it's just the water your muscles retain after starting a new training program to aid in recovery. I doubt it's muscle or fat gains.

gethntysear

Hey, just to throw my two cents in. Last summer I started something similar, I'm 5 4, raised my calories from a strict deficit to 1800 cals and started lifting heavy 4 times a week, 2 days cardio (1 long distance run 5-10km) and an active rest day. I did lose a couple of kilos, nothing much though in the month I had been doing it.

Now what I lost wasn't great, I found out I lost only muscle for the first time, no fat! I'm lucky that my gym has a boditrax machine, which although not 100% accurate like everything; it is the most consistent feedback I can get! It shows Fat mass, Water %, Skeletal, BMR and Muscle mass. So that couple of kilos I lost was muscle which ultimately dropped my BMR, which meant I wasn't burning as many calories, DOH!

But it isn't all bad, what I learnt from that experience (and I will happily share with you) is that if you are lifting heavy and doing an intense regime, such as the one you have suggested, it is really, really important to concentrate on your macros more than the calories in vs out (to a certain degree). At the time I was only eating half my carb intake which surprisingly to me impacted my muscles more than protein.

After that I started eating the same 1800 cals, but I ensured that I ate 203g carbs, 50g Fat and 135g of protein. Since then I have gained back the muscle I so quickly lost (gaining muscle is a bugger).

So my advice is if you are going down the lifting route of weight loss (my favourite route and I highly recommend to anyone) take good care of your macros, there are loads of calculators online that will help find one best suited to you. I found my body and appetite suits 45% carbs, 25% fat and 35% protein.

Hope that helps a little and good luck!


(P.s I know 1800cals is still a deficit but at the time I had been on an intense deficit and needed to start bringing it up to normal levels. So that for my body at time was almost considered a surplus/maintenance.)